LiLTweeks: How is a master learner created?

The Entity Theorist vs. Incremental Learning

How is mastery created? Do you have a growth mindset?

The lesson I learned this week [LiLTweeks] came from eight times National Chessmaster Champion turned World Tai Chi Push Hands Champion Josh Waitzkin’s book, The Art of Learning. Robert Pirsig couldn’t have said it better, “It will take a furious interruption to make you set this book down.”

Josh’s message is loaded with invaluable life lessons of how one incremental learner journeyed between two competitive sports combining what he learned in deeply reflective observations. I’m slightly biased, because I’m such a big fan of the movie, Searching for Bobby Fisher, based on Josh’s story as a kid, but more than anything I admire his ability to be taught. An effective teacher knows the student learned the lesson because he reflects on the instruction with a strong understanding about what happened and Josh does this very well.

This book left me asking, “Are you teachable, Carter?” followed by, “Do you truly understand how to kick start those neurons, because, you seem to be making repeated mistakes, partner? and “What does this mean regarding my ability to mentor effectively?”

As a K12 teacher for two decades and a student for nearly fifty years, I’ve only been able to dream of easily understanding mastery until sitting at Josh’s literary feet. He has reminded me what it means to wonder with awe during the pursuit of excellence. Josh’s book confirms in very creative storytelling that whether it’s a championship battle or a novice seeking small successes, mastery is accomplished through focused incremental growth processes fortified with performance resilience.

Whether you decide to read Waitzkin’s book or not, you owe it to yourself to learn how being taught as a kid to believe you have something special needed to succeed can be derailed when that special something isn’t enough. There is an alternative. Dr. Carol Dweck, a leading researcher in the field of developmental psychology, calls it entity theory vs. incremental learning. Through focused incremental growth processes fortified with performance resilience, you can pursue and master excellence.

Stay focused. Stay confident. Keep learning and you will win,
Carter | @laroncarter

P.S. LILTweeks is a weekly observation of some problems I’ve encountered and possible actions for resolve. If you have been inspired from this article please leave a comment and consider subscribing to the RSS feed (top right column) to have future post delivered to your feed reader [look for Weekend Post].

Actions to take for having your best year teaching in 2010

Stop inappropriate behaviors, increase parental involvement, and produce better problem solvers. How about, spend more time teaching? Whether you are a new school team player or old school veteran that’s had enough drama for one semester. I might have something that works for you. It’s been a blessing in my life, that’s why I’m paying it forward. Now you can pass it onto those you serve. With one download you can start 2010 on a mission to feel good about SMART classroom goal setting decisions and taking bold actions to produce your best year teaching K12 students!

Uses Google Docs, Sign-in with Facebook or OpenID and click Downdload.

View this document on Scribd

K12 Teachers using Twitter!

Facebook Group K12Live for Teachers using Twitter
http://ping.fm/wr9Fy

K12 Teachers using Twitter!
http://twitter.com/K12Live is a web community based movement that spotlights some of the brightest teachers you know, discovered, or read about the outstanding methods and systems they use to produce win-win results for the students they serve.

Note: K12 Teachers can easily find other teachers at http://search.twitter.com if you use #K12Live when posting on #teachertuesday or #ff (#followfriday) shoutouts.

Here’s how it works:

► Join the group and let us know why you do what you do in the classroom? Why did you choose to work in education? Why did you choose your specialized area? Why did you choose your students or did you? You get the idea.

► Then head over to Twitter and create an account if you haven’t already.

► Each Tuesday or Friday come back and post a spotlight of outstanding K – 12 school employees or parents you work with, it could be someone you recently discovered or never forgot about how they impacted your life as a teacher. Use #K12Live when posting Tweets on #teachertuesday or #ff (#followfriday) shoutouts so that others know the K12 teachers.

► You can link us to a video (highly recommended) of your ‘spotlight friend’. You can point us to a blog or podcast that tells a success story that might inspire others in education to grow beyond the day-to-day challenges that blocks career progress or smashes a student’s passion to dream.

► A Tweet Out lets the entire micro blogosphere know in 140 character spaces that person is a shinning planet in your universe.

Ex. @kchichester rocks the chalkboard inspiring her students to dream big American dreams and never loose hope!http://twurl.nl/2kvitu #K12Live

Ex. @lnicewaner is blogging about the creative solutions of technology in the classroom, she gets it http://twurl.nl/4w5wqd. #K12Live

Ex. @deployedteacher wants you to check out @dogtagsforkids for sending kids dogtags from their parents overseas. Great pride at school #K12Live

► Finally pass this link around to your family and friends so that they can join in on the fun of being celebrated for the hard work they love to do. And encourage them to connect with others from this group. Support may be one of the most valuable keys to managing life’s challenges.

Create a floor plan that flows from your classroom door .

Photo Credit by LizMarie

Welcoming students to a successful and warmly inviting classroom begins with you designing a successful floor plan. You can model great floor plans from mentor teachers that mirror comfortable learning environments, but playing around with various concepts over time is the best way to hone your skills. Here are a few suggestions toward creating a floor plan that flows from your classroom door.

Stressed Out K – 12 Education Series 5.1

Step 1
Remove any obstructive furniture from your entrance. Teachers have the tendency to think that creating a barrier between the hub of classroom activity and the entrance will block out disturbances. Actually entering a blocked classroom entrance from a long and opened hallway or outdoor exit instantly distorts the flow of positive energy. Think of your students being able to finally take deep comforting breaths, from the story told about them in your hallway display to the minute they enter their classroom.

Step 2
Set the stage for routines by thinking about where your station for opening instruction will be located. This station should include an easy way for students to figure out all homework assignments from previous weeks without having to interrupt you from greeting students, passing out graded assignments, or taking attendance. Consider placing the homework station as far away from the entrance as possible so that the flow of movement isn’t broken or bottlenecked [3 ring binders with tabs and pockets work nicely].

Step 3
Supplies for specific task should be a separated by itself whenever possible to prevent congestion near the homework station. Also try to have the placement of those items linear from left to right or visa versa so that students become familiar with assembling routines that reduce time needed to get in and back to their work stations.

Step 4
Assign students to small teams of four and title job responsibilities for efficiency. Some titles to consider are: Project Manager or Timekeeper, Team Coordinator, Distribution Manager, and Team Instructor. You can define the job descriptions as needed the important thing is that students of all ages thrive on opportunities to be responsible and praised for accountability. The key idea in effective floor planning here is to have the Distributor of the group collect and pass out assignments from another area of the classroom to avoid everyone congregating.

Step 5
Having a specific chalkboard or overhead for assignments and daily instructions may sound elementary but it works. Take a photo of an assignment on the board, and a close up of all the stations to use in your substitute teaching notes is sweet. The same picture can be quickly sent to parents by picture mail or Twitpic [http://twitpic.com] so that they are always on top of things easily (see Step 2 of 7 Steps to Becoming an Effective Teacher).

P.S. If you have been inspired from this article please consider leaving a comment and subscribing to the RSS feed (top right column) to have future post delivered to your feed reader. Please send your friends to http://laroncarter.com to connect with me or @laroncarter on Twitter.

Set the Stage for Telling a Story

Photo Credit by Tanjila

Some of the most productive learning environments are those that invite a sense of wonder and imagination. Setting the stage for telling your teaching and learning methods can be initiated right outside the classroom door. Consider frequently rotating student art expressions of various learning processes as part of your hallway Welcome statement. Showcasing the good in students verses only the good students might be the cause of changed behaviors in all your students.

Stressed Out K – 12 Education Series 5.0

Shortly after earning my certification in special education I accepted an assignment at an inner city elementary school. The administrator wanted to hire an educator that not only represented the student’s voice but also would be the voice of under represented students.

Welcome to Success

After studying a few of the student’s background records I learned that a group of three biological brothers genuinely needed a dose of affirmation from an environment that worked overtime spotlighting their failures.

One day I got the bright idea to catch them doing something right even if it was partial. This is how I showcased their success.

Right outside our classroom door I designed cutout-laminated mats in bright colors of 11 X 17 construction paper.

One side of the mat had a 4 X 6 cutout for the student’s picture. Above it was a cutout with enough room for the students name and a great adjective to describe what I saw the student becoming.

The other side of the mat had a cutout approximately 6 X 9 to showcase that student’s work, which had been digitally photographed then reduced or enlarged to fit the space in a professionally displayed presentation.

By cutting out the laminated construction paper you are able to rotate pictures and artwork for each of your students. If at all possible line the corridor entrance to your classroom with spotlights of the students that maybe relying on you to beam them up.

P.S. If you have been inspired from this article please consider leaving a comment and subscribing to the RSS feed (top right column) to have future post delivered to your feed reader. Please send your friends to http://laroncarter.com to connect with me or @laroncarter on Twitter.

7 Steps to Becoming an Effective Teacher

Photo Credit by Just Me

You’ve gone to school, graduated from the college of education, hopefully negotiated more than what they offered you on the union negotiated step level contract, and now you are learning that teaching in K-12 environments aren’t the same classrooms you sat in as a kid. Here are some tips for acquiring effective teacher skill sets so you can reduce the stress and begin teaching with more confidence.

STEP 1
Get you hands on valuable information available from student CA-60 background folders. Documents like IEP’s and medical records provide a snap shot into the student’s academic story as a valuable first source for gathering information. A pit stop to the office several times a week on the way to planning hour or lunch can pay big dividends. You’re a pro, so tap the most obvious info resources before forming a misinformed hypothesis.

