Learning is a Journey

Gerd Altmann

This week I am looking at my own skills, learning and my PLN. I'll look at where I am now, where I hope to go during my time in LIBE 477 and beyond.

What is a PLN?

Educators are building networks, called PLN's, to help each other learn and share resources.  It seems like the main benefit of building a PLN is that these connections between educators are useful for professional development.  PLN's help keep you up to date with new technologies and ideas. This video gives a good overview of what a PLN is.

Common Sense Media

Where I Am Now

Currently, I am in the classroom teaching grade 4.  At the moment my PLN is mostly face to face and I've only dipped a toe into digital PLN's.  On my own, I have persued professional development in the form of: 1)  Blogs   2) professional books recommended by other teachers. 3) School Book Clubs  4) Conferences and Workshops 5) Conversations and sharing with colleagues.

Where I Am Heading

It’s easier than ever to personalize your own professional development.  There are so many educators around the world who have similar interests and who are sharing their experiences and resources online. As I think about this course and beyond, I realize that there is just too much to know.  As a teacher librarian I think that knowing what is available for teachers in your school is important, but so is knowing where to find the information you need when you don't know the answer to their questions.  The latter seems to be where  a PLN comes in.  I would like to stretch my professional self in 3 areas: Skill Development, Building My PLN, Using My PLN.

1) Skill Development: Makerspaces and Twitter

 A. Makerspaces 

I am interested in Makerspaces since our school has a small room which has been turned into a basic makerspace and few teachers are using it (me included).  Makerspaces are proven to have positive effects on growth mindset (Vongkulluksn et al. 2021)  which has been a focus in my classroom this year.  I have found John Spencers website and Youtube channel to be an excellent resource on how to get a makerspace going and the pedagogy behind them. He states that makerspaces have many benefits for students living and working in the 21st century and should be part of every classroom.

B. Twitter

I am also interested in learning more about Twitter.  I am not comfortable with Twitter yet and need to spend some time learning about it. Many sources (such as this post from CommonSense Media) consider Twitter an excellent way to connect teachers with other teachers all over the world.

Sylvia Duckworth

Also, Nochumson (2018) found in their study that twitter was effective in teacher professional development.  I found a beginners guide to Twitter to help get me started.

When I first began this blog post, I considered Twitter as a way to connect with educators and find ideas and resources.  I had a consumer mindset.  However, as Alec Courous points out in this video on how to use twitter effectively in education, Twitter isn't just for finding ideas, but for developing them too.

2) Growing My PLN

My current digital PLN is limited - I am a consumer not a creator or communicator, but I am hoping to work towards that.  Some steps that I would like to take are:

A.  Build My Twitter Feed

Edublogs has a good list of educators to follow on Twitter.  The list is midway in the post. 

B.  Add to Feedly 

Since beginning this course I have found and followed additional blogs that I have found while looking for information on my current interests.  Makerspaces are a current interest of mine so I have added John Spencer's blog and YouTube channel.  I recently found the Daring Librarian blog as well.  I found a long list of teacher librarian blogs from Teach Thought to pursue, further diversifying my feed.

C. Share and Create

So while I follow and read lots of posts and articles, I am mostly a consumer within my digital PLN.  I hope to move on and create content and communicate within my PLN.  I made my first steps by sharing my reading progress log which incorporates ideas from growth mindset as well as commenting on some colleagues blogs recently.

3) Using My PLN

If I hope to maintain the PLN that I am currently building,  I think I have to use it.  I need to ask for recommendations on Twitter, retweet, reply, share and comment.  Also, comment on the blog posts that resonate with me. The goal is to make using my PLN a habit so that it becomes part of my routine. 

Your Turn

How can I further build my PLN?  Do you have blogs or educators you can recommend for me to follow?

