Continuing our Learning about Mindset

This past November, I blogged about Mindset and how we, both staff and students, are learning about the ideas and implications associated with mindset. I also announced that we are attempting to establish a growth mindset throughout Riverside Elementary School. In her book, Mindsets in the Classroom, Mary Cay Ricci defines growth mindset as a belief system that suggests that one's intelligence can be grown or developed with persistence, effort, and a focus on learning.

In our efforts to establish a growth mindset, certain staff have volunteered to participate in a book study. Beginning in 2015, teachers (including myself) have been reading and reflecting about Mary Cay Ricci's book. Our book study is set-up to allow our reflections to take place via a blog that I've created. 

A screenshot from my computer of our blog to give you a better idea of how we use it and what it looks like

Worth mentioning is that once I set-up our book study blog, I reached-out to Mary Cay Ricci via Twitter to tell her about what we are doing. She has been very kind in connecting with some of our teachers, and contributing by commenting on our blog. In fact, Riverside Elementary School and our book study blog is going to be featured in chapter five of her follow-up book Ready-to-Use Resources for Mindsets in the Classroom: Everything Teachers Need for Classroom Success scheduled to be released July 2015.

I could not be more pleased with the learning that has and continues to take place through our book study blog.

As a result, we have continued this learning for all teachers and students. Last week, Ms. DeLacy, our school counselor, and myself delivered additional mindset professional development for our teachers. At the end of our session, we solicited feedback from teachers regarding their input for next steps of our mindset learning. Some of the really great ideas that we will now plan include:

• creating and sharing a common mindset vocabulary and definitions for staff, students, and parents to use
• creating and sharing a shared mindset resources page containing titles and links to books, articles, video clips, websites, etc.
• and gauging interest in the possibility of a setting-up a book study of Carol Dweck's Mindset via blog for parents, and/or hosting a mindset night for families at Riverside Elementary School

Michael Jordan's "Failure" Nike Commercial

If you looked closely at my screenshot, above, you'll notice that it referenced Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan is considered by many to be the greatest basketball player that's ever lived. He wasn't perfect, however. In fact, like he says, he's failed over and over again. But Michael Jordan uses his failures to his advantage. He learns from his failures and is motivated by his failures to succeed the next time. That is why Michael Jordan is symbolic of the growth mindset.