Educational Psychology Blog- Julia Bordelon

     Chapter 9, "Increasing Engagement" in The Growth Mindset Playbook talks about how to, as the title says, increase engagement in the classroom. In order to increase classroom engagement amongst students, one must be passionate about what they are teaching, they must allow for individuality amongst the students and their work, and they have to have a good mixture of fun and foundation. In a classroom that just involves PowerPoints, notetaking, and class lectures, it often doesn't foster engagement within the students. A classroom that involves a variety of learning styles and where the teacher is passionate about what they are teaching, as well as one that encourages creativity, are the classrooms in which students are the most engaged in. Page 125 exclaims "The most effective teachers were not the ones who taught the most content, but rather the ones who helped students acquire the mindset of someone in the discipline." As this chapter explains, it isn'...

     Chapter 8, Fostering a Happy, Collaborative Classroom , talks all about the overall environment one has in their classroom and how that can alter the success and attitudes of the students. This chapter starts off by referencing an experiment with chickens conducted by William Muir, a genetic professor and researcher at Purdue University, where the most productive chickens in the flock were picked out and placed in their own individual group while the rest of the chickens were in a separate group. The thought was that placing all the most productive chickens in one group will essentially create a "superchicken" group that would be more productive than the group of all the chickens. At the end of the experiment, however, the result was that the most productive chickens kept trying to out-produce the others, and even killed off each other, resulting in less production. Whereas the group of not-so-productive chickens did not feel pressured to be better than the rest, the...

 Chapter 7 in The Growth Mindset Playbook is all about how the empathetic approach to students in the classroom is the best approach. Having empathy means you can feel what another person is feeling and be able to be in their shoes, while also being open for further discussion. Being empathetic with students in the classroom will showcase to them that you care, you feel similarly to them, and you are open to talk about it without judging them. Being empathetic also involves incorporating Unconditional Positive Regard. Unconditional Positive Regard essentially translates to "without condition prizing respect" (or I guess it would make more sense to say Prizing Respect Without Condition) (Paraphrased from Page 94 of The Growth Mindset Playbook Chapter 7: The Human Connection). When you showcase unconditional positive regard, you respect and value each student regardless of their behavior. You do not discriminate students because of their lack of appropriate behavior. Essentiall...

Chapter 6 in The Growth Mindset Playbook was all about shaming and how it leads to a Fixed Mindset. Everyone at some point in their life has experienced some form of shame and may have even contributed to shaming. It is a natural thing in humans and sometimes we don't even realize when shame is at play. The point of this chapter, however, is to help recognize shame and how it can lead to a Fixed Mindset in students and anyone in general. When one feels ashamed, they typically end up feeling unwanted, unloved, or incapable, whether that be for just the time when the event happened or long term. Recognizing when someone feels ashamed and meeting them with empathy is key to help eliminate the Fixed Mindsets that shaming generates in students. Many teachers may not realize that they are using shame-inducing tactics in their classroom such as yelling out loud at a misbehaving student or a card chart where students flip when they misbehave. These and other tactics result in the student ...

    This chapter of The Growth Mindset Playbook discusses how failure leads to success. In order for one to succeed at something, they must go through multiple struggle periods and failures before they can reach the endpoint. This chapter describes how even the greatest inventors such as Albert Einstein have gone through many failed attempts before he got his invention spot on. As Chapter 5 of The Growth Mindset Playbook describes, "It is often through acts of struggle, failure, and resilience that they arrive at their greatest discoveries." In relation to having a Growth Mindset, one must be prepared that with perseverance for a task will come flaws. Things take hard, meaningful work to accomplish. This book talks about having good "If/Then" Plans set in stone before a failure comes about in order to better be prepared. That way, when failure approaches, you have a plan-of-action. One with a Growth Mindset must expect that failure will come, but with hard work an...

    This chapter of The Growth Mindset Playbook talks about Metacognition, the way of thinking about how we learn and problem solve (essentially thinking about thinking). This chapter goes to describe how many students are not very good problem solvers themselves because the answers are always given to them, so they don't have to apply any thinking through the process. If teachers don't make a habit of providing the students the easy-way-out, and they teach them to really focus on what helps them to learn, then they will become effective problem solvers. This chapter implements many useful strategies for getting students to think about their thinking. A few strategies that it provides include to have them keep a Thinking Journal where they answer questions such as "What do you do when you don't understand something?," "What could you have done better to improve your learning today?," and "How do you connect new information to what you already know...