If I could have titled my week....
It would be “Introduction to Google Sign On” or “My tech savvy students are not tech savvy”. It was painful. I spent way too much time walking students through Google Sign On so they could go through my edPuzzle videos. Too much time changing passwords and too much time sending students to get headphones and earbuds that they are expected to have with them. So painful! I was so frustrated by the end of the day, my poll everywhere poll became a poll written on the white board that we voted for using slips of paper in the essence of time. These are 8th graders! We are a 1:1 Classroom this task should have been a snap. However, I fear that prior to my entering into the role 2 weeks ago, as their primary educator, the computers were used in a very traditional word processing manner.
The experience got me to thinking a lot about Growth Mindset and critical thinking skills. Many of my students are lacking motivation and follow through as well as lacking the ability to problem solve. Just the act of moving to the next step of any activity, even something as simple as clicking “sign in with Google”, is enough to cause them so much anxiety they stop and wait for specific instructions. They are so afraid of the outcome of choosing the wrong button, so afraid of failure that they freeze and can not proceed. I had to stop and reevaluate some of my plans to adapt to their needs and in the end we all got logged in and completed at least one of the three videos and questions. I know that the exercise use wasn’t in vain because the next time I ask them to step outside their comfort zone with technology the learning curve will be less and exposing them to additional technology is my job as a technology educator.
I have been thinking a lot about what I could do differently to develop my students growth mindset. How I could rephrase questions or praise or what challenges I could give my students.
How do you develop a growth mindset with your students?