This was also an incredible learning session with Debbie Silver. Here are my thoughts and notes...
Debbie emphasized on raising the bar for students. Always give them a chance to learn something new and challenge themselves.
She also took some time to talk about the reward system that in one way or another most teachers use. She emphasized on the importance to move to less of a reward system. She described task-contingent rewards where all students handing in homework get an "A" and stated that they were the worst of all the reward systems. She also said it was bad to have performance-contingent rewards such as 93% correct responses get a sticker. She explained how it is better to move to success-contingent rewards where for example everyone who has at least 93% correct responses on homework or improves his/her score gets a sticker. The effort or wanted behavior is being rewarded.
When questions are asked in group discussions, wait time for responses should be the same for all students. The following self-proficiency principles explain the reason for this:
Self-proficiency principles ( Rosenthal)
a- we form certain expectations of people and events
b- we communicate those expectations with various cues
c- people tend to respond to these cues by adjusting their behavior to match them
d- the result is that the original expectation becomes true
Praise should deal, not with the child's personality attributes, but with his efforts or achievements. Inappropriate praise can do more harm than good.
Debbie gave a good discussion question to us: What do you think parents ought to say to their daughter that did not win a prize?
1- tell her that you thought she was the best
2- tell her she was robbed of a ribbon that was rightfully hers
3- reassure her that gymnastics are not that important
4- tell her she has the ability and surely win next time (noooo!)
5- tell her she didn't deserve to win (this is the one)
The best answer is number 5. Parents should tell her she needs to work harder and ask her what she thinks she needs to do to improve. Remind the children "If you did it once, you can do it again".
• Mindset is the new psychology of success. It is a set of ideas or beliefs of how you see the world. Fixed Mindset (Entity Theory) is a way of thinking where you already have your talents and attributes (there is no room for improvement, you were born intelligent and remain with that degree of intelligence). Growth Mindset (Incremental theory) is a way of thinking where you can get smarter and can always improve. Kids who have been praised all their lives about their intelligence usually have a fixed mindset and don't want to try something new. They need to be the best so they won't take a risk. On the other hand, students with a the growth mindset value effort as a positive constructive force. For them challenge is good and their brain connections can become bigger. Being on the learning edge is something good!
Kids need examples of effort. We need to talk about our failures to them and how we improved the situation and moved on.
We should give our mind the right message - change our mindset. A fixed mindset will get us concerned with how we'll be judged. A growth mindset will get us concerned with improving. We're taking a risk... we're improving! We have to learn to make it happen!
Some good answers for students in specific situations:
- For now you will be working in a group and tomorrow I will let you pursue an individual project on your own.
- You're a developing person and I'm interested in your development
- etc
Using what I learned...
• Always challenge students... raise the bar when possible and try not to lower it with other students
• Keep the growth mindset theory in mind and praise the students' effort, hard work, persistence, etc.I'll try to give intelligence less attention.
No comments:
Post a Comment