March 1, 2017

   

Educational Excellence

Growth Mindset

The first step in helping students have a growth mindset…guess what.... YOU are already doing it! Nurtured Heart has taught us that specific praise and proactive recognition is crucial in teaching students exactly what they are doing right and verifies that they are following your expectations.  Remember the “junk food” analogy?  Saying, “you are doing a good job” doesn’t give the student enough information on what they are doing right.  The Growth Mindset also says that “educators must be more aware of the way we praise students if we are journeying down the path of growth mindset school culture”.  Praise such as “you’re so smart” could be detrimental for students who hold a fixed belief about intelligence.  Saying “you’re so smart” is the equivalent of saying “you’re so tall”-what did the child have to do with being tall?  It is just a generic trait that the child had no control over.  Both praise statements recognize no action that the child has put forth.  No effort is recognized.  Instead a teacher might say, “You did a great job on that paper. I can tell you worked very hard”.  Modifying or adding effort to praise is all it takes to send a growth mindset message.

So….take your nurture heart language and expand it beyond behavior recognition and start adding it to your language of recognition of effort in academics.  When adults praise actions or tasks that children “do,” the children attribute accomplishment to their own effort.

Intentional Instruction

Collaborative Community

*Staff Shout Outs* 
If you would like to recognize a colleague for something outstanding, please send the information in an email to Hailey for the next published blog.  

CONGRATULATIONS
 'LIESE ALTENDORF, PAM MUDDIMAN, NANCY WOOD, & CATHY BIRDEN FOR BEING RECOGNIZED THIS YEAR AS THE TEACHER OF THE YEAR AND OUTSTANDING EMPLOYEES OF THE YEAR!  

Special Recognition for Mrs. Altendorf, Mrs. Barthelemy, Mrs. Keith, Mrs. Brown, Mr. Austin and Mrs. Lenard.

These fantastic group of educators are successfully and “effortlessly” demonstrating our core values. 

Great work in supporting PE with their hoedown!