As I reflect on my blog posts over the past five weeks I realized that I have grown a lot. Why do I think this? Well, I think back to my very first course in the Digital Learning and Leading Program when we had to learn about the growth mindset and read Carol Dweck’s book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. This book taught me the difference between two different mindsets: a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset. Watch my PowToon video, Power of a Growth Mindset, which I created to express my understanding. I realized back then I had mostly a fixed mindset, but understood that I could learn anything if I put my mind to it and that I was not born with the abilities that I will have the rest of my life. However, I say I understood because understanding versus believing it and taking action is a much different story. So back to where I am today… I’m at the end of my fifth course within my master’s program and boy have I come a long way. I’ve really opened up my mind to really make my innovation plan, a flipped classroom model, work within my classroom. I had to make some changes within myself first as the classroom environment for a flipped model had students out of their seats, accessing books, worksheets, iPads, answer keys, and other students for knowledge and this is much different than what I’m used to. A flipped classroom appears to be chaotic, loud, and messy at times but the collaboration that is happening is phenomenal and this is something I had to witness to really let go. So I had to evolve to this new environment and it really is great now that I’ve been doing it for several months. With all of that said I have more of a growth mindset now as I’ve gone through this process. I’ve had to experience this first hand to really believe that I can develop this different mindset being that we live mostly within a fixed mindset setting. Many of you may already know that I teach math and math is a subject that students, teachers, parents, and many others state that they are not good at math and I’m never going to be good at math or that is why my child is not good at math… blah, blah, blah. I really hate this statement/comment that people make about math and as a math teacher I hear it a lot. My peers, co-workers (non-math teachers) parents, and or my students feel that I need to know this once they know I teach math. Math skills are not something one is born with, however math may not be your favorite subject in school, and that is okay, but you can learn it and explore it fully just like the next guy. It all boils down to how YOU respond… allow yourself to do it because you can! So as I reflect on my student’s growth this school year I’ve seen lots of growth and coincidentally increased confidence with their math skills. This makes me think of this one child that I’ve seen tremendous growth in that I’d like to share. This student was not good in math and has not been good in math throughout all of grade school up till now, 6th grade. So exciting to say this… up till now!! Thankful for him he had family and a teacher that really wanted him to learn this and be successful and overcome his fear of math. This student struggled in math, as I stated, and wouldn’t watch his video lessons because he had the mindset that he wasn’t going to get it so why waist his time. He would just do what he had to do for the grade, check for understanding mini quiz, and he really didn’t care what grade it was but he did it so he wouldn’t get in trouble. This would give him the fire power to tell his parents or me for that matter that he wasn’t good in math stating “look at my grades”. However, I would NEVER agree to that statement and would pull up how long it took him to do the assessment and it would show 1 minute so that would be my fire power that he didn’t even watch the video and that is why his score was low. Thankfully, because of my weekly communication, newsletter, the family reached out to me wanting to meet to discuss more in depth the flipped classroom model and what they could do to help him at home. He was on the verge of failing 6th grade math at the rate he was going. So, I highly encouraged that when we meet that the student would be in attendance too so he can take ownership in his learning and we can prove to him that he can do it. Fast forward to today, this student is doing amazing with the support of grandma at home and me at school. He is staying on top of all his lessons and REALLY learning them and he is taking notes while watching the lessons and is engaging others in the classroom AND he is going back to former lessons to fill in the gaps in his learning. He is doing some of this all on his own and as an 11 year old boy I am just tickled pink. He knows that he can do it now and he is doing it!! He comes in each day to tell me what else he has done or learned is music to my ears. This wouldn’t be possible without the significant learning environment, flipped classroom, which I created allowing him to go back whenever he wants to relook at past lessons that he missed out on when they were originally taught. I’m just here watching this happen as he is taking the ownership of his learning into his own hands and is excelling. I’m just on the sidelines being his biggest cheerleader jumping with glee!! References
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Jill HobbsMatthew 6:34 'Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.' Archives
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