You
see things; and you say 'Why?' But I dream
things that never were; and I say 'Why not?'
George
Bernard Shaw
News/Timelines/Due Dates
Congrats – Rob
Tyo will be recognized at the Fulton County Board meeting this Thursday as a
Georgia Master Teacher!
Outdoor Classroom – Don’t forget we have an awesome outdoor classroom that needs to be
used!! PTA just spent some money
cleaning it up and it looks great.
PRIDE – This Friday, September 20th
we will be silent reading during PRIDE. Remind students throughout the
week to bring their favorite book to PRIDE. Think about starting a book
club with your group. Just remember, everyone should be reading during
that time.
TKES – Walk-throughs
will begin soon and we need your help.
Please have a binder in your classroom with your lesson plans in the
binder. These should be on your desk or
someplace that is obvious to the observer so that we don’t have to interrupt
the lesson. If you need a binder, see Beth. For the first round, we will
focus on instructional strategies, positive learning environment, and academically
challenging.
Workday – To help
you plan ahead, please note we have a workday on October 15 and we will have be
meeting from 9 to 12 in a session to unpack the TKES instrument. I know that may be conference day for some of
you who have children in elementary, so plan your conference times outside that
window.
Great Article - Every once in a while, I will place an
article in the blog that has resonated with me.
I hope you will take time to read this one about relationships with our
students.
Mindsets
About Failure and Effort
(Originally titled “Afraid of Looking Dumb”)
In
this thoughtful article in Educational
Leadership, former teacher and principal Mark Jacobson describes one of his
second-graders telling him she wasn’t smart at math, was afraid of being
teased, and mistrusted her teacher’s reassuring words. “Do you want to change?”
he asked. “Yes, but how?” she replied.
The key with students like this
is changing the way they think about ability, says Jacobson. The goal of
students fortunate enough to have a “growth” mindset (Carol Dweck’s term) is to
get smarter. If they’re having
difficulty, they work on a better strategy. But the goal of students who have
the “fixed” mindset is to look smart.
For them, being in a classroom is like stepping onto a stage with all eyes on
them. “The teacher owns one of the most important pairs of eyes,” says
Jacobson. “Fixed-belief students concern themselves with their teacher’s every
glance. They see the teacher not as a facilitator and resource for their
learning but as a rewarder and punisher, as a judge and critic.” These students
constantly ask themselves, “Am I good enough? Am I smart? Am I right? Did I
make a mistake? How will others see me? Does my teacher like me?”
“As long as students are
driven by what others think of them, they’re focused on the external,” says
Jacobson. “We teachers need to turn them inward, to refocus their attention on
their own effort and abilities.” If a student mutters the answer to a question
and the teacher says, “What?”, the student may say, “Never mind” or “I forgot.”
These students may rebuff an offer of help, afraid that accepting it will make
them look incompetent, or they may become dependent on the teacher and stop
trying. They tend to be overly sensitive to mild criticism or body language. “I
think I’ll throw this away,” said one of Jacobson’s students after classmates
offered some suggestions on her story.
“We always ask students to
try,” he says, “especially when they believe something is really hard. However,
for some students, ‘hard’ means ‘impossible.’” Here are his suggestions for
getting students to believe that effort really can make them smarter:
• Have students rate how hard they are trying. Jacobson routinely
checked in with his students, asking them to self-assess on a 10-point effort
scale and push themselves to try harder.
• Give better feedback. General praise like “Good job” is hollow and
ineffective, says Jacobson. Feedback should be specific to the tasks or
concepts being taught and reinforce incremental progress. “That was a good
start, Jeffrey,” a teacher might say and encourage the student to keep going.
• Ask questions that don’t have right/wrong answers. Foster deeper
thinking rather than speedy responses and stress accountable talk.
• Engage the disengaged. “Adrian, are you with us?” a teacher might
ask in the middle of a discussion. “What are you thoughts?” The entire class
can be enlisted in encouraging participation, effort, and risk-taking.
• Investigate mindsets. Jacobson did some action research in his
second-grade class and found that half of the students had the fixed mindset.
Teachers should reflect on their own mindset and how it manifests itself in
school – and outside.
“Afraid of Looking
Dumb” by Mark Jacobson in Educational
Leadership, September 2013 (Vol. 71, #1, p. 40-43); www.ascd.org; Jacobson is at mjacob47@yahoo.com.
A Mighty Roar
In recent weeks, Sarah Jarvis
saw a need to provide another avenue for her students to receive extra
instruction, or refreshers, for important math skills she recently
covered. Her solution was to produce her own Khan Academy-like videos for
her students. Sarah creates these videos using her phone and uploads the
videos to her
YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/mathcheercoach).
Check it out when you get a chance. Awesome
job Sarah!!!!!
Where is
Livingston?
Wendy Milstead says, This week Livingston will be
visiting a faculty member that is one of the many wonderful members of our
staff. She is positive, warm, upbeat,
energetic, and kind to those around her.
In addition to her regular classroom planning, she has taken on the task
this year of organizing, planning, and mentoring so many as she leads our new
teacher mentoring program. With so many
new staff members of varying backgrounds this year, she has had quite the task of
getting everyone oriented to our school.
She is happy to share her own experiences, offer a suggestion, or simply
listen to what someone else has to say.
She has planned relevant activities and topics for discussions to help
guide our mentors and mentees in becoming better teachers and a part of the
AMMS family. For this and many other reasons Livingston goes to Sarah
Jarvis! Congratulations!
Happy Birthday
Francisco Hernandez September 20
Melissa Beanblossom September 20
No comments:
Post a Comment