Works Cited:

Talia C. Nochumson (2020) Elementary schoolteachers’ use of Twitter: exploring the implications of learning through online social media, Professional Development in Education,46:2, 306-323, DOI: 10.1080/19415257.2019.1585382

Vanessa W. Vongkulluksn, Ananya M. Matewos & Gale M. Sinatra (2021) Growth mindset development in design-based makerspace: a longitudinal study, The Journal of Educational Research, DOI: 10.1080/00220671.2021.1872473. 

    

Fostering a Reading Culture in Classrooms and School Wide

 

Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay 

How I Foster A Reading Culture in My Classroom

Many years ago I came across the Daily 5 and liked the structure it provided.   I focus on 3 of the original 5 blocks of the Daily 5 during my literacy block: Read to Self, Read With a Partner and Work on Writing.  I read aloud every day, which I feel meets the needs of students to hear fluent reading.   During our rotations I either meet with individuals, small groups or Book Clubs.  I have found that this system work well and lots of students say that it was their favourite part of grade 5.  There is lots of choice, times to read together and be a bit social in their discussions around literacy.

What's Not Working

There are still some students who fake read, tell you that reading is boring or are off task frequently.  Often these are students who are reading below grade level.  They do not demonstrate the effort and dedication that will push them forward in reading. They are not fully participating in our classroom reading culture and don't see themselves as a readers.

Where to Now?

Recently I've been learning about growth mindset. Dweck (RSA ,2013) states that students who act bored may have a fixed mindset.  They seem bored because they are afraid to try and will do whatever it takes to look smart all the time no matter the cost. To them it's better to appear bored than to appear like they are putting forth effort because putting forth effort to them means they are not smart. They feel as if their potential to learn is finite.

 I further foster a reading culture for all students there are 4 changes that I would like to make to my practice. It will take some time to implement them.  

1.  Teach Students That The Brain Can Grow 

Students who see their intelligence as finite (fixed mindset) may believe they can never become smarter.  These students need to learn that with effort they can grow their intelligence.  Using read alouds are one method that I have been doing, but rather inconsistency.  As a teacher librarian, I could work these into my times with students as well.  There are many teachers who have complied lists of books that can be used to teach about growth mindset and the brain.  

Big Life Journal - break down of 85 growth mindset books by age.

TarHeel State Teacher - annotated list of 20 growth mindset books for elementary students

2. Effort and Struggle is Part of Learning

Carol Dweck (2014) says that we must change the perception of effort and struggle away from being viewed as negative to something positive and part of the process of learning.   She suggests making it a daily conversation with kids.  

As a closing activity to our literacy block I could ask "Who has had a fabulous struggle when you were reading today?" or "How did you grow as a reader today?".  Hopefully, it will help students to share their struggles and some of the ways they problem solved to overcome or if they are in the struggle still, they could receive encouragement or other strategies to try.  This could be worked into the classes a teacher librarian has in the library on a regular basis.

3.  Praise Progress Not Achievement

The research is clear that praise for process is the way to go. Dweck (2013, 2014) has stated that we should be praising effort, strategies, perseverance, focus, improvement rather than intelligence or achievement. During my conferences or discussions with students I will give process praise. I could recognize when students:  1) try new reading strategies 2) respond to reading in new ways 3) try a new genre 4) increase their reading stamina.

"It's almost small little moments you have with readers that then piece together to make a kid realize they can grow" 

-Courtney Reagent quoted in Mindshift 

4.  Add a Progress Tracker to Reading Conferences

 O'Rouke's (et al. 2016) study showed that when students could view their progress in solving problems in an online game, they were more motivated to continue to take on challenge, try different strategies and completed more problems. I created a prototype of the kind of tracker I was thinking of using (lines in each box for a description of the progress demonstrated and the check boxes to recognize continued effort and progress in that area).  I am not sure I could use these as a teacher librarian, but could incorporate these easily as a classroom teacher. 

Page 2 can attach to page 1 to form a longer pathway.

More Wonderings 

I realize that there are many things that can cause a students to not see themselves as readers and growth mindset interventions will work for some but not others.  I wonder about students who need to move.  How can we encourage them want to be part of our reading classroom? How can we encourage them to embrace a school reading culture?  

