Author Archives: Robert Jones

Mindset is a Social Justice Issue for Scottish High Schools⤴

from @ Learning Stuff About Stuff

Students arrive at high school with varying degrees of prior learning. It is clear from national statistics in Scotland that children from deprived homes have learned less by the end of primary, on average, than children from affluent homes.  It's an uncomfortable but undeniable fact, and I am in no way criticising the efforts being made by primary schools.  At high school, just like our primary colleagues, we want to do something about closing this gap.

If, when children arrive at high school, a teacher mislabels these levels of prior learning as levels of ability, brightness or intelligence (which is a fixed-mindset approach) then I can't see how such a teacher will really believe that under-attaining children from deprived homes will be able to close the gap between their learning and the learning of their higher attaining peers.  Such a teacher will recognise that there is a gap and may aspire to do something about closing it - but they will also believe that the under-attaining students are inherently less able to learn. If, on the other hand, a teacher sees levels of prior learning as just that, and makes no judgement about the potential of their students (a growth mindset approach) then they are more likely to believe in the possibility of closing the gap.

Clearly a fixed-mindset attitude towards the potential of students is bad for all under-attaining students, but children from deprived homes will be disproportionately disadvantaged.

Mindset is a Social Justice Issue for Scottish High Schools⤴

from @ Learning Stuff About Stuff

Students arrive at high school with varying degrees of prior learning. It is clear from national statistics in Scotland that children from deprived homes have learned less by the end of primary, on average, than children from affluent homes.  It's an uncomfortable but undeniable fact, and I am in no way criticising the efforts being made by primary schools.  At high school, just like our primary colleagues, we want to do something about closing this gap.

If, when children arrive at high school, a teacher mislabels these levels of prior learning as levels of ability, brightness or intelligence (which is a fixed-mindset approach) then I can't see how such a teacher will really believe that under-attaining children from deprived homes will be able to close the gap between their learning and the learning of their higher attaining peers.  Such a teacher will recognise that there is a gap and may aspire to do something about closing it - but they will also believe that the under-attaining students are inherently less able to learn. If, on the other hand, a teacher sees levels of prior learning as just that, and makes no judgement about the potential of their students (a growth mindset approach) then they are more likely to believe in the possibility of closing the gap.

Clearly a fixed-mindset attitude towards the potential of students is bad for all under-attaining students, but children from deprived homes will be disproportionately disadvantaged.

Non-Violent Communication: a Language of Life #FabEduBooks⤴

from

My favourite edubook is Non-Violent Communication: a Language of Life by Marshall Rosenberg Well to be honest I have at least a dozen favourite edubooks, but this book is the one from which I have learned the most important lesson as a teacher: that all communication is an expression of an unmet need and that life […]

Yet Another Post About Growth Mindset⤴

from @ Learning Stuff About Stuff

We want to promote growth mindsets in the North Berwick High School community. If you haven't heard of growth mindsets, this video by Carol Dweck (who developed the concept) explains it well. Here's how I picture the virtuous cycle of beliefs in a growth-mindset relationship between a student and her teacher:

Image by IntelFreePress

Mindset is not magic, as Nick Rose explains so clearly here. Effective learning relies on us getting many other things right: curriculum structures; excellent course and lesson plans; strong positive relationships with students and parents; teachers with sound content knowledge, high expectations and excellent pedagogical skills; communities that value learning... the list could fill a book. But it is clear from the research that growth mindset interventions do have the potential to make a positive difference. I believe that psychologically informed approaches to school improvement will gain traction in the coming years, and that growth mindset interventions will come to be seen as one strand of broader work on nurturing students to develop positive concepts of themselves as learners. Looking back, our growth mindset programmes will  probably appear clumsy and crude. But we have to start somewhere!

I have been interested in growth mindsets since 2009 when I read Carol Dweck's book, and have written about the concept several times:

Everyone and their dog are interested in growth mindset just now, of course, so why bother writing a blog post?  Well I want to make clear exactly what we are aiming for, and the trap that we want to avoid, which looks like success but definitely isn't.

Success will look like the above picture. Students might say:
"My teachers believe that I can become more intelligent if I make the right kind of effort. They don't really talk about growth mindset -  I can just tell by the way they speak that they have faith in my capacity to improve. My teachers celebrate my mistakes and failures, and I enjoy being given really challenging tasks."
We will have gone badly astray if any students says this:
"My teachers keep going on about how I should have a growth mindset.  The fact that I give up apparently proves that I have a fixed mindset, and that's bad. So not only am I rubbish at school; I also have a fixed mindset - just another thing that's wrong with me."
So for students, we want to have brief sessions to teach them about neuroplasticity and the concept of growth-mindset.  These sessions will emphasise the fact that mindsets can change, and that we can have different mindsets in different fields of knowledge. The aim is for students to know intellectually that they can change their intelligence through deliberate practice. But they will not necessarily believe this deeply until they experience some success as a result of holding it to be true.  This was my experience, as described in the two posts from 2012 above: the students really changed how they felt about themselves as learners of maths only after they passed the second test. It was that concrete experience of success that validated for them all my talk about how they could become better mathematicians through practice. This point is made in an excellent post on the Evidence into Practice blog.

