Opening+Minds+&+Engagement

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**Mindset Sample Units - Teaching Students the Change Mindset**


=**Opening Minds by Peter Johnston**=

**__Chapter One - Choosing Words, Choosing Worlds__**

 * Model making mistakes for students
 * Our language choices have serious consequences for children's learning and for who they become as an individual and community

__**Chapter Two - Learning Worlds: People, Performing, and Learning**__

 * People who view life through dynamic theory think of ability and intelligence as something that can change
 * Students with fixed mindset frame make decisions that limit their likelihood of succeeding the future.
 * Fixed performance frame of mind makes children feel helpless when they run into trouble.
 * We should explicitly teach children how the mind and the brain work

__Chapter Three - Changing Learning Narratives__

 * Turn attention to how students have changed and will change
 * "I'm not good at this YET". Yet is the key word to teach them.
 * An easy way to teach is to link to characters in books to how they change throughout the story and relate it them.
 * Some aspects of class should not be based in change i.e. routines, schedules, job responsibilities
 * Make causal connections. "You did this....so this happened."
 * Press students by asking "How did you do this?" or "How did you come up with that?"
 * __**You are trying to teach students how to teach so that the amount of teaching that occurs in the classroom is expanded because students are teaching each other.**__

__Chapter Four - "Good Job" Feedback, Praise, and Other Response__
__Process Feedback__ vs. __Person Feedback__
 * Person Feedback "I'm disappointed in you." or "You're not good at this." This leads to fixed mindset.
 * Process Feedback = "Maybe you should find another way to do it." This leads to focusing on the process and possibility to change.
 * Gets students into habit of explaining success and failures in terms of strategy use
 * The more process talk that takes place, the more students do it in conversation.


 * Criticism of Praise - Say "Look at how you..." instead of "I like the way you..." Takes emphasis off of judgement. This goes back to the causal relationships. If you do x then y will happen.
 * You can be positive without praising. (see conversation on p.45-46)
 * In dynamic learning, receiving help to find and solve a problem is not a negative.
 * The purpose of feedback is to improve conceptual understanding or increase strategic options while developing stamina, resilience, motivation...expanding the vision of what is possible and how to get there.
 * Praise for criticism - He says there is nothing wrong with criticizing the idea when taking part in group talk. It leads to more creative ideas.

=__Chapter Five - "Any Other Ways to Think About That?" Inquiry, Dialogue, Uncertainty, and Difference__=


 * Johnston pushes towards a "Dialogic Classroom" where there are lots of open ended exchanges between students
 * This involves teachers staying out of a controlling position.


 * Students should see conversations with peers as collaborative inquiry. To do this they should use language like //maybe, perhaps, could be...//
 * Basically you are encouraging UNCERTAINTY with students instead of just facts. Show them it's okay to have alternate versions or ideas. Publicly acknowledge positively when students show comfort with uncertainty.
 * "Seizing and Freezing" is where people develop an opinion about something and are stuck to it and won't consider changing it.
 * (I always think of talking to my friends about public education. When they want to banter with me, I always preface the discussion with, "Now...I'll talk to you about school and education, but are you going to have an open mind to what I say?" I quit trying to defend public education to some people because no matter what you say, they are going to have a negative view. They are "seizing and freezing" and aren't open to new ideas. We need to foster a more dynamic approach with our students to where they realize that although they have an opinion...others do too, and something isn't just right or wrong.)

Good example of student dialogue... "//I disagree with Shirley// because //[provides evidence] and I agree with Jack and Gordon// because //[makes an observation], and [another observation]..// .So //[offers hypothesis] because [another observation]// But //[another observation].//

In this quotation, the red words show how the student attended to other perspectives and evidence, hypothesized about it, and synthesized his own conclusion. You can't teach this directly. Students must have dialogue to strive for an explanation to integrate knowledge. this is powerful.

=__Chapter Six - "Social Imagination"__=


 * The problem with teaching social skills is SO MUCH OF IT HAPPENS INSIDE THE HEAD. This is why, as teachers, we need to teach thinking and what's going on inside the head. Not just our own heads, but also the heads of others. Mindreading.
 * We need to turn students attention to social cues
 * Eventually we want to foster __social reasoning__
 * Children with well developed social imaginations have more positive social skills. They are friendlier, warmer, altruistic, and attentive to others needs. (Maybe this is why home schooled students often have trouble socially. Haven't had the necessary dialogue in social settings.)
 * We need to engage them in this type of talk. Can help with behavior as well. I liked the quote about how students with bad social imaginations will think that a student who accidentally bumps their chair has done it with hostile intent.
 * Choosing books with emotional tensions and conflicts invite conversations about feelings, motives, beliefs.
 * Insist students articulate their problems and feelings.
 * Teachers whose social imaginations are well developed will foster this with their students.