Looking Towards A School Wide Reading Program

Creating a school wide program seems like a daunting task.  I am a classroom teacher in a large school of about 530 students ranging from K-7.  While our school library is an inviting place that inspires our students to read, we do not have a school wide reading program.   At one time our school had a Literacy Night where parents and students would come to the school and rotate through a variety of presentations and games structured to provide them with information on literacy, how to help their children at home and how they can help their children develop a love of reading. Perhaps reviving Literacy Night, is a good place to begin.   Andersen (et al., 2016) have shown that parent mindset does affect a child's mindset and that an intervention with parents demonstrated a positive effect on the mindset of their child. A presentation regarding growth mindset could be added to Literacy Night.  

This blog post by Buzzing with Mrs. B has some good ideas for activities for parents and students to do during a literacy night.

Big Life Journal has a printable guide for parents on growth mindset.

Oakland Literacy Coalition has a pdf that outlines steps schools can take to make Literacy Night happen.

Your Turn

Do you infuse your literacy instruction with growth mindset?  What else can I do or how can I improve on what I have?  How do you attempt to have students who tell you that reading isn't for them into your classroom reading culture?  

Works Cited:

Andersen, S. and Helena Skyt Nielsen. (2016, October) Reading intervention with a growth mindset approach improve children's skills. PNAS, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1607946113

 Dweck, C. (2014, November) The Power of Believing That You Can Improve. [Video]. https://www.ted.com/talks/carol_dweck_the_power_of_believing_that_you_can_improve?language=en#t-608685%20

O'Rourke, Eleanor, Erin Peach, Carol S. Dweck, and Zoran Popovic. (2016). Brain Points: A Deeper Look at a Growth Mindset Incentive Structure for an Educational Game. In Proceedings of the Third (2016) ACM Conference on Learning @ Scale. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 41–50. https://doi.org/10.1145/2876034.2876040

RSA (2013, July 8) RSA Replay - How to Help Every Child Fulfil Their Potential. [Video].  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyVZ0KKJuTg

Vanessa W. Vongkulluksn, Ananya M. Matewos & Gale M. Sinatra (2021) Growth mindset development in design-based makerspace: a longitudinal study, The Journal of Educational Research, DOI: 10.1080/00220671.2021.1872473. 

Images:

Heart Bookshelf

Exercising Brains

Makerspaces and Growth Mindset: Reading Review C

My reading review looked at whether or not makerspaces could foster growth mindset development.   I knew little about makerspaces until last week. I narrowed my topic down from previous weeks to reflect my growing interest in makerspaces and my continued interest in becoming better at creating a growth mindset environment for my students.  Up to now, I have only used ready to go growth mindset resources and read about growth mindset on teacher blogs. This week I began looking deeper into what growth mindset was, how to foster growth mindset in children and then I looked at makerspaces and how they could enhance growth mindset.

What Is Growth Mindset?

I began with looking for more information on growth mindset.  I found two helpful videos.

RSA (2013, July 8) RSA Replay - How to Help Every Child Fulfil Their Potential. [Video].  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyVZ0KKJuTg

Carol Dweck coined the phrase Growth Mindset.  Her work centres around the idea that our brains are malleable and that intelligence is not fixed.  Through effort, dedication, learning and mentorship students can increase their intelligence.  Dweck talks about how using the word 'yet' when a student is confronted with a challenge reinforces the idea that students are on a learning continuum.  

 Dweck, C. (2014, November) The Power of Believing That You Can Improve. [Video]. https://www.ted.com/talks/carol_dweck_the_power_of_believing_that_you_can_improve?language=en#t-608685%20

Dweck encourages some changes in adult behaviour to help children develop a growth mindset.  Dweck recommends: 1) Praise the process (effort, strategies, perseverance, focus, improvement) rather than intelligence or achievement 2) Use the word 'yet' with children as doing so improves their confidence.  3) Change student mindsets (teach about what brains do when you're challenged). Dweck also points out how classrooms 'steeped' in growth mindset can be an equalizer of students especially for those who are labelled as disadvantaged or special needs.