For staff, we will similarly give them an overview of the topic, including evidence from research on the potential impact on learning of changes in mindset.  We will then provide staff with some ways of communicating with students that would demonstrate a growth mindset towards them. In other words, we will say to teachers "please think about your own beliefs in the light of the facts we have given you. Do you have a growth mindset about the potential of your students? If you already have such an attitude, or can develop one, here are some ways of communicating that belief to the students. Failing that (and it may be very difficult for teachers to change their beliefs if they have deeply entrenched fixed-mindset attitudes), fake it 'til you make it by using the ways of communicating we are suggesting!"

I have been promoting with staff for several years the benefits of having a growth mindset about ourselves as learning professionals, and have shown them Dylan Wiliam's "Every Teacher Can Improve" video on several occasions. Our Professional Learning Communities programme is predicated upon this attitude.

For parents, we will run evening sessions, supported by the excellent resources at Mindset Kit. The aim will be for parents to understand how we think about learning as a community, and to encourage them to communicate with their children in ways that nurture a growth mindset. This is sensitive territory, but I can talk from experience about how I changed the way I spoke to my son after reading Mindset by Dweck.

We are not interested in plastering our school in motivational posters about growth mindsets. We want growth mindsets to be apparent in the all the myriad conversations that take place between students, parents and teachers every day in our community.

We will evaluate our efforts through attitudinal surveys of students.  Whilst we clearly seek to improve learning, we will measure changes in mindset as a proxy. The evidence of a positive link between mindset and learning is so strong that I feel comfortable doing so.

If you are thinking about nurturing growth mindsets in your school community, you may also find the following links useful:



Yet Another Post About Growth Mindset⤴

from @ Learning Stuff About Stuff

We want to promote growth mindsets in the North Berwick High School community. If you haven't heard of growth mindsets, this video by Carol Dweck (who developed the concept) explains it well. Here's how I picture the virtuous cycle of beliefs in a growth-mindset relationship between a student and her teacher:

Image by IntelFreePress

Mindset is not magic, as Nick Rose explains so clearly here. Effective learning relies on us getting many other things right: curriculum structures; excellent course and lesson plans; strong positive relationships with students and parents; teachers with sound content knowledge, high expectations and excellent pedagogical skills; communities that value learning... the list could fill a book. But it is clear from the research that growth mindset interventions do have the potential to make a positive difference. I believe that psychologically informed approaches to school improvement will gain traction in the coming years, and that growth mindset interventions will come to be seen as one strand of broader work on nurturing students to develop positive concepts of themselves as learners. Looking back, our growth mindset programmes will  probably appear clumsy and crude. But we have to start somewhere!

I have been interested in growth mindsets since 2009 when I read Carol Dweck's book, and have written about the concept several times:

Everyone and their dog are interested in growth mindset just now, of course, so why bother writing a blog post?  Well I want to make clear exactly what we are aiming for, and the trap that we want to avoid, which looks like success but definitely isn't.

Success will look like the above picture. Students might say:
"My teachers believe that I can become more intelligent if I make the right kind of effort. They don't really talk about growth mindset -  I can just tell by the way they speak that they have faith in my capacity to improve. My teachers celebrate my mistakes and failures, and I enjoy being given really challenging tasks."
We will have gone badly astray if any students says this:
"My teachers keep going on about how I should have a growth mindset.  The fact that I give up apparently proves that I have a fixed mindset, and that's bad. So not only am I rubbish at school; I also have a fixed mindset - just another thing that's wrong with me."
So for students, we want to have brief sessions to teach them about neuroplasticity and the concept of growth-mindset.  These sessions will emphasise the fact that mindsets can change, and that we can have different mindsets in different fields of knowledge. The aim is for students to know intellectually that they can change their intelligence through deliberate practice. But they will not necessarily believe this deeply until they experience some success as a result of holding it to be true.  This was my experience, as described in the two posts from 2012 above: the students really changed how they felt about themselves as learners of maths only after they passed the second test. It was that concrete experience of success that validated for them all my talk about how they could become better mathematicians through practice. This point is made in an excellent post on the Evidence into Practice blog.

For staff, we will similarly give them an overview of the topic, including evidence from research on the potential impact on learning of changes in mindset.  We will then provide staff with some ways of communicating with students that would demonstrate a growth mindset towards them. In other words, we will say to teachers "please think about your own beliefs in the light of the facts we have given you. Do you have a growth mindset about the potential of your students? If you already have such an attitude, or can develop one, here are some ways of communicating that belief to the students. Failing that (and it may be very difficult for teachers to change their beliefs if they have deeply entrenched fixed-mindset attitudes), fake it 'til you make it by using the ways of communicating we are suggesting!"

I have been promoting with staff for several years the benefits of having a growth mindset about ourselves as learning professionals, and have shown them Dylan Wiliam's "Every Teacher Can Improve" video on several occasions. Our Professional Learning Communities programme is predicated upon this attitude.

For parents, we will run evening sessions, supported by the excellent resources at Mindset Kit. The aim will be for parents to understand how we think about learning as a community, and to encourage them to communicate with their children in ways that nurture a growth mindset. This is sensