#GrowthMindset: A Mini-Lesson

Today was an odd day on campus with PSAT/PACT testing in the morning and our Homecoming Parade in the afternoon, so I had one class that was 20 minutes long. Not long enough to start our next thing, but too long to give the students their desired "Free Day." It was the perfect chance to throw out a topic I have been circling onto for a while now online. I didn't plan to do this, so it was very spur of the moment. I didn't realize that we would have so short of a time initially, and so my TEDTalk analysis (which is short) was too long for this chunk of time.

I went to the Ol' Reliable: YouTube and found this video.
Showed this in class to my students and used it as a spring board to a conversation about GrowthMindset.

 I showed them this picture. That I pulled from a basic Google Search.

And then we headed out to our Outdoor Learning Space that has dry erase boards. (This is the only pre-planning I did.) I went out before the class and wrote #GrowthMindset on the board and made a T-Chart just like what I showed them in the classroom. I had them write their own (or even use these) and make it ours. Several of my artsy students drew their version of the concept instead. 

Mini Lesson in the Outdoor Learning Space #GrowthMindset #MISDProud #Differentiation pic.twitter.com/vfYyp0TOMd

— Autumn Riley (@MrsAutumnRiley) October 19, 2016

 This turned out to be a great Mini-Lesson, and I will definitely revisit this concept with my other classes.

Post it Notes in the Classroom

There are schools in our district with big beautiful dry erase board walls. And unfortunately, it is not my campus. I see a lot of cool things happening on these walls, but I had a mini "ah-ha" moment this week. 

Sometimes you don't need fancy - just functional. 

After student-teacher writing conferences, I had students share out via Post-It notes one strength and one struggle in their essay. This was a great way to visually see our collective strengths and struggles. It also provided students with a built in feeling of safety because students could see that at least one other person shared their same struggles.

Other Ways I Use Post-It Notes in High School English:

- Brainstorming examples for essays that can move from the "Kernel Essay" to the draft

- Easy (no cutting or gluing) "foldables" in our notebooks. We use stickies to create flaps and write info under them.

- Hashtag lists for themes

There are a million other great ways to use Post-It's. If you don't have walls to write on, you can still make it work!