There were many things that I tried in my class to try to change the attitudes of my students about math. Most of the techniques that I tried came from Jo Boaler’s book, “Mathematical Mindset” and from the website (co-founded by Boaler) called youcubed.
Below is a link to the presentation that I shared with the staff about my action plan:
The four things that worked the best were:
- Educating students about current brain research. I did this by sharing videos from the youcubed website. These videos are very kid-friendly and promote great discussion.
- Addressing negative “fixed” mindset statements. We did this by dissecting negative statements. We then changed them into “growth” mindset statements. For example, “I’m not good at math” to “I can’t do this yet, but I will get it.”
- Using low-floor/high ceiling tasks that enable all students to participate in problem-solving situations.
- Valuing mistakes. We learned to appreciate the mistakes we made. This was liberating because it allowed all of my learners to take risks.
I found that my students were very open to all of these initiatives. They became part of the “norm” in my classroom and we embraced challenges and making mistakes.
Hi Suzanne,
I am impressed by your action plan and addressing sure a important issue. What a great idea to tackle. Did you find that students that already had a “growth” mindset were able to assist the other students or did you have a different task for them. I would like to find out more about the low-floor/high-ceiling tasks you did to problem solving. I am always challenged to find scaffolded problems, or to modify problem solving exercises for all levels of learners.
@snewell Remind me tomorrow to show you how to publish your link so all can see it. Right now your presentation is still not viewable to anyone outside of York. A quick change will solve it.
@snewell Thanks for the link. I just embedded the slide deck into the post. Check it out.