“You need to calm down.” This is probably one of the worst possible responses that a teacher can say to a student who is getting visibly and verbally frustrated.  As Jessica Minahan argues, for many students, they don’t know how to calm down when they are feeling frustrated. All children can benefit from learning about self-calming strategies. I am lucky to be at a school where we focus on social emotional learning. Every classroom has a chart titled, “How is my engine running?” where students can self-regulate and reflect on their emotions and behaviours. We are teaching students to begin to recognize when they are either in the red zone (very energetic, cannot sit still), yellow zone (tired, lethargic), or green zone (focused and ready to learn). With this, we are going to teach our students how they can bring themselves back to green zone if they are in the red or yellow zone.

In any case, Minahan suggests 3 simple ways that teachers can use to help students when they are feeling frustrated or anxious.

1. Teach students how to identify their emotions. Using an emotional thermometer can be helpful in this case, where students can show where they are on the thermometer at various points of the day. In the beginning, you can help the child to identify to them when you notice that they are frustrated (hunched shoulders, clenched fists, head on desk), so that over time, they can begin to recognize their own emotions.
2. Teach self-calming strategies that students can go to when they are recognizing that they are feeling angry or frustrated. Things such as reading a book, drawing, or deep breathing can help a student to calm down. I know that some of my students like to hold something in their hands, to give them that security and safe feeling. I also think that it is important that we have a safe place within the classroom or school, where students can go to when they are feeling frustrated or angry in order to help calm themselves down. Of course, it is important that if this is implemented, that rules are made so that students do not go to that place to fool around.
3. Practice with the student on what to do when they are feeling frustrated. Teach it, model it, practice it. Role-playing can be helpful for this step, where students act out what a frustrated student looks like and strategies that they can use to help calm down.

Reference:

Minahan, J. (January 30, 2013). Teaching self-calming skills. Retrieved from https://www.responsiveclassroom.org/teaching-self-calming-skills/

In this Ted Talk, Eduardo Briceno discusses how powerful having a growth mindset truly is. He gives the example of world-famous chess player, Josh Waitzkin. Waitzkin says that the key to his success was not falling into the trap of believing that he was the best and that there was no room for improvement.

Based on research, brains can show that for people with a fixed mindset, they receive the most information when they are receiving information about performance such as a grade or a score. When they do not get a good grade or score, in order to protect their ego, they lose interest or withdraw. For people with a growth mindset, they receive the most information about what they could do better next time. They focus more on learning and improving their progress over time.

Briceno asks the audience how many of us believe that we are not good at math, or socializing or conversely that we are naturals at what we do. I thought that this last point was interesting to note because I have yet to discuss how a fixed mindset can also affect our most intellectual students. This truly encourages teachers to build a growth mindset with every single student, even the ones that are the most intellectual in our class. If we are to fulfill our potential, we have to begin to think differently about ourselves as being capable of growth and change.

Reference:

Ted x Talks. (November 18 2012). The power of belief: Mindset and success. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN34FNbOKXc.

Growth mindset. This is a concept that I talked a lot about in my previous post. In this post, we explore the construct of a growth mindset a little bit further. David Stuart Jr. says that if you have a growth mindset, you believe that your abilities can improve with time. In contrast to this, is the fixed mindset or the belief that your abilities are already set and that there is no more room for growth.

Stuart suggests some strategies that teachers can use in order to help build a growth mindset. Some new strategies that have not been discussed yet include:

1. Giving praise to students for their hard work and not for being smart. This is something that I am realizing that I have to do more of in my own classroom.
2. Sharing stories with students about people who became successful because they worked hard, or fiction books about characters who worked hard and achieved success for teachers in primary grades
3. Giving well-framed activities. This means that instead of asking your students who will be the quickest at solving a problem, you ask which problem is the most interesting, which will encourage children to personalize their own goals and understandings

One point that I want to highlight from Stuart’s argument is that teachers should teach students to attain a growth mindset as broadly as possible. That means to not focus on simply just expanding their mindset academically but also socially through relationships with others, through the arts, and extracurricular activities. I believe that this is an important piece to remember about growth mindset. Truly having a growth mindset means embodiment, it stays with you after you leave the classroom, after you graduate from school, and perhaps, even after you leave the workforce and retire. Helping to show our students the positive impacts of believing in themselves and of having a growth mindset is something that will benefit them for life. That, my friends, is powerful.

Reference:

Stuart, D. (2015). For noncognitive skill development, start with growth mindset – here’s how. Retrieved from http://www.davestuartjr.com/noncognitive-skill-development-growth-mindset/

Today’s Wise Wednesday’s post comes from Amy Conley, a high school English teacher in California. Even though she teaches high school students, her thoughts and ideas on building intrinsic motivation and a growth mindset can be applicable to any classroom. Her article focuses on building intrinsic motivation and a growth mindset in writing for students – something that I find relevant to my classroom since many of my students do not enjoy writing.

Conley says that in order to help build intrinsic motivation, teachers should give as much autonomy to students as possible by allowing them to choose what they want to write about. In my own practicum classroom, students get to write in their journals once a week about anything that they want to write about. The class first brainstorms topics that they can write about, in order to give some ideas to students who need some inspiration. I looked through some of the students’ journals and some students wrote an entire page! This emphasizes the need to give students the power to choose what to write about. It does not have to happen all of the time, but students should be given that autonomy in order to gain that motivation to write.