 * The best thing about this book I'm thinking is that these are strategies that can just be woven into the daily teaching practice. It is not a program, or something that takes time to prepare. It is a mindset that you will make a conscious effort into encouraging this dialogue. **

=__**Chapter Seven - "Moral Agency, Moral Development, and Civic Engagement"**__=


 * This chapter focuses on developing moral agency through discussion and interaction in the classroom. By moral agency, they mean the ability to be empathetic to other people's thoughts, ideas, and feelings.
 * One way to do this is through discussions of fairness (ex. was it fair that Thomas Jefferson had slaves?)
 * Building social imaginations develop this capacity for students to be fair.
 * Need to remember cultural differences in social logic. (Americans don't value "duties" because they impede on personal choice whereas in India people aspire to doing their "duty". It is satisfying).
 * Teacher responses to students should be framed as requests with logic behind them. Instead of saying "Stop that!" you should say "That is distracting to me, so can you please stop?". The logic strengthens the relationship.
 * This is useful in discipline. If you point out positive consequences of prosocial behavior will be more effective. (This is the idea behind PBIS)
 * Rewards increase pro-social behavior in the short term, but it wears off. Better to build moral agency.
 * Study is mentioned where students were taught moral agency in two ways. One is through direct instruction (teacher preaching it) and the other was through collaborative teaching and planning with students and teachers being partners. Students were followed for 40 years and the ones who were taught moral agency the collaborative way ended up being better students (and basically better people).
 * This is why it is important in early elementary we teach these social skills such as moral agency and fairness.
 * Use disagreements with students as an opportunity to examine assumptions and become morally engaged. They will enjoy this more than being told what to do in an authoritarian way. They should still follow rules, but enable them to examine their own beliefs.

=__Chapter Eight - Thinking Together, Working Together__=


 * Multiple minds working together is more powerful than just one.
 * Just because students are in groups does mean they are thinking collaboratively in a productive way. They could be individualizing their thoughts in a group, rather than working together to solve problems.
 * Teachers need to teach this collaborative thinking process and how to make their thinking available for others to use. This eventually creates smarter students because they use each others ideas and it improves their individual skills.
 * Once students start using a strategy in discussion (like giving evidence) it snowballs and becomes common practice.
 * Students need to learn to appreciate listening to others opinions. As teachers we need to ensure they are actually listening. Turn and talk is not just turn and talk. It's actually listening. We need to check in on students to make sure they are understanding what others are saying. "What did ... say? Is that right? Is that what you said?"
 * We really need to value turn and talks as building conversations. Different ideas are good.
 * Teachers need to arrange for students to have these opportunities.
 * The group (students) should develop norms for what a productive conversation is. Not just given to them by teacher. Because they come up with their own, they may be different, but should have some common themes.
 * Responsible for supplying logic and evidence for their ideas
 * Everyone gets a chance to talk
 * We expect everyone to participate
 * We want them to value productive conversation because it is beneficial to everyone involved. We need to stress that the group is combining thinking to arrive at a conclusion. With more participation and listening, the likelihood of success is greater.

=__**Chapter Nine - Choice Worlds**__=


 * Again, the idea that we should be teaching students to be teachers and develop moral agency. It may not mean much in one class but compounds itself over the course of 8 to 12 years of schooling if everyone is on the same page.
 * Unfortunately, the school reform era and standardized testing has educators focused on the individual students. The thought is we need this for them to be economically productive. Johnston however argues that the more important role of schools should be to develop well rounded, morally sound, collaboratively thinking students who promote democratic ideals. Happy students will be happy adults and will be productive.
 * Johnston says the fact that students are thinking through social problems and their school lives should be more celebrated than test scores.
 * This does not mean to ignore academic goals, but that they should be taught in conjunction with moral agency and collaboration in a synergistic manner.
 * The focus should not just be on making meaning, but making meaning to do productive things.
 * The adult should not be the only teacher in the room.