Growth vs Fixed Mindset: Carol Dweck

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(My notes from listening to Carol Dweck speak at Smith College in 2013, Northampton, MA)

Fixed Mindset vs Growth mindset

• People with fixed mindset about intelligence (i.e., I was “born” smart) do poorly compare to people with growth mindset (i.e., I can learn anything).
• We need to value fabulous struggles. If it’s was easy to arrive at, is it valuable?
• As educators, we do a disservice to people with a fixed mindset when we compliment them for finishing something quickly or easily. Instead, Carol would say, “You did that so quickly and easily; I’m sorry I wasted your time with this.”
• When we give grades we have choices:
  • Fail
  • Not Yet
• Fixed mindset about intelligence will say, “I’m not good at ________.”
• Growth mindset will say, “I’m not good at ________ yet.”
  • Me:  Good tattoo idea!>> “…yet”
• Brainology: Brain can still grow new connections, grow, which is transforming the meaning…

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Why does Education Research Fail?

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The act of creating public educational policies is political by default, because the whole of a democratic people are oblidged to follow the laws of that policy. This would be simple if there was a whole consensus of what to teach, when to teach, and how-to-teach-what-to-whom; of course, there is not. Public education is a sociological sculpting tool used to shape our future, and there is no consensus of what that “shape” should be. Conflicts are inevitable as factions hold orthogonal or even antithetical beliefs of what constitutes a healthy human society, and each faction fights to reign control of the sculpting tool of tomorrow. Public education is the critical tool for political leaders to push their agendas onto the public, i.e., to sculpt their future societal ideals.

So, how do we resolve these conflicts? How do we reach a consensus as to the best methods of teaching our children? …

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Internal and External Approaches to Epistemology

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Godfrey-Smith (1996)  talks about three epistemological approaches: An “externalist”  approach, an “internalist” approach, and interactionism.
The epistemic ontology of those of us who hold the externalistic approach is that we come to gain knowledge as external facts become exposed to us. Godfrey-Smith likens this approach to the Associationist Theory, and behaviorism. This brings to mind the dialectic discourse of Lakatos, who believed we could cleave ourselves from our emotional and political attachment to ideas, and that we could collaboratively find scientific truth through honest debate.

The internalistic approach is that we never perceive the external world without our view being adulterated by our internal cognition. He calls this  approach “strong constructivism“, or a “Kantian” approach.  How we perceive the world depends on our experiences, cf, what I presume Aristotle, Mauss, and Bourdieu would call “habitus“. However, I cannot understand the correlation he makes…

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The Good Life | Former Ohio State players make gains with children who struggle

The Good Life | Former Ohio State players make gains with children who struggle.

Indirect Consultation in Special Education

Some very interesting ideas concerning the use of outside experts to help the special education teacher in the classroom.

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Most parents with children in special education are aware that they can request paraprofessionals be placed in their child’s general education classrooms. This accommodation is intended to increase the amount of academic and/or behavioral assistance provided to children. And while many paraprofessionals and general education teachers are excellent at what they do, most do not have the specialized training of a psychologist or a special education teacher.  To no fault of their own, even the best teachers might not have ABA training, assistive technology training, or best practices training regarding high-functioning autism, for example. In addition, typically there is not enough time allotted in a teacher’s busy schedule to consult with professionals about the needs of their specific students.

One option to alleviate this dilemma is to request “indirect consultation” for your child and teacher. This would mean that time would be set aside for your child’s teacher to consult…

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New Media Middle School Shuts Down

What happens to the psyche of students when the school they have been going for a couple of years shuts down?  I was pondering that idea this afternoon when I drove by the school I taught for 6 months, New Media Middle School. I know the school was closed but I could not help to feel for the students and teachers I worked with.

The students I refer to had already experienced a fragility to their young lives shattered by life’s inconsistencies, such as broken families. It must play hard on another cruel irony that one thing that was consistent to their lives was their school is now broken and it has now gone away.

Although many of my students would be overheard in hallways or corner of classrooms  boasting to their peers saying the school sucked (along with a few teachers) and would love to see the school shut down. I never really took such talk seriously…nothing more than a temper tantrum from a middle school student. On the other side,  I would hear faculty discussing the future of the school, always believing a White Knight would rescue the school from oblivion, hoping for the best, but knowing the inevitable closing was just weeks away. Well the White Knight apparently never materialized.

