Growth Mindsets: The proof is in the classroom.

I'm sure by now every person working at the system level as I do has read, highlighted, and committed certain parts of Dweck's article about Fixed and Growth Mindsets to memory. After all, it's not new and frankly, it's not rocket-science right?

Fundamental to the work I've been doing this year has been to convince students that they CAN become better readers and learners.  The bigger challenge:  to convince teachers to raise their expectations and believe that their students can rise to the occasion. Fostering a growth mindset sometimes feels like an impossible task.

I've seen the breakthroughs happen in one classroom in particular.  A high school English teacher and I set out to work with a group of students in a grade 9 applied class.  These are students with ranging abilities, many of whom with special education needs.

We shared with the students our belief that as they practice the various reading strategies in class, that they would indeed become better readers.  We started with content that the students would enjoy, "Is technology making our lives better or worse?"  We ensured that every lesson afforded students the opportunity to talk to one another and to interact with text.  We also allowed them to use their smartphones (surveys, look up information).  We stood back and said, "Tell me more" and "Mmm, that's interesting, what do the rest of you think about that?", instead of jumping in with the answers.

And daily we would ask them:  "How did this  help you to understand the text you were reading?"

The result?  Students were actively engaged.  They were asking probing and thoughtful questions.  They were talking about what they were reading.  They were making connections.  They showed us how much prior knowledge they had.

I'm anxiously awaiting to see the response to our survey question: "Are you a better reader today than you were at the beginning of the semester." I'm willing to bet that the majority of them will say yes. 

Sadly, I've not really seen this happen in too many places.  Students come in feeling like they are putting in their time.  Teachers try to cope with the varying levels in the class by reducing the challenge, by offering low level activities--don't misunderstand, I did this as well--it was all well-intentioned.

It's really up to all of us to ensure that teachers and students alike see intelligence as something that can be nurtured every day.

Eduardo Biceno has a great TED talk about this topic as well.

Though the real challenge here is having those courageous conversations with teachers who say, "My level 2's" or "My Applieds"  or "I can do that with my Academics, but there's no way my Applieds can do that".  The other challenge is to provide support for students' learning needs without watering down the content.

There is no greater feeling than when theory turns into action and meaningful learning--for everyone involved!

The Webinar: Do it right or Don't Bother!

In the past two days, I've taken part in two separate Adobe Connect/webinar sessions administered by two unrelated educational organizations.  In theory, it's brilliant isn't it?  I don't need to travel somewhere to participate in a face-to-face session.  The organizations are modelling virtual collaboration which is one of the hallmarks of 21st Century Learning.  What could be better?

How about the actual session???

If the point is to share reams of handouts, links, and resources, then how about sharing your Evernote or Livebinder with me?  Heck go old-school and e-mail me the powerpoint and/or resources so I can peruse them at my leisure.  Don't rush through the content allowing a  two-second (yes, literally, one host said, "talk for two or three seconds") to two-minute opportunity for discussion before plowing through the rest of it.

After the session, my colleagues and I felt equally frustrated.  We decided to be constructive and brainstormed guidelines for an effective webinar:

• If you are going to allott time for discussion, make it more than 2 minutes;
• Slides should not exceed 20 (and should definitely not hit 60!!);
• Multi-modal interaction including chat pods, audio responses, surveys, and text responses will keep participants engaged;
• If you are going to ask participants to share ideas, spend some time exploring these or going deeper rather than moving directly to the next slide;
• Include an alternate (earlier) time for people who are new to Adobe connect who may encounter technical difficulties so the rest of us aren't waiting around listening to static;
• pre-determine who your particpants will be and revise accordingly.  i.e. if the participants are primarily participating on their own, allowing 10 minutes for a group discussion might not be the best idea;
• Don't just transfer a face-to-face presentation to a virtual presentation--it's a different medium and so it requires differentiation.

I know that in my role I will be obliged to participate in many more of these sessions--I just wish that hosts would use a little more foresight, planning, and common sense!! 

Thankfully though, no one will notice if I am making a grocery list, strategizing the next move in my Scrabble game, or tweeting while the slides keep on moving in front of me.

The Thing About Tomato Soup

I recently presented to a group of principals on the topic of OSSLT and Critical Thinking. One of the activities I asked them to do was to unpack an OSSLT question (2012 test) and reflect on the skill that students needed in order to answer the question correctly.

One question, in particular,asked students: "Which product matches the definition of “value-added” in paragraph 3?"

The choices were:
a whole fish
b leaf lettuce
c tomato soup
d green grapes

The question is obviously ambiguously worded. The answer, "tomato soup," isn't what we traditionally understand as "value added" and can be perceived as misleading. And so, the discussion very quickly led to the fallability of standardized tests, how much money is spent on them yearly, how our students with special needs can never pass such a test, etc...which are valid to some extent, but quite beside the point.

You see, every person in that room was able to answer the question correctly but had to take a few minutes to think through it.

What I find startling, after having spent many hours pouring over OSSLT data is that students really struggle with those questions that require thinking--if students can skim and scan to find the answer, then they do well. This observation was reaffirmed by Damian Cooper in a video series, About Assessment  published by MISA Barrie. He says that "EQAO data is screaming" at us that students need to be taught how to think. He also posits, "Do teachers in Ontario know that their fundamental job is to teach kids to think?"

Don't get me wrong; in an age where we know that differentiated assessment and instruction is key, I am not necessarily in favour of standardized tests to mark literacy achievement. What I do think, though, is that we can glean much information by looking at EQAO questions and trends.  This might lead us to look carefully at the kinds of things we are asking our students to do daily to determine if these tasks are pushing their thinking.

This is no small feat. How do we teach thinking? How can we change the questions we ask to promote further inquiry? What small changes can we make so that kids are solving problems and thinking through ideas rather than answering low-level questions?  

If we don't challenge students to think, not only will they continue to struggle on those kinds of questions on the OSSLT, but so too in life, when they are faced with complex situations that require problem solving.