Hello everyone,

 

I hope you’re having a wonderful weekend and getting some time to have fun with friends and family. We are right in the middle of February, which can be a difficult time of year. Clearly, this is a sentiment that has been in existence for years all over the world (or at least the Northern Hemisphere!). In The Pirates of Penzance, when describing the month, the Pirate King states, “for such a beastly month as February, twenty-eight days as a rule are plenty.” I think we can all agree on that, but at least the Colorado sunshine pervades, even in the winter months!

 

Because of this sentiment about February, in order to avoid falling into winter blues, we educators take some time to reflect professionally. Last Friday, we took a professional development day so we could look at the year so far, think about next year, and explore ways to make the Dawson experience even better for all of our students. On Friday, we watched the film Most Likely to Succeed (which I wrote about in the most recent blog) and discussed what we are already doing, as well as what more we can do to ensure that our students are engaging excitedly in their learning and are developing the skills that will help them succeed in their lives, as well as in college and beyond.

 

In recent weeks, I’ve thought a great deal about what it means to motivate and inspire students. Yes, there are extrinsic motivations such as grades, but do these actually inspire our students? Probably not. This doesn’t mean that we plan to get rid of grades – they can serve other purposes as well, namely to convey level of mastery so that students have an idea of what they know and where they need work.  But we certainly can’t depend on grades to be the sole motivators for our kids’ learning. First of all, not everyone is motivated by grades, so you’re excluding a big chunk of students if this is your main focus. Second, when students are motivated solely by grades, they may “learn” the material for key assessments, but the likelihood of their holding onto that material is slim to none.

 

Robert Marzano, an educational researcher based right here in Colorado, has done a good deal of work exploring what exactly motivates and inspires students. He discusses four different systems that are at play in our minds at any given time: knowledge, cognitive, metacognitive, and self.  When we think of traditional schooling, the focus is primarily (and sometimes solely) on the knowledge and possibly the cognitive.  If we teach this way, though, we are missing the boat. This assumes that students are vessels who should come to school prepared to receive our infinite knowledge and then should be able to regurgitate all that they have “learned.” If, instead, we can focus more on the latter two systems, we can truly awaken our students and engage them in their learning in much more meaningful and personal ways.

 

So what does this look like in practice? It’s teachers doing a lot of backwards planning (rather than saying, I’m going to teach such-and-such a book, the teacher first thinks big picture about what the learning goals are), and it’s kids learning about learning in a variety of ways. It’s also teachers finding ways to give students choice – when they feel invested in their learning, they are engaged and inspired to do more.

 

During a recent visit to the second grade, I had the chance to work with a small group on a math project involving long division. When I was in the classroom, I noticed a series of posters that said things like, “Instead of saying ‘I can’t do it,’ say, ‘I am currently struggling with it.’”  I knew this was related to the idea of the growth mindset, and so I asked second grade teacher Anna Vinson how they were addressing that topic. She told me that they had introduced growth mindset along with their science unit on simple machines and little bits. Throughout the unit students were asked to build, create and construct things using a variety of materials, along with solving real world problems. Before each activity they had a discussion with the students about how we can grow our brain by telling ourselves something different. When something is too hard, instead of saying, "This is impossible, " you can say, "This may take some time and effort." Throughout the lessons, they referred back to the growth mindset phrases which are on posters around the room. They also talked about failing forward and learning from our mistakes. 

 

Exploring metacognition is something we often thing young students can’t handle, but in fact, this is a wonderful age to think and talk about growing our brains and finding ways to get back up when we get knocked down.

 

I also recently visited the fourth grade classrooms when students were presenting their Passion Projects, and I asked the teachers to tell me more about the project and its goals. Here’s what Kim Haines told me:

 

“Fourth grade students engage in three Passion Projects across the school year, each one building and extending skills to the next. We talk about individual interests and what a passion is. We also talk about how the project might allow them to discover a future passion by studying something new that engages their interest. The first project is also a chance to study the topic they’ve loved forever and may already know a lot about (horses, dinosaurs, and other obsessions). Once they’ve exhausted this topic, they have to move on and explore other topics for later passion projects.”

 

The assignment does a wonderful job of engaging and inspiring students by allowing them the choice to explore something about which they are passionate. And then, after the first Passion Project, students spend a great deal of time reflecting, asking the following questions.

 

What went well for you? 

What was challenging? 

How might the teachers support you better next time? 

What was something interesting that you learned? 

What might you do differently next time to do better? 

And for later projects - How did this project compare to what you’ve done before?

 

Too often, teachers assign projects or tests, grade them, and hand them back to students with little to no discussion.  In order to push our students to learn from their mistakes and really think about their learning, we need to be sure to ask them these types of questions. The more students understand how they learn best and what they can do differently to improve, the more they will get out of their learning.

 

Students also have a chance to really dig deep into how they learn when they are in sixth grade, as one of the overarching themes of sixth grade is learning about our learning. Every person learns in different ways; one way is not better than another; it is discovering what works best for you. At the beginning of the year, they explore the idea of growth versus fixed mindset.  We move onto discovering and exploring the three phases of mindset and growth: the first is how we gather information, the second is how we process the information, and the third is how we access and use our knowledge.  Students discover new strategies and learn about different habits to grow as a learner.  They take a learning inventory to evaluate how they use the different learning styles. As a class, we discuss multi-tasking versus switch-tasking and how effort and motivation are connected. We summarize the unit with a discussion of metacognition and how to develop habits and practices that lead to stronger neural pathways.  At the end of the year, students present their findings to parents at student-led conferences.  

 

All of these experiences allow our students to truly explore and understand how they learn. And, they allow our students to recognize that it is okay to fail. In fact, it’s not only okay, it’s necessary for growth. And when students can view their experiences with a growth mindset, understanding that their brains will continue to grow and change as they learn, then nothing can stop them!