Ms. McCarron – Page 2

Background

A growth mindset (Dweck, 2000) has become an accessible concept for the way learners need to feel about themselves and their abilities to be successful learners. Research over many years has highlighted that we all differ as learners, being somewhere on the continuum between a fixed and a growth mindset… A fixed mindset is the result of a continual focus on your ability rather than your achievement and effort. (Shirley Clarke, 2014)

As a team we launched a growth mindset approach back in September 2015. This has included:

Growth mindset displays which we use as constant reference learning tools. Research has shown that displays allow subliminal learning.
Establishing ‘Don’t know yet’ as a pupil mantra.
Ensuring we praise the effort and named achievement. Being very specific rather than overusing superlatives. eg “That’s a mature and well thought out answer. I like how you remembered to include a metaphor” rather than “Brilliant answer! Well done!”
Regularly using the language of growth mindset. eg. saying “The point isn’t to get it all right away but to grow your understanding step by step. What can you try next?” instead of “Not everybody is good at maths. Just do your best.”

What we did

I gave some of the Year 3 mathematicians this and asked them to tick the statements which they thought were true of them.

Have a go yourself before looking at the slide below if you are interested in discovering your own mindset. Most people have a mixture of both.

The results threw up something very unexpected and interesting. Have a look.

Impact on learning

It would appear that the growth mindset approach has had a greater impact on the Year 3 girls than on the year 3 boys.

It would also appear that the growth mindset approach is having a measurable impact.

Next step

To repeat this exercise across the rest of the school.

Reflections

The results have made me question how the boys are learning. Why are the girls ‘getting’ it? Why do boys think that they tend to give up more easily? Are they more competitive and so don’t want to fail in front of their peers? I’m very keen to see the results from across the rest of the school. Fascinating!

What happens when you let children teach column subtraction?

Background:

Shirley Clarke in her book Outstanding Formative Assessment says ‘ask the children to …create their own individual success criteria. This is an effective technique… and enables misconceptions to be illuminated by asking children to explain, in their own words, how the procedure works…’

What we did:

Each child had a blank Bingo card. I asked the children to write down each step they would need to complete a subtraction sum. All to play for. Prizes to be won for a full house.

We shared our findings as a class. The children were bursting to share how they would do it. I spoke very little as they each pitched into the ensuing discussion, building and adding to each other’s ideas.

Outcome

We now have a full bingo card of our class instructions for subtraction using column method. I typed up the children’s instructions and displayed them as a poster on the working wall for the rest of the unit. The children had great success at using and applying the method in their work over the next few days.

Success Criteria Subtraction Bingo

Observations

Some of the children were resilient and bouncy in the face of the blank Bingo card. They threw themselves into the task, chatting as they did it. Others who like to be given a ‘recipe’ which they follow with great success were afraid to mess up the page with something which might turn out to be ‘wrong’. We need to support and nurture these children to take risks with their learning.

Reflections

This week has seen a huge leap in understanding and use of column methods (addition and subtraction). It has been the most fun and fastest learning of the method that I have seen. I’ll be interested to see if the children retain this knowledge when we revisit addition and subtraction next term. How deep has the learning gone? I’m looking forward to getting out their success criteria toolkit next term to see if they add to it/ refine it in any way during the course of the unit. They haven’t included carrying/exchanging in this toolkit but learned how to do that as the week went on. Will it make an appearance next time? Watch this space.

I’d like to get to a stage where every child in the class is okay with making and sharing mistakes. Genuinely seeing them as an opportunity for learning.

This has led on to me trying a ‘glorious mistake’ growth mindset activity. (Glorious Mistake post to follow.)

Author: Ms. McCarron

Take the test. Do you have a ‘Growth’ or a ‘Fixed’ mindset?

I wish these children had been my Maths teacher!