How Can Students' Mindset Be Enhanced?

According to Dweck (2014) there are three ways we can help students develop growth mindset (1. Praise process, 2. Use the word "yet" 3. Teach about what your brain does when challenged).  I sought out some articles to support these ideas.

1.  Change Student Mindset: Interventions

Yeager, D.S., Hanselman, P., Walton, G.M. et al. (2019). A national experiment reveals where a growth mindset improves achievement. Nature 573, 364–369. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1466-y

A group of high school students were given a short, one-hour, online growth mindset intervention.  The group of students who received the intervention demonstrated higher levels of achievement in their Math course and were more likely to pursue harder math courses the next year.  Furthermore, schools that had many resources and students who were supported in using their enhanced growth mindset by peers, showed greater gains than students from schools that had fewer resources and less supportive peers.  The authors point out how their study sets the stage for further research into how to enhance both growth mindset intervention as well as the school environment. 

The intervention in this study was done online and not delivered by teachers.  I wonder if teachers could deliver the intervention to students with the same or better results.  This may be an area for future research.

2. Praise the Process

Eleanor O'Rourke, Erin Peach, Carol S. Dweck, and Zoran Popovic. (2016). Brain Points: A Deeper Look at a Growth Mindset Incentive Structure for an Educational Game. In Proceedings of the Third (2016) ACM Conference on Learning @ Scale. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 41–50. https://doi.org/10.1145/2876034.2876040

Researchers developed a video game that rewarded process rather than achievement.  Players were given points when they demonstrated growth mindset behaviours such as effort, trying different strategies and making progress.  This math game rewarded process.  Researchers found that showing student progress in  the form of a chart boosted student motivation to continue playing.  Results showed that students who were rewarded for process demonstrated increased effort, they used more strategies, more engagement (students played the game longer than the control group) and students demonstrated more perseverance when they faced a challenge.

3.  Encourage "Yet'

Dweck (2014) recommends using the word 'yet' with students to bolster confidence.  I interpreted her idea as a suggestion that modelling growth mindset language and behaviours in our daily interactions with students would help foster growth mindset.  Using the word 'yet' when faced with a challenging problem can help students reform their thoughts: "I can't do ___, yet".  This can change the idea of making a mistake from a thing to be avoided to just being part of the learning process.  

Hamilton, Connie. “Kick the IDK Bucket: How to Rid Your Classroom of ‘I Don't Know.’” Cult of Pedagogy, 26 May 2020, www.cultofpedagogy.com/idk/

In this article/podcast the author argues that adding 'yet' isn't enough when faced with a difficult challenge.    Students need a plan to move forward if learning is to occur.  Teaching students strategies to move forward with their learning is necessary.

 Terada, Youki (2020, November 19). The Mistake Imperative—Why We Must Get Over Our Fear of Student Error. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/mistake-imperative-why-we-must-get-over-our-fear-student-error

This article outlines 5 ways teachers can create a mistake friendly classroom. These ideas can help students normalize making mistakes through teacher modelling and changes in the classroom. I believe the suggestions can be applied to makerspaces as well.

1.  Acknowledge that the fear of making mistakes is real by identifying and confronting destructive thinking replace "I'm stupid" with "I'm learning".
2.  Work in the Zone of Proximal Thinking by providing students with challenging, open ended problems
3.  Tap into Passion since when students are into the subject they are more likely to tolerate mistakes.
4.   Encourage Rough Draft Thinking, which gives permission to ask questions and revise without having to worry they are wrong
5.  Grade Fewer things which results in lower stress classroom environments, where students can take risks.

Can Makerspaces Support the Development of Growth Mindset?

