Growth Mindset, Motivation and Digital Writing

My passion for growth mindset teaching and learning began a few years ago when I read Dr. Carol Dweck's book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.  One of my biggest struggles as a Writer's Workshop teacher is watching my learners who don't like to write.  No matter what I tried, there were always one or
two students who were not motivated to engage fully in the workshop process with the rest of the class.  If I did not have 100% participation, I felt like I had failed. I discovered that my struggling learners may very well have a fixed mindset about writing.  Until they believe and understand they are in a safe environment where mistakes are encouraged, and with hard work and perseverance they can succeed, they can't change from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset about writing.

Last year, I decided to make it my mission to integrate growth mindset teaching into my Writer's Workshop class.  Fortunately, I discovered Mindsets in the Classroom by Mary Cay Ricci early in my journey. Ricci's book was an excellent resource as I began introducing my students to the idea of growth vs fixed mindsets and perseverance. We start each year with personal narratives, so I shared my own story of perseverance and the fear I had of cycling with my family that summer. They had so many questions about my experience. They returned to their notebooks and wrote their own stories of perseverance and couldn't wait to share.

Another way we kicked off our year as growth mindset writers was to decide how we would be "Brave as a Writer this Year in Writer's Workshop?"  We listened to the song Brave by Sarah Bareilles first to get the students excited about the concept. The words to the song have a very powerful message (See my previous post). Each student posted their goal to our Padlet as a reminder and we revisited them often.

One of my favorite, quick, and what I believe to be the most effective growth mindset strategies I used last year, was what I called my "daily dose of growth mindset".  Each day I started workshop with a quote or image on the screen for students as they walked in the room.  It became the topic of conversation each day and the transition to our mini lesson. I especially like the one above for many reasons... but most importantly I can proudly say J.J. Watt attended the Pewaukee School District. This is an example of hard work and perseverance at its best, but in the words of J.J., "rent is due every day".  It motivated us to get to work, and for those who weren't totally motivated, it was hard to argue with J.J. Watt on the board.  I noticed students would push themselves, and each other, a little bit harder than I had seen in past years. I also noticed students using the mindset language in pair shares.  Students would also share and email me quotes or images they found on their own and asked if I would share them with the class. Priceless.  

Mentor texts with a growth mindset message was also a wonderful way to inspire my writers and I could teach my mini lesson in the process.  JoEllen McCarthy has put together a great set of mentor texts to help teachers start their own classroom library. I have used over half of these already in my classroom and my students love them.  Peter and Paul Reynolds Going Places will always be a top pick.  Another must have text in a growth mindset classroom is The Fantastic Elastic Brain by JoAnn Deak, PhD.  It is important for our students to have an understanding of their own brain and how it works.  My writers and I read The Fantastic Elastic Brain together and reflected on how their own brains can stretch and grow. 

Reflecting on growth, celebrating success, and learning from our mistakes was all part of our process this past year in Writer's Workshop.  I had students set growth goals for our Fall conferences and present them to parents.  For our Spring conferences, students created digital portfolios which were completely student-led conferences. When students and I would meet for a conference during workshop, we would end each conference by setting a growth goal for our next meeting. I would make note of it in my Confer app and the student would keep the slip. When we met again, we would check the goal and celebrate the perseverance, or discuss what we needed to work on in order to meet the goal for next time. This strategy worked well because students had the sheet in their binders as an accountability tool and something to work towards.  I also made sure it was an achievable goal that could be measured the next time we met.  Other goals we set were mid-unit growth goals.  These became crucial for me to get a pulse of where my writers were truly at as we moved through our units of study.  It was powerful to watch the improvement in the posts as the year went on.  My students were not only becoming better writers, literary essayists, and journalists, they were able to communicate and reflect their own growth and learning the more time we spent together as a group.  This was true for the celebrations at the end of the units too.   Research-Based Celebration and Reflection   Theme-Based Celebration and Reflection

The group communication, collaboration and support was key to our growth mindset success. Each year in Writer's Workshop I have my students create their own personal learning networks. Their personal learning networks might be students in the class, teachers and parents.  PLN's can be anyone who will support them in their learning journey. My blog on Student PLNs  will share my resources and rationale for this powerful process at all grade levels. The reason why this is crucial for growth mindset is because students need to know they have a support system in place to help them persevere. They also need a group of "like learners" in their PLN who will challenge them.  When you create PLNs, you need to remind students to pick people who will push them and tell them the truth about their work and take the time to help them be better. I will never forget when I was at Teacher's College and Colleen Cruz, author of The Unstoppable Writing Teacher, told me to be "sharp" in one-on-one conferences. She was right. Our students need our honesty about their writing if they are going to improve. Start with a compliment, but then we need to be sharp and teach.

These are just a few of the mindset activities I used with my students last year.  You will find these and many more on my website. I will continue to share as I try new ideas with my students this year.  Mary Cay Ricci also came out with a book of Ready-to-Use Resources for Mindsets in the Classroom, which I highly recommend.

Wanna Hangout? Google Hangouts for Education

I am always looking for ways to create opportunities for my students to experience an audience outside of our classroom. I want them to know that their work will reach a global reader via our blog, Padlets and Google Apps for Education.  The development of our global audience started when I joined Twitter. My students loved reading the comments from other students, educators and famous authors. These connections gave us valuable feedback and we enjoyed building relationships with new digital learners and adding them to our PLN (Personal Learning Networks).

We enjoyed connecting through our writing, but we wanted more. Who were these people, really? What did they look like? What was their classroom and school like? So many questions. My class is a group who likes to talk, a lot! I am amazed by the conversations they have during book clubs, conferences, pair shares and strategy groups during Reader's and Writer's Workshop. They want to talk to their new friends in their global PLN. Honestly, so did I. I decided to look for opportunities to connect with our buddy classes via Google Hangout.
Two years ago my students had a Google Hangout with Adam from Google about 1:1 Chromebooks.

