Julia's Blog

       The eighth chapter of The Growth Mindset Playbook by Annie Brock and Heather Hundley reviews how to foster a happy and collaborative classroom. The main message is to structure the school environment so students can learn about themselves and their peers. The authors discuss that teachers give their attention to students who appear to be more intelligent than others in some cases. This creates a hostile environment because it encourages students to compete against one another in an unhealthy way. It could cause a fixed mindset for students since they become highly focused on their grades instead of learning the material. A factor that the authors mention that is key to fostering a growth mindset is building a sense of community in the classroom. They list some of the following strategies that teachers can use: similarities and differences, on the bus off the bus, personal inventory or daily/weekly journaling, connecting with students, team approach, and being...

        Many schools these days allow students the option of digital learning, which is essential because learning should be differentiated. The website, Makerspace for Education is an excellent tool for educators. It includes the following: teacher resources, teacher teaching resources, free teacher worksheets, teaching resources, and educational software. Under the teacher resources tab, there is a link to a source, EVERFI, which offers digital lessons. They say schools use EVERFI because it provides “Engaging digital lessons for financial education, social-emotional learning, student wellness, career readiness, and early learning” (Makerspace for Education). This serves as an effective alternative to traditional learning in the classroom. This platform consists of over a hundred game-based lessons that engage students regardless of their grade level.        The educational software tab includes a link for the source, Administrator’s P...

          The seventh chapter of The Growth Mindset Playbook by Annie Brock and Heather Hundley discusses why empathy matters in the classroom. It can affect minor or significant moments, like a classmate hurting another classmate’s feelings to the school-to-prison pipeline. Effectively understanding empathy and teaching students by modeling it will strengthen the teacher’s relationship with the students. The authors define it by saying, “Empathy, simply defined, is the ability to understand and identify with the feelings and emotions of others” (Brock and Hundley 94). This displays that empathy is essential in the classroom setting because it affects how students, parents, and faculty interact with one another. It is recommended in the chapter that teachers apply an unconditional positive regard approach. This will help teachers care about their students regardless of their gender, background, financial state, ethnicity, etc. Students' behaviors must be l...

          Video games have been regularly used by children, teens, and adults for a long time and have the capability to be incorporated into classrooms. The article, 5 Ways to Gamify Your Classroom by Michele Haiken discusses how teachers can implement video games into their lessons. The first point the author mentions is to adapt old-school games for classroom use. This can be done by utilizing older games like bingo, dice games, and connecting four to differentiate learning and improve collaboration skills. The article offers an alternative for hybrid students by recommending the site Goose Chase to create digital scavenger hunts. This helps students who are online stay connected with in-person students. The second point is to play digital games. Many options such as Kahoot!, Quizizz, Quizlet Live, Gimkit, and Blooket allow teachers to interact with their students engagingly and productively. This point also talks about retrieval practice, which the auth...

       The sixth chapter of The Growth Mindset Playbook by Annie Brock and Heather Hundley reviews that shaming students in the classroom is unnecessary and wrong. Some teachers, parents, or coaches believe that shaming children can be a motivator, but it hurts them more than it helps. Shaming also creates a fixed mindset; when you repeatedly tell students they are not good enough, they start to believe it is true. The authors discuss public shaming by introducing a story about a teenage girl breaking her school’s dress code. She was wearing too short of a skirt, and as a result, the office told her she had to put an oversized yellow shirt on that said "dress code violation." That is just one example of many examples that schools embarrass students as punishment because they think it will motivate them to change. Humiliating students because they broke the dress code will only make them feel worse about themselves.       The authors use Brené Bro...

         Social media is one of the most influential technological tools available for educators. There is a wide variety of options like blogs, videos, Tik Toks, and many more. Not only are these creative ways to differentiate material, but it also allows students to improve their technology skills. The website Social Media in Education: Resource Toolkit by the George Lucas Educational Foundation discusses how social media can strengthen teaching and learning, connect parents and communities, and is highly relatable and appealing to students. It entails a selection of articles that revolve around each of those topics previously mentioned and a mini description of each one. They are broken down into the following categories: creating social media guidelines, student engagement with social media, selecting social-media tools, home, school, and community connections, social media for professional development, digital citizenship, and online safety.  ...