{"id":369,"date":"2016-03-31T01:25:23","date_gmt":"2016-03-31T01:25:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/lesliemcbeth\/?p=369"},"modified":"2016-03-31T02:39:08","modified_gmt":"2016-03-31T02:39:08","slug":"can-mindsets-be-contagious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/lesliemcbeth\/2016\/03\/31\/can-mindsets-be-contagious\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Mindsets Be Contagious?"},"content":{"rendered":"

My <\/span>last post about<\/span><\/a> Jay Atwood\u2019s presentation on finding your \u201chedgehog\u201d has led me to think about how much my own strengths and passions were taught to me, and how much of it is simply innately part of my own mindset. I am open to learning as I go, trying new things and not being afraid to fail because I have creative confidence and a growth mindset. Did I learn that mindset in school? Did it come from my parents? Or is it simply an innate part of who I am? Can I teach this to my students by just modeling behaviour? \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How might we encourage students to dive into problems when they don\u2019t know all the answers; to look at problems as opportunities to help other people; and to be fearless in the face of failure?<\/span><\/p>\n

There are tons of resources and research on this topic. I\u2019ve read the work of <\/span>Carol Dweck<\/span><\/a> on Growth Mindset, watched <\/span>TED Talks<\/span><\/a> by Angela Lee Duckworth on Grit and even had my students try <\/span>WOOPing<\/span><\/a> after learning about the work of Gabriele Oettingen. And over the years, I\u2019ve tried to develop these ideas into practical methods <\/span>in my classroom<\/span><\/a>. At Greenwood, we refer to all of this as Intellectual Character, and it is one of the pillars of our work as teachers. According to David Light Shields:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"IMG_1435In the teaching of every explicit curriculum, there is an implicit curriculum. When teaching is focused on transmitting facts, training in discrete skills, and preparing for tests, students are implicitly taught that the content itself is most important. When the content is taught in a more inductive, open, exploratory manner, when the teacher models and encourages inquiry, open-mindedness, critical thinking, and curiosity, then intellectual character can be developed along with content knowledge (Shields, \u201c<\/span><\/i>Character as the Aim of Education<\/span><\/i><\/a>\u201d, 50).<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Over the past five years, I\u2019ve been developing courses built on a framework of Design Thinking + Project Based Learning + Place Based Learning. Each year I have learned something new from the experience and iterated on the project from year to year. Here is what I have learned so far:<\/p>\n

Structured Thinking Leads to Creative Freedom<\/b><\/p>\n

Each year, my grade 11 students take on a design thinking challenge that seeks to address sustainability within our food system. The students start by learning about the design of our food system from a variety of perspectives. We watch <\/span>documentary films<\/span><\/a> about farmers, interview other students, work with students at Humber College to learn about design, and read authors like <\/span>Michael Polllan<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"Learning

Learning design and building techniques alongside students at Humber College.<\/p><\/div>\n

The students begin to understand that there are many complex problems that need to be solved within our food system, from pesticide use to obesity and food deserts.<\/p>\n

They then target one user within the food system: it could be a young family on social assistance or a college student living in a dorm. Some have chosen to work from the farmer\u2019s perspective, others from the food distribution point of view. They develop a profile for their user, and do their best to get some actual, first hand feedback from these users.<\/p>\n

Next the students work through a series of <\/span>prompts<\/span><\/a> that require them to think deeply about the root of their problem. Students move from statements like: \u201cMy problem is that organic food is too expensive\u201d to \u201cHow might we lower transportation costs for small, independent farmers?\u201d \u00a0Or \u201cMy problem is that Canadians must rely on imported food for most of the year\u201d to \u201cHow might we provide sustainable, locally grown food to communities in Canada\u2019s Northern Territories, year round?\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

I added this highly structured process of refining the problem to the project this year, using an activity from <\/span>Stanford\u2019s d.school<\/span><\/a>. As a result, student\u2019s creative approaches to the solutions showed more variety in both scope and product than ever before. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A Mindshift for Students And Teachers<\/b><\/p>\n

This type of project is new for students. Instead of the teacher telling them: \u201cYou need to know X, and you\u2019re going to produce Y to show me that you know X\u201d I say to them \u201cYou tell me: what is the problem and how are you going to solve it?\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Naturally, some students struggle with this at first. They want to know how to be successful. I provide success criteria based on their process, thinking skills, research and application, but there <\/span>is no one right answer. <\/span><\/i>This is a challenge for some students, especially those who figured out <\/span>how to get good marks<\/span><\/a> by memorizing right answers. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"IMG_2012\"<\/span><\/a>And more importantly, as the teacher I don\u2019t always know the answers. I learn alongside them, figuring things out at we go. I can\u2019t count the number of times a student has asked me a question to which I answered \u201cI have no idea.\u201d But, then with a little research and some trial and error, we figure it out. For example, four years ago, a student came to me and said \u201cI want to build a\u00a0<\/span>hydroponic garden<\/span><\/a> for my solution.\u201d I had exactly zero experience in hydroponics. In fact, I am a borderline house plant serial killer. But I called a couple friends, paid a visit to a local hydroponics store and set to work with my student, building a hydroponic farm and flooding the classroom several times along the way. The hydroponic garden caught on the following year and led to aquaponics and incorporating LED lights. Now, we are working with a grade 5 computational thinking class in Germany to develop computer programs to control our systems. Why not? \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The point is, although we struggle at first, students soon begin to take ownership over their projects and the class becomes about them and their projects, not about me or what I have to tell them. We arrive in class and before I can even give any instructions, the students set to work on their projects. This project lasts six weeks, and after the first few classes of structured design thinking methods, I don\u2019t make a single lesson plan. I can\u2019t possibly plan where they are going next and they are all going in different directions. Instead, I spend my time hopping around from student to student, helping to troubleshoot, pushing them forward, giving them resources, encouraging them to think deeper or differently, and reminding them to reflect on their work. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Keys To Success<\/b><\/p>\n

Over the years, I have discovered a few things that help to create a successful design thinking, project based learning endeavour: <\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Be transparent.<\/b> If you don\u2019t know something, just say so. The students will see that you don\u2019t have to know exactly how to do something in order to figure it out and they begin to see trail and error as a process, rather than focusing so much on getting things exactly right the first time. <\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Talk openly about the mindsets.<\/b> These videos on <\/span>DesignKit.org<\/span><\/a>, are a great place to start. For the first couple weeks of this project, I started each class with one of these videos and had students share their reactions on a padlet<\/a>. Tell them that they are allowed to fail. In fact, I tell my students that if they don\u2019t fail at least once during this project, they are probably doing it wrong. <\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Talk about how this approach is different than what they are used to, and tell them why you are doing it<\/b>. This was a big revelation to me. At first, I thought that I should just dive into teaching this way and for some reason not explain why I was taking this approach to teaching. But, I have found that the more I tell my students about my pedagogical approach, the more they get on board. \u00a0I\u2019ve shown them videos by <\/span>Sir Ken Robinson<\/span><\/a>, had them read articles by <\/span>Tony Wagner<\/span><\/a>, and shared my own <\/span>research and blog posts<\/span><\/a> with them. They begin to see themselves as pioneers in education alongside me, rather than just passive passengers along for the ride on one of Ms. McBeth\u2019s crazy experiments.<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Let them fail.<\/b> Sometimes, it\u2019s hard to watch a student try something that you know isn\u2019t going to work. Our instinct is to jump in and tell them that there\u2019s a better way. But, by intervening we do three things: <\/span>\n