https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Q9ZEQJ1BVCVdoJMeTVr7jvLUfo4RBB6UFXPY34p_V6o/edit?usp=sharingThis blog and my final product will, eventually, geared towards other educators. I want to use this space to build a resource to help educators develop growth mindsets in their classrooms. Specifically, I want to target fellow math teachers and alter the way students think about math. So my site needs to address the needs of math teachers who are seeking to make a change in their students and, in a way, provide resources that meet the needs of those teachers’ students.
Sociocultural My target audience is teachers, now those teachers can come from a variety of physical locations, cultural backgrounds, and school contexts. They also could come from an enormous variety of professional backgrounds. Some could be new teachers, some could be new to math, some could have been teaching fractions for years. So, it is difficult to really nail down the sociocultural needs of my audience. However, I can focus on what they have in common. First, they are all instructing in mathematics. That brings about certain needs like delivering mathematical content to students and, for many schools, classroom management of some sort. By classroom management, I am referring to engagement, community, and student value in the work they do. It is no secret that, at many schools, math classrooms have the highest percentage of discipline issues. A second need that I will assume about my audience is that they have a desire for students to succeed in a mathematics classroom. If that second need is not present, then I feel my product will be not much use. So, the sociocultural goals that may drive people to my product are a need to deliver content, a need for a productive classroom environment, and a need for students to be successful. Informational What resources will my product need to satisfy the goals of my audience? First, as I am aiming for math teachers, my product needs proof. The research pointing to the value of a growth mindset and its positive impact on student performance in a math classroom is vital. If my audience does not believe the product will serve their needs, why would they bother with it? That proof can come from a lit review, suggested reading, video lectures, videos from classrooms, samples of my own student work. A second resource that I believe is important is practical resources for the audience’s classrooms. Teacher time is limited and expecting my audience to all write their own amazing and personalized growth mindset activities is short sighted. I need to provide resources for them to use. I can link to Common Sense Media, Khan Academy, and other resources I found in my own research. In some ways, I envision my product as a digital library for my audience where they can find the information to prove the value of a strong mathematical mindset and then the resources to get them moving that way. Another resource that could be great would be some type of forum or perhaps twitter chat schedule to allow for discussion between interested peers. Technical What skills will my audience need to achieve their goals and how do I support the development of those skills? This is probably the most difficult question. I feel like one “skill” my audience needs is to the develop the mindset they want in their students. Children are like lie detectors. If a teacher says they need to believe in themselves, but the students can tell the teacher does not have that attitude, they won’t buy into it. They will likely call out the difference as well. It boils down to talking the talk and walking the walk. So one skill I want my product to help people develop their own mindsets. My audience will also need to know how to talk to students in a way that helps develop this mindset. It is so easy to slip up and say something horribly fixed. Adults do it all the time. “I was never good at math and I’m doing great!” “No point in memorizing that or really learning it. Computers do it for you anyways.” We need to re-learn how to talk to kids! There are a lot of ways I can do this and I need to really reflect on Clarke to decide how to do it best for both of the skills I have mentioned so far. These are fairly flexible skills, more than just procedures, so designing a good system for the transfer of this information will be paramount. I think that SITE actually supports the bridge building process well as it can inform my about the potential needs of my audience. I feel like this system is related most closely to a far-transfer task. Yes, there are some underlying facts and procedures in instilling a growth mindset in a student, but ultimately we are dealing with dozens of individuals. These individuals have their own backgrounds, beliefs, and mindsets. There is a difference between building a stronger mindset in a student who already has some level of growth mindset and one who has been in a fixed mindset for years. My audience will NEED to be able to use flexible mental models to adapt to each class, each unique student. So, overall, there is a lot of work that needs to be done in apply the SITE model and its considerations to the vague idea of a product I have floating around in my head. Then, once I find all the pieces to meet all the needs, I need to think about how to structure and organize it in a way that is useful to my audience.
5 Comments
Nai Saelee
6/27/2017 10:20:35 pm
The part about providing a digital library for your audience resonated with me because I think that too is partially one of my goals. Thinking through what kinds of activities or resources I need to include in there feels overwhelming and I want everything in there to be top notch stuff. As you said, teachers, especially math teachers don't have much time so they need stuff that is effective. For you it's tools and resources for teachers who would like to instill a growth mind set in their students and for me it's trying to produce students who can be self-regulators in their learning and students who plan, monitor, and evaluate their thinking and problem solving to make the best decisions or arrive at the correct solutions.
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james
6/28/2017 12:38:08 pm
Patrick,
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Nancy
6/28/2017 07:23:00 pm
Patrick,
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6/28/2017 11:37:31 pm
Hay Patrick,
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Dan
6/29/2017 01:33:54 pm
I really enjoyed reading how you define classroom management, "by classroom management, ...referring to engagement, community, and student value in the work they do". That is a definition that if achieved will ensure learning in the classroom. Cool!
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