The next section in the Stanford course is about teaching for a growth mindset. The stimulus video had a long section taken from a maths class and we were asked, “What teacher moves did you see and find interesting that Cathy [the teacher] used to support the students’ learning?”
The task started off with a ‘problem’ – one divided by two thirds. The teacher had table groups discuss ‘how to make sense of it’. Each table group needed to have one person raise a hand with a response. Cathy then called on different students to explain on the board – each with different explanation and one with the wrong explanation. She kept going back to this one student to encourage her to explain why she thought it was the wrong answer then eventually explained the concept with a real world example of cutting time.
A link was posted to a description of re-inventing a classic Maths text book type problem. The new task illustrates a more open ended task to give student more opportunity to ‘struggle’ and therefore gain understanding. It is visual and kinaesthetic (drawing) so more engaging for a range of students that the original problem. The task is definitely more ‘learning’ than it is ‘performing’.
Jo presented a Growth Mindset Task Framework:
1. Openness
2. Different ways of seeing
3. Multiple entry points
4. Multiple paths / strategies
5. Clear learning goals and opportunities for feedback.
If a task has these factors it is more likely to offer learning over performance.