Merton was one of 3 districts in the country that implemented the first round of available Chromebooks. My students shared with Adam what they liked about the Chromebooks, and what concerns they had. Adam shared some troubleshooting suggestions and gave them a "sneak-peak" into what was coming next for some of the tools, like Google Presentation. My students left that Hangout inspired and knew that they were part of the future of Chromebooks for Education.

Our first Hangout this year was with Steve Pratt's 6th Grade class. We connected for Digital Learning Day via our blogs. We both did comic web site review blog posts and had our students comment on each other's posts. We decided to have our students meet via Hangout. I set up a Padlet for Mr. Pratt's class so they could prepare some questions ahead of time so we would be prepared for our Hangout. On the day of the Hangout, my students were so excited. I projected the Hangout and we dialed Mr. Pratt. When his face appeared on the screen, my students screamed and jumped out of their seats. Mr. Pratt and I gave the students a few minutes to chat and just enjoy the new experience. Next, they started asking each other questions about their classroom, school, and learning opportunities. Finally, it was time to say good bye. We ended our Hangout and my class and I reflected on the experience.

Our next Hangout was for World Read Aloud Day on March 5th. Jill Barnes and I connected a few years ago on Twitter and our students have been blogging together. We are always looking for exciting, innovative ways to connect our readers/writers. We decided Google Hangout would be the perfect way to have our students read aloud to their PLN's on this important day. It was a wonderful collaboration. We finally "met" each other digitally, and celebrated the right to read and share our stories.

Our most recent Hangout was for our Passion Projects. I was introducing Passion Projects for the first time this year, so I decided to contact my friend and expert, Paul Solarz. Paul and his students have been working on Passion Projects all year, so I knew they could give my students some advice to get started and help them form their own essential questions. Paul's students were so helpful. I requested that Paul's students post advice to our Padlet so we had some direction before our Hangout. We wanted to make sure our time with Paul's students was valuable and we asked important questions that would help us with the next steps of our project. This Hangout was different than the others because it was a project think tank session. One class shared their knowledge and excitement about a topic while the other group took notes and asked questions. The collaboration and communication between the students was so energizing, and they just met! This motivated my students to dive in and get started on their projects. I know that I could not have created this experience myself. This was the result of Paul, his extraordinary learners, and Google Hangout.

Student PLNs

If you are reading this blog, it means you are probably part of my PLN (Personal Learning Network), and for that I thank you.  As educators we should all have people to learn from on a regular basis.  We need a network of like-minded professionals to challenge our thinking and heighten our professional experience.  These can be co-workers and colleagues in our buildings, but I am sure you are reading this via Twitter, which means you are plugged into a broader global community of learners and know the potential of connecting digitally.  Since personal learning networks can include anyone who you trust to support your learning and make you better, shouldn’t we encourage our students to develop their own personal learning networks so they can experience the same benefits?
  I decided to apply this idea to Writer’s Workshop last year.  We were doing daily conferring and pair shares, but students really wanted to meet with me every day.  I explained to them I was only one perspective.  I introduced PLNs and told them about mine, locally and globally. I shared the importance of trust with PLNs.  I gave an example of how I would create a new workshop or blog and I would ask Mrs. Heizman and Mrs. Kasprowicz to critique it.  They are dear friends, but I also have great respect for them as professionals.  Mrs. Kasprowicz is a 5th/6th grade teacher, but also a published author.  Mrs. Heizman is our experienced Technology Administrator.  They are also extremely honest and will tell me what they think.  That is an essential part of the learning process if I expect to learn and grow.  

To help my students decide who was already part of their learning network, we answered the following questions:

Who helps us learn?
Who really knows us?
Who makes us laugh?
Who pushes us?
Who are our cheerleaders?
Who will be honest?
Who listens to us?
Who do we connect with locally and globally?

They went to work creating their PLN on Google Drawing.  I was happy to see they included me, a few classmates, parents, previous teachers, our current buddy classes, and Mrs. Barnes' class, our blogging buddies from Virginia.  Over the next few weeks in Writer’s Workshop, instead of asking writers to find a partner, I encouraged them to find someone from their PLN for feedback until I was able to confer with them.  They loved the term “professional” and took the responsibility seriously.

I found success with 5th Grade student PLNs, but I wondered if this same idea could be applied to younger students.  I consulted another member of my PLN, Ms. Losik, a 1st grade teacher at Merton Primary School.  Our students had done a few collaborative activities already and were comfortable working with each other. I felt my students were confident with their knowledge of PLNs and they were ready to teach their first grade buddies what a PLN is, and help them create their own so they could start using their network in 1st grade for Writer’s Workshop.  Ms. Losik prepared her students for our visit by talking to her students about their own learning experiences and brainstorming together who helps them at home and school. 

When we finally brought our students together for our PLN pair share/teach activity, the excitement was explosive. They were so proud to share the important, special people in their lives who help them learn. First the 5th graders explained what a PLN is, and shared their Google Drawings of their own PLNs.  Next, 5th Graders assisted their 1st grade buddies to brainstorm their PLN members by asking similar key questions we used to develop our own PLNs.  They wrote the names of the people and drew pictures on a graphic organizer similar to our Google Drawings.  After about 15 minutes, each 5th/1st grade pair presented their PLN.  It was interesting to note that even though these students were different ages, they both valued teachers, classmates and parents in their PLN.

This year my students continue to grow their PLN. They are excited that our blogs have reached new classrooms this year and we have made connections with famous children’s authors. Each TCRWP unit of study has a new element of excitement because the audience is no longer limited to our classroom, but reaches an unlimited global community and Personal Learning Network of their choice.