I found only one article that directly addressed the idea that makerspaces can influence growth mindset development. Out of the 3 ways Dweck (2014) outlined to help children develop growth mindset, the below article only studied that of intervention.

1.  Intervention: 

Vanessa W. Vongkulluksn, Ananya M. Matewos & Gale M. Sinatra (2021) Growth mindset development in design-based makerspace: a longitudinal study, The Journal of Educational Research, DOI: 10.1080/00220671.2021.1872473. 

Design based makerspaces are makerspaces structured around the design process.   Researchers compared the stages of design with growth mindset intervention strategies and found many similarities: 1) Emphasis on process 2) Value effort 3) Feedback focused on process goals.   Researchers found that students who participated in the design based makerspace showed an increase in growth mindset development.  One of the unintentional findings was that growth mindset development may not occur immediately after being part of a design based makerspace.  There can be a time lag.    This study showed that using proven intervention strategies within a designed based makerspace can enhance growth mindset in students.

What I noticed with this study was that there was no direct instruction about how the brain works or on growth mindset, which is one of the ways Dweck (2014) recommends to increase growth mindset in children. This may be something to consider for future research.

2. Praise the Process and 3. Encourage "Yet"

I was not able to find anything in the literature that referred to specific strategies regarding praise or growth mindset behaviours to model in the makerspace.  Of course, this is up to the teacher and teachers vary in their knowledge, application and beliefs surrounding growth mindset. It would be hard to quantify this.  However,  I do think it would be interesting to see if growth mindset strategies taught intentionally during makerspace experiences could prove beneficial in developing growth mindset. I would be interested in seeing if an  online intervention like that done by Yaeger (et al., 2019) combined with students invovlement in a  makerspace could result in further enhancing students growth mindset.

Overall, while there is some evidence to support the idea that makerspaces foster growth mindset, there is not much.  A lot can be inferred from existing studies but little has been proven.  The one study that I did find is relatively new and hasn't been replicated or peer reviewed from what I could find.  There are an abundance of paths for researchers to follow in this area.

Growth Mindset and Educational Technology: My Wonderings

This week, I did some research to see if I could answer some of the questions that came to me after reading Richardson's book, Why School.  My search for information on growth mindset and educational technology was not as easy as I thought it would be.  I made an assumptions in my last blog post that the literature would support the idea that educational technology and mindset could be linked to increased learning in students. Also, I thought I may find instances where the type of technology may have an effect on mindset. This was not the case.

So, I had to change my thinking.  I decided to look for examples of how some educational technology could be used to foster growth mindset.  I began with looking at video games.  I found a fascinating article regarding the use of incentives in educational games. The study found that rewarding growth mindset behaviours rather than achievement, resulted in increased time spent on the game, more levels completed and more mindset growth behaviours being used by players.  It was encouraging to see that game designers intentionally are making games that teach growth mindset ideas to students and allow students to practice growth mindset strategies while playing the game. One study focused on an 'off the shelf' game which was adapted for classroom use by adding on of paper pencil tasks, such as concept maps, do have an effect on mindset.

I also decided to try looking at makerspaces.  Last week, I wondered how and if makerspaces could foster growth mindset. Prior to today, I had almost no knowledge of what a makerspace was.  I found out that makerspaces are tool and technology rich, spaces where people may gather to tinker, collaborate and create items to solve problems.  Two sources I found helpful in understanding what makerspaces were this Edutopia video and this post.  I found a new study on design based maker-spaces that looked at how they may influence growth mindset.   Design-based makerspaces are makerspaces with scaffolding to help students meet curricular goals and activities are based on the steps of the design process.  They have more structure than regular makerspaces.  This study suggests that growth mindset can be enhanced through the use of design-based makerspaces and that the growth is not short term.  

Looking ahead to my next post,  I would like to thoroughly read over the articles that I have found to gain a better understanding of how games and makerspaces influence growth mindset.  I know little about either and am curious if I will prefer one over the other to help foster the mindset objectives I set for my students.