How often do you check your smartphone? Every hour? Every five minutes? Multiple times per minute? Stop and think about why. Are you really waiting for an urgent call — say, from a doctor, a family member or your boss? Or are you just hoping there will be something cool or funny there? A bit…
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How do you talk about ‘intelligence’?
Thanks to Carol Dweck’s work on the Growth Mindset, we know it matters how we react to student performance. Compliments for “being smart” help foster a fixed mindset and a reluctance to embrace challenge, while shout-outs for “working hard” foster a growth mindset and a desire for challenge. That’s all well and good, but what…
Read MoreDo SMART goals limit teachers’ vision?
Writing SMART goals — “Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timebound” — is now a fall rite of passage for public school teachers, right up there with crafting a syllabus, assigning seats and putting up bulletin boards. This process always strikes me as perfunctory. Do SMART goals really get us anywhere? Or is this just another…
Read MoreLet’s get serious about stereotype threat
It’s been 20 years since Steele and Aronson first published their work on “stereotype threat,” demonstrating that we are profoundly influenced by internalized cultural stereotypes about ourselves. Since then, more than 300 peer-reviewed experiments have found similar results. Time and time again, we find that individuals perform worse in school, limit their career options and…
Read MoreWhat do ‘experts’ have to offer us?
For the past few weeks, I’ve been going to physical therapy to deal with rotator cuff tendinitis in my right shoulder. At my intake appointment, I learned that I brought this problem on myself by doing what I thought was “the right thing.” For years, I thought I was helping my shoulders and preventing future…
Read MoreWhy best practices don’t prevail
Bad news last week. My district’s school board has decided to delay implementation of later start times for high school students – a change that was scheduled for fall 2017. No reason was given, but I imagine it involved pushback by parents and teachers of elementary school kids, who don’t like the idea of their…
Read MoreKids work like crazy when they have a purpose
What does motivation look like? I saw it in the faces of about 40 kids at Irondale High School (MN) on Saturday morning. They were the KnightKrawler robotics team members, gathered in the library at 9:30 a.m., waiting for the “big reveal.” Saturday was the day when organizers of the global FIRST Robotics competition announced…
Read MoreStop telling students the answers
Students learn better when we ask questions before we provide the answers. They learn better if we ask them to generate their own strategies, interpretations and ideas before we tell them how to do things — whether it’s how to use an economic model, solve an algebra problem or write an essay. I learned this nugget…
Read More‘Common sense’ is failing us
Which is a better way to prepare for this week’s Psych test? Dedicate three solid hours to reviewing the textbook, notes, and practice questions, as well as quizzing yourself with flashcards. Spend 30 minutes writing a test for yourself over the content. Take a nap, eat a snack, do your math homework. A few hours…
Read MoreIs boredom actually good for you?
Boredom can be good for you, it’s true. But at school, not so much. After my last blog post, a friend challenged me and pointed out that boredom is not all bad. I spent a little time following up on that — to see what research says about the plus side of boredom. Researchers have…
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MARTHA RUSH 