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The Myth of 'I'm Bad at Math' [by Miles Kimball & Noah Smith for The Atlantic]
According to Kimball and Smith, the notion of genetically predestined math ability is the "mental bogeyman of an unconfident America." The authors assert that debunking this myth is a social justice imperative. They provide common sense solutions based on growth mindset research that emphasize hard work and practice, plus "one American-style idea for making kids smarter: treat people who work hard at learning as heroes and role models. We already venerate sports heroes who make up for lack of talent through persistence and grit; why should our educational culture be any different?"
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Giving Good Praise to Girls: What Messages Stick | MindShift
A discussion of the growth mindset philosophy and Carol Dweck's research, as it relates specifically to the gender gap in STEM learning: "Dweck’s research, which focuses on what makes people seek challenging tasks, persist through difficulty and do well over time, has shown that many girls believe their abilities are fixed, that individuals are born with gifts and can’t change. Her research finds that when girls think this way, they often give up, rather than persisting through difficulties. They don’t think they possess the ability to improve, and nowhere is the phenomenon stronger than in math."
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Promoting a growth mindset for all students [from SmartBlogs]
Allowing failure, easing up on time frames, encouraging practice, and praising hard work are all things that teachers can do to promote the "growth mindset." However, more substantive -- and radical -- change is needed, beginning with questioning our national obsession with achievement tests: "Effective teachers don’t need standardized test results to teach individual students. They have easier and more direct ways of determining what a student knows or doesn’t know. Observing and talking to students is the best way of knowing why they are not learning. Student learning improves as teachers discover more effective ways of teaching through their daily interactions with students."
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Do You have the Personality To Be an Inquiry-Based Teacher? [from MindShift]
Can credentialing programs teach how to be "the guide on the side"? This post suggests that is coming, but what is more important is attracting teacher-learners with a distinct set of personality traits. This is not an issue of training: "Whether students engage, persevere, and open their mind to novel solutions depends on their resiliency, grit, curiosity, creativity, and empathy. Psychologists refer to these as 'personal assets,' but they’re far more mysterious than a bank account, and they don’t originate in a textbook, so how do we teach them?"
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Dreaming of Data: Why K–12 Needs More Analytics [from EdTech Magazine]
The lead is buried in the final paragraph: "'To individualize learning is really to customize learning for each child so he or she has a unique experience that [suits his or her precise] learning needs,' said Valerie Truesdale, chief information and transformation officer for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in North Carolina. 'Technology increases the possibilities for customization.'" Schools don't need big data "dashboards" and development of software. Schools need to development of the evaluation experts -- the teachers.
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