To the young mind, the here and now is more important than what may happen in the future such as the latest video game, or hearing the latest release of their favorite hip-hop artist on their “devices”. Dedicated teachers persevere in the here and now, amidst the noise and clutter of the urban school working to instill to their students a knowledge of the U.S. Constitution, the ideals of Ancient Greece, how to write a complete sentence,  solving for Algebraic X, or understanding the Earth’s ecology.

What remains from what I could see through the dirty windows are cords dangling from the ceiling that were once connected to portals of a creative technological learning, to be recycled no doubt in another classroom, in another part of town.

Learning I believe is a two-way street: Teacher’s if they listen to their students may learn that nothing is permanent and change is inevitable..it sucks to know that a school has been shut-down, but hopefully, the students will find a way to forgive the adults that made this happen, and forgive themselves for saying, at least out-loud, what they wanted this to happen in the first place. Be careful for what you wish for, sometimes it comes to pass.

I am happy to announce that I am the new Intervention Specialist at the New Media Middle School, Columbus, Ohio!

I am very happy to announce that I am on the faculty of the New Media Middle School  as the school’s Intervention Specialist. Although I started a week before Xmas, the last two weeks I have accomplished many things such as writing an IEP and finalizing the process by conducting the parent meeting yesterday, Friday January 19, 2013.

I feel fortunate to work with dedicate and hard-working teachers, and a great school leader ‘the principal”.  This school has a lot of challenges ahead, not unlike many charter and public schools, but with community and parental support, it should meet and exceed expectations by the end of the year.

This school is unusual in the fact that it still provides for field trips (remember them?) to their students. In fact many more are planned for the next few months.

Three weeks ago the school visited the Neil Armstrong Air & Space Museum www.armstrongmuseum.org/

Students receiving instruction in constructing their lunar rover model from museum employee. Mr. Sweigard, principal at New Media Middle School in the background

Student working on project at Neil Armstrong Air & Space Museum. New Media Middle School field trip December 2012.

Student participant in activity at the Neil Armstrong Air & Space Museum as part of New Media Middle School field Trip, December 2012

View of rocket motor from Apollo XI Spacecraft at Neil Armstrong Air & Space Museum. New Media Middle School field Trip, December 2012

Neil Armstrong Gemini Spacecraft from Neil Armstrong Air & Space Museum

Tire from Space Shuttle. Student participant from New Media Middle School Field Trip, Neil Armstrong Air & Space Museum, December 2012.

New Media Christmas Greeting

This is really an amazing video that was produced by the students and faculty at New media Middle School in a matter of a couple of days!

Gestaltist Theory

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“The notion that people learn by forming simple associations, or connections, between events was anathema to the Gestaltists” (Benjafield, 1992).  

 

Gestaltists like Wertheimer, Kohler, Koffka, and Duncker asserted that experiences or meanings cannot be understood by breaking them down to the individual associations made within the development of the meaning-making; that is, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  Koffka (1935) (who spent the last 14 years of his life teaching at Smith College in Northampton) along with other Gestalt theorists, claimed that people will organize information into the simplest form possible, and will view information holistically rather than its individual parts.  Benjafield (1992) uses this wildlife illustration as an example.  Individually, the parts of the illustration work  together to form an outdoor scene, but from a holistic vantage, the entire scene creates an image of Frankenstein.  (I believe we aesthetically organize and categorize…

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Professional Development for Educational Technologists with a qARG

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My submission to display a poster at the Immersive Education Conference held in Boston this June (500 words or less!).

Educational technologists have a daunting job:  to encourage and assist educators to integrate technology into their curricula.  Why is this so daunting?  Because many teachers are resistant (if not oppositional) to using technology in their classrooms.  Like the early 19^th century Luddites who smashed mechanical looms, some educators view technology as a transitory hindrance to their craft of teaching, and it’s no wonder.  Teachers learn about technology from their school’s educational technologists, who have been misperceived as merely well informed “AV techs” since the 1930s (Simsek, 2005).  What is omitted in this AV tech stereotype?  Educational technologists are also educators.  Like teachers, they need the pedagogical skills necessary for creating safe learning environments, and for motivating teachers to be self-directed learners of technology. 

Unfortunately, much of the…

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Peer Abuse

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Teachers, this boy is in your class! Can you SEE him? Can you HELP him?

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