Thursday, June 4, 2015

Mindsets Book Study - Chapter 1

Hello Friends!
I'm joining the book study hosted by the gals over at the Hello Sunshine blog for a book called Mindsets in the Classroom written by Mary Cay Ricci.
Hello Sunshine! 
I'm super-excited about this book because it is based on the work of University of Stanford professor of psychology Dr. Carol Dweck and how to apply it to the classroom. If you haven't heard of Dr. Dweck you have to watch this video:



Inspiring right? Who knew the word "yet" could be so powerful! A few weeks ago I was discussing Dr. Dweck's study with my principal during my final evaluation. It was because of this professor that I knew I couldn't miss this book study. Thanks Hello Sunshine gals!

This is my very first book study online so for the first chapter I took sentences from Chapter 1 and added them below.

Chapter 1
What Are Mindsets, and How Do They Affect the Classroom.

Chapter Highlights
Besides defining growth mindset and fixed mindset I included what has to be the best sentence from Chapter 1. I loved it so much it inspired me to make a graphic for it that I will be hanging in my classroom the next school year.
 

Take It and Use It
 "As early as possible we need to start a belief system 
that communicates that all students can succeed."

After reading this chapter I had to reflect on the school year that just ended and decide if I was a teacher that encouraged a growth mindset. I can remember back to last July when I taught a Kinder Jump Start Program. In this program I had 11 brand new kinder kids for one week before the regular school year started. At the end of the half-day we went to the cafeteria. These 5 years olds (a few older 4 year olds too) were having trouble opening their milk cartons and were asking me to open it for them. I told each student that they had to try opening it themselves first because they "could do hard stuff"! I used that phrase all year long "You can do hard stuff". By the end of the year I could tease them by saying "I have something really hard to show you," and several kids would say "No, it's not hard! We can do hard stuff!" I guess I actually did start early with my kinders!

Chapter 2 linky starts June 7th!
Did I mention how excited I am about this book study? Not only do I have this awesome book to read but I also have several other teacher bloggers that just as excited about this as me and willing to share what they got out of it! See you Sunday!

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for linking up! I love that quote! I'm definitely going to have to watch Carol's TED talk! Thanks for sharing! :)

    Caitlin O'Bannon
    The Kinder Garden

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  2. You have some great take aways from this chapter and I agree, the bit about potential was my favorite too. Thank you for sharing the TED talk, I just watched it and it was great!

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