Final Vision Project: Design Considerations

Image by Francis Ray

 This week's post about my vision project was a struggle for me. I have written and rewritten this post so many times that I have lost count.  I think I have finally settled on an idea that I will benefit my students, my school community, myself and other teachers.  

Potential Idea/Goal: I will create a presentation about makerspaces that can be shared with my school staff and perhaps beyond.  The makerspace is one area of our school that goes unused most of the time.  I intend to present what makerspaces are along with an annotated list of articles or posts outlining the benefits of using makerspaces, such as growth mindset gains and other resources, such as those on John Spencers YouTube channel or by Brooke Brown.  I will also create several makerspace challenges focused around Canadian landmarks that could be used in June before Canada Day (perhaps with a road trip theme). In my mind, mid to late June is a good time to try things out because you know your class well, assessment is wrapping up and students need engaging tasks to work on in order to hold their focus.  One problem I have thought of is that the challenges I make for the middle grades (which is what I am most familiar with) will not necessarily be of use to the upper grades or early primary.  I am hoping that providing the ideas and editable slides, teacher will be able to modify the challenges to make it work for their students. These makerspace challenges will be focused around blocks, gears and other reusable materials we have in our makerspace.  We currently do not have consumables such as cardboard, duct tape, straws and pipe cleaners stocked in our makerspace.  I think that sticking with what is at hand in our makerspace will encourage teachers to try it out as there would be minimal prep and materials are easy to clean up.

Potential Designs: I think that I will create my presentation in Google Slides.  This can be downloaded as a powerpoint or pdf and saved to OneDrive (which is part our districts preferred platform, Office 365) or saved directly to Google Drive.  I know that I will have to make a version where downloaders must create their own copy to prevent editing of the original slides.

Your Turn - Bring on the Advice: What am I missing? Is there a better way to present information on makerspaces? I would appreciate any advice you have to offer.

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.

Can Educational Technology Help Students Develop a Growth Mindset?

   I have been reading Will Richardson’s book, Why School? and reflecting on Richardson’s perspectives on learning and school. As I read through the first part of the book where Richardson recounts how his son, Tuck, engaged with Minecraft I was immediately struck by Tuck’s mindset.  I am referring to how Tuck believed that he could solve the problems he encountered in the game and how found ways to gain the knowledge that he needed through various sources. He displayed remarkable perseverance and resiliency.  Tuck already displayed a good ‘growth mindset’. He believed right from the beginning of the narrative, that he could become ‘smarter’ and solve problems if he worked hard enough at it. He believed his brain was elastic and could be ‘exercised’ through trial and error, to learn the necessary skills and information.  

   While some students come to our classroom with a growth mindset, I have noticed that many students display a fixed mindset.  Those with a fixed mindset believe that their intelligence is genetically determined, and they are unable to change this or become ‘smarter’.  This mindset can result in a lack of perseverance, resiliency and therefore, motivation to learn.  I wonder how much Tuck’s growth mindset was responsible for him being successful in the game.  I wonder if Richardson considered this.   

  My questions led me to wondering if educational technology can help grow a student’s growth mindset.  If so, do certain technologies/applications promote growth mindset over others? Also, the 21st century literacies outlined by the NCTE point to attitudes and soft skills that students need to develop rather than familiarity with specific technologies.  The technology we use today will be obsolete by the time many of our students enter the workplace. Technology changes fast, so the skills and attitudes developed from using technology is what needs to be focused on.

    This year I have a group of 29 grade 4 students.  Many of whom have challenges: anxiety, learning disabilities, ADHD, ADD, ELL to name some.  We’ve worked hard this year at trying to develop growth mindset in students using literature, STEM projects, discussion, and conversation. Could the use of technology enhance this effort?  The school I am at currently has some under-utilized resources (Ozobots, maker space, 3D printer) which I would be interested in getting to know more about and seeing if, and how, they may fit into developing a growth mindset in students.   As I go about finding sources of information for my next blog post some keywords, I will use include: coding, educational technology, growth mindset, 21st Century Literacy, constructivism.

Image Credit: SillyODesign