Also, I wanted to add on here that the article contains some phrases that a teacher can say to make their comments more specific to a student’s writing. I thought that this was worth a mention because as teachers, we can always try to make our feedback and comments to our students more meaningful to them, which will help to further build student self-confidence with respect to their skills as writers.

Reference:

Conley, A. (July 14, 2014). Nurturing intrinsic motivation and growth mindset in writing. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/intrinsic-motivation-growth-mindset-writing-amy-conley

Ashley Miller says that being an educator means more than just teaching students their daily lessons. It also means developing your students’ self-confidence in their abilities in their academic environment. When students are self-confident, they are better equipped to face the stress of school and college education. Miller lays out some steps that teachers can go through in order to build self-confidence in their students.

1. Provide positive feedback to your students when appropriate.
2. Give only genuine praise. I agree with this point. We want to discourage students from developing extrinsic motivation. DO provide positive feedback to students, but ensure that the comments that you make are meaningful versus saying something like “good job” to a student.
3. Set realistic goals for each student. Personalize each students’ goals to tailor their own capabilities.
4. Use teaching strategies that provide an opportunity for equal participation. For a personal example, in my own practicum classroom, we do a lot of classroom discussions. If I ask a question and I notice that a student who usually does not talk, raises up their hand to answer the question, I will choose that student to allow them to talk and share their idea. Also, I have found that using popsicle sticks with student names on them can be helpful in allowing for equal participation.
5. Create an open, positive environment for learning. Teachers can do this by doing something as simple as calling a student by their name when you ask them a question or giving them credit for trying when they give the wrong answer. The little things matter.
6. Show enthusiasm for the subject you are teaching and for your students’ success. Students will become bored if they sense that you are bored teaching the subject.

Reference:

Miller, A. (October 23, 2015). How to build a student’s self-confidence. Retrieved from http://www.livestrong.com/article/188430-how-to-build-a-students-self-confidence/

Katie Bannon, a 3rd Grade teacher, brings up an important point when building up our students’ self-confidence. She says that teachers should stop saying “no” to students when they get an incorrect answer. Saying phrases such as, “No, you’re wrong” would make a student feel like their ideas are not valued, which would lower their self-confidence. Instead, she suggests that if a student is not getting something right the first time, that you still validate their ideas but that you push them to take their thinking further. Katie stays away from asking yes or no questions and one word answers, in order to help build her students’ thinking. I believe that this is good practice as teachers to stay away from asking these questions – something that I am still working on myself!

Valuing our students ideas and their contributions – even if they are not hitting the mark – is still essential, because we want our students to feel like they are valued and that sharing their ideas is important. If we value our students and their contributions and progress that they are making, just imagine the amount of self-confidence that will be fostered for the student.

Reference:

Bannon, K. (n.d). Saying no to no. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/building-student-confidence

Today’s Wise Wednesday’s post is slightly different from other posts that I have done. In my search, I came across a video on Youtube that is titled, “Believe in Yourself” that I want to discuss because of its wise words. The first half of the video really spoke to me due to several reasons:

1. It emphasizes the importance of having self-confidence and believing in yourself, because once you believe in yourself, you can achieve great things.
2. Building self-confidence and grit will carry you forward throughout your entire life. It will drive you to reach for your goals and it will change how you carry yourself as a person.
3. Everyone goes through phases of having doubts, but the video argues that successful people do not live in those thoughts of doubt. Push through that sense of doubt and trust in yourself that you can handle the difficult situation.

This was such an inspirational video to watch, which was much needed even for myself. I can definitely see myself using this as a resource to teach about self-confidence within older grades especially.

Reference:

Ben Lionel Scott. (Sept. 7, 2014). Believe in yourself. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjZ0KbJcav0.

The title of this article spoke to me right away because I experienced this within my own practicum classroom. I saw students who were completely capable of completing simple tasks one day, to becoming frustrated and saying that they couldn’t do it the next day. Hopefully, you can see the connection between my experience and my inquiry question.  The particular article addresses the question: How do you deal with “feigned incompetence in previously capable, competent children?” To answer this question, the author argues that there are a wide range of explanations for this behaviour. Some students are afraid of failure or they feel that there is a need to maintain an image of effortless perfection to their teacher and classmates. Other students, especially those who suffer from anxiety, feel as if they cannot control the outcomes in their life, so they give up before they begin to avoid disappointment, frustration, or embarrassment. To help combat this, the article suggests that teachers and parents should encourage anxious students to face difficult situations while empowering them to work through their anxiety. Anxious students need to face their fears in order to internalize the belief that they can overcome obstacles and control outcomes.

The trick is to prevent students from developing “learned incompetence”, which is when students act incompetent in order to get help from their teacher. These students know from experience that if they stall or refuse to do something they don’t want to do, someone will eventually do it for them. The trick is to know when to hold back and let students struggle a bit, and when to help out when a task is truly beyond their ability.

Reference:

Lahey, J. (January 13, 2016). When children say ‘I can’t’, but they can, and adults know it. New York Times. Retrieved from http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/01/13/when-children-say-i-cant-but-they-can-and-adults-know-it/?WT.mc_id=2016-KWP-INTL_AUD_DEV&WT.mc_ev=click&ad-keywords=IntlAudDev&kwp_0=101034&_r=0