Setting the Foundation

“Don’t smile until Christmas” is an outdated phrase I actually heard my first years teaching.  While that would never be our personalities, the sentiment was you had to start your class off with the tone that would establish the type of environment you wanted to have for the year.  Being that many of our learners have not experienced a personalized learning environment, we take the first three full blocks to establish a foundation from which to build on.  Day one is about getting to know our stories, day two is focused on mindset, and day three ideal self and ideal classroom.

Part of moving from a group to a team begins with learning one another’s stories.  This is an ongoing process but one of our goals is to broaden our learners’ perspectives and help establish a deeper empathy for others.  Hearing one another’s story is one way to achieve this goal.  Learners begin the year completing a survey that will later help those individuals develop a learner profile (stayed tuned for a learner profile blog entry).  After introductions, learners quiz each other to demonstrate the value of listening vs hearing.  Finally, we end the first day by sharing our stories (Tricia’s story, Kaela’s story).  We emphasize how our culture has shaped us and our passions have driven us.  Then we talk about how becoming mothers made us better teachers.  We observe how unique each of our own children are and how different they approach life and learning.  We could never parent each of our children the same, so why should we expect all learners to learn in the same way?        

Reading the book Mindset by Carol S. Dweck, changed the language we use not only with our students but also with our children.  Our feedback is always focused on the effort and development vs the end result.  Anytime a student utters a phrase like, “I can’t write thesis statements” or “I am not a good writer” we point out that is an example of a fixed mindset and ask them to rephrase with “I am still working on knowing how to write a good thesis” and “I need to develop my writing skills.”  To lay this foundation in our class we begin by having learners test their mindsets, than discuss the difference between a fixed and growth mindset.  The results reflect messages they have received both explicit and implicit.  For example, “You are not much of an artist...” or not seeing your artwork hung up by the teacher, may result in a fixed mindset for child regarding art. We ask learners to reflect on areas where they have a fixed mindset so they approach it differently, by allowing for more time and referring to resources for extra help when needed. Then we draw our attention to what it means to have a growth mindset and how that creates a love of learning.  You can view Kaela explaining growth mindset to learners by clicking here. 



exit card student responses to essential question

We transition the importance of having a growth mindset to illustrating how standards based instruction lends itself to personalize learning.  To simulate the need for personalized learning we have students view a young boy playing the ukulele and ask them to reflect on whether or not he is below, meets or exceeds the standard of “Be able to play the ukulele while singing a song in tune, using correct words and have a positive stage presence.”   

See the ukulele video here and our conversation that followed:  View Tricia’s class discussion

To the left, is the visual we share with learners to explain how they will all meet the standards, but how they get there may look different.  If they already are meeting the standard they need to be challenged.  Challenge does not mean "more" it means more in depth.  

These pictures summarize our third and final day of setting the foundation where learners create ideal self trees and set class norms. 
Links:  Ideal-Self Tree Template and Learner Example 

ideal-self exercise with students

quotes students choose to represent their idea self

student sign the board after writing class norms

Stay tuned for a blog post on how we are using culturally responsive strategies to engage, motivate, and validate learners as well as how we help each of them create "personal learning profiles".  Please comment to share how you establish a foundation of learning in your work with kids.