What does Grit have to do with it?

1. What does Grit have to do with it? Classroom and program team conversations about our practice, the Common Core, and the children we teach January 22, 2014

2. Learning Targets for This Meeting from SWOT Effective teams • Effective structures so that all voices are heard Shared knowledge & pride • On-going professional development about the field specific to our student population infused into all meetings And, continue our sharing of bright spots

3. Agenda • Paseo (energizer and introduce topic) • Where did the Common Core come from and what does it have to do with us? • What does grit have to do with it? • Instructional strategies from our practice (Speaking and Listening Standards) (teaming and shared pride) • Instructional strategies from our practice (Reading Standards)(teaming and shared pride) • Social Emotional Learning—grit and growth mindset • Share out/take an idea away

4. The Paseo • A traditional Sunday afternoon stroll in the plaza • A way for members of a community to begin to get to know each other, or reconnect, quickly • A method of energizing a group and introducing a topic

5. What does Grit have to do with it?

7. Smart is something you can get.

8. Fixed Mindset vs. Growth Mindset The fixed mindset creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over. • If you have only a certain amount of intelligence, personality and moral character, then you’d better prove you have a healthy dose of these. The growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts. • Although everyone may differ in every way…everyone can change and grow through application and experience.

9. Growth Mindset Assumptions: • Innate ability explains only part of learning and achievement. • Intelligence is not fixed. • Intelligence grows incrementally and is influenced by expectations, confidence and effective effort. • Effective effort=working hard and smart (using effective strategies)

10. Fixed Mindset • Assumptions: • Intelligence is a “thing.” • Intelligence is innate and fixed. • Intelligence is measurable and is unevenly distributed. • Innate ability determines learning and achievement.

11. Alfred Binet “A few modern philosophers…assert that an individuals’ intelligence is a fixed quantity, a quantity which cannot be increased. We must protest and react against this brutal pessimism… With practice, training, and above all, method, we manage to increase our attention, our memory, our judgment… and literally become more intelligent than we were before.” Binet co-authored the IQ test.

12. Self reflection • What is your story?

13. Students • How do you see fixed mindset playing out in your work? How does it affect the behavior of adults and/or students around you? • How do the concepts of grit and fixed ability relate to our students? • How do the beliefs we have about students play out in Common Core implementation?

14. CALVIN AND HOBBES by Bill Watterson

15. Common Core? • Requested by Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and National Governor’s Association (NGA). • Developed by Achieve and others, including College Board. • Primarily back mapped from skills needed in college and career rather than a variety of other ways standards have been built (current practice, developmental stages, national standards of organizations such as IRA, NCTE, or NCTM). • Each state (45 at this point) adopted them independently.

16. Folks don’t LIke folks Like • ELA’s theoretical foundation is old-fashioned and not based on contemporary theory (more “New Critical” than “Reader Response”) • Some find too little value on narrative text • Math has limited topics in elementary • Implementation of standards, and assessments has been too fast • Some people think they are too rigorous; some people think they aren’t rigorous enough • Fewer, clearer, higher • Consistency across states • Strong relationship to real-world applications • Anchor Standards in ELA provide consistency across grades and elegant organization

17. What did the Regents Do Yesterday? • Reduced the penalty for students by extended the date at which students will have to achieve college and career ready scores on high school exams until 2022. • Allowed districts to choose not to participate in the data portal and continue to accept RTTT funds • Promised to consider slowing down any possible consequence to teachers • Allowed the old geometry exam (not Common Core aligned) to be offered for an additional year (this was expected and is similar to other exams) • Said they will require SED to include in its waiver application a provision to allow students with disabilities (who are not alternately assessed) to take assessments at their instructional level rather than Grade/age level • Attempted to assign blame for over testing of students to districts, emphasized that required testing take less than 1% of student time and made unclear requirements on testing for students in grades K-2 that are unlikely to have any impact on students who are alternately assessed

20. What does the Common Core offer Pines Bridge and Sunshine so far?—Let’s find out • A slice of the standards • Related effective instructional strategies—what helped your student make effective Effort toward the standards • Three rounds • Speaking and Listening • Reading • Impacts on mindset and grit (positive and negative)

21. Effective Instruction

22. Social and Emotional IMpacts