STEP 2
Gather current contact information of parents and guardians. You might want to include cell numbers of big brothers and sisters (both siblings and from United Way mentors). Be sure to note phone service carriers, off peak times, and texting plans so that you don’t get screened out unnecessarily. Research shows that many families are more likely to use cell phones as primary phone lines for calling contacts and Internet use so add primary email addresses in your contact list as needed.

STEP 3
Create well-written icebreaker activities. Loosening up the atmosphere not only gets your students connected to each other, but also gives you a starting point for valuable organized intel on your little darlings. Discovering whether a student has a favorite pet that’s sick or has been moving around a lot because of complicated family circumstances will help you more clearly identify classroom problems and develop “how to” solutions.

STEP 4
Do a walk around. The wonderful thing about venturing out into the neighborhoods of your school and meeting the people who live there and work in the retail stores, repair shops, and laundry mats is it gives you an understanding of its culture. You will also find out what works for the community as well as the problems needing to be fixed. Information from the pulse of a community, at ground level, helps to better understand outside issues brought into your classroom.

STEP 5
Make it a rule to contact each parent on your roster at least twice with heart felt positive reports before having to rat a student out. Parents that get regular negative calls from school personnel are a little punchy when seeing the call come in on caller ID. By establishing a genuine service connection with parents, based on trust and credibility, you can easily recruit them as part of your classroom management and support team member for special events.

STEP 6
Create a phone list of highly qualified substitute teachers [from colleagues and secretaries] that are capable of handling your students while you are away from the classroom. Substitutes will always have their work cut out for them, but some will have skill sets that return your students back in one piece and on task to pick up where you left off.

STEP 7
Teach your students to respect substitute teachers before you need to call one in to teach. You may not need a sub often, but incorporating a plan instructing students of proper etiquette practices and consequences establishes standards in your absence that will praise or reprimand behaviors upon your return. The best substitute teachers will want to teach for you if they know you have set them up to succeed.

P.S. If you have been inspired from this article please consider leaving a comment and subscribing to the RSS feed (top right column) to have future post delivered to your feed reader. Please send your friends to http://laroncarter.com to connect with me or @laroncarter on Twitter.

Confident Teaching | Embracing Mission

Photo Credit by Diego Cupolo

“High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation.” Jack Kinder

Stressed Out K – 12 Education Series 3.2

Does It Make Sense?

The purpose of this blog post is to spark internal discussion into the idea of whether or not your mission statement makes sense. The mission statement shouldn’t only sound good; it must applicably address the needs of those you serve, right? If you fall short here you bound to increase your stress levels.

Does It Breathe?

Now just because you have a mission statement that makes sense for all the right reasons, it still may not make sense to those you serve. When a concept or idea is so far removed from the normal life style of those hearing what you have to say, it sounds whack. I’m specifically talking about the part that breathes high expectations into low expected outcomes. You know the win-win stuff champions are made of.

Understanding Mission Framework

Your mission statement isn’t any good to anyone if you don’t believe it. Now by some sort of slick skill sets may be a few will opt in if you’re in the game to get over. Don’t be that teacher just showing up for a paycheck. Everyone loses when a teacher loses focus of the purpose for taking the job. An effective mission statement should be tinseled with questions like:

• How do I want my classroom operation to look?
• How do my students and parents want the program to best serve them?
• How will I set-up safety systems to guard my students mentally, physically, and spiritually?
• What are my student’s strengths that I can expand on?
• How do I know if I’ve clearly identified my student’s challenges?
• What must I do to enhance my life coach and learning skill sets?
• Who are all the players needed to engage my students intellectually?
• Who are my model educators and how do I Get Lock In?
• What is my vision for my student’s exit plan?

As always please comment and share. Has this information help you in any way? Do you need help with constructing your mission statement? Would like to post a display link of your mission statement?

This is a new series called Stressed Out K – 12 Education. Over the next several weeks we will explore classroom issues surrounding special needs, at-risk behaviors, student – teacher and teacher – parent relationships, and much more as it relates to reducing stress created from educational systems, narrow minded thinking of difficult colleagues, and the headaches from someone else’s undisciplined kids.

P.S. If you have been inspired from this article please consider leaving a comment and subscribing to the RSS feed (just below this article) to have future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Then encourage family and friends by sharing this blog address and invite others to subscribe so we get a chance to connect as well. Just send them to https://laroncarter.wordpress.com where they can bookmark or subscribe to the page. Feel free to direct message me on Twitter @laroncarter and @K12Live or connect on http://laroncarter.com.

Copyright © 2009 | LaRon A. Carter “The Guest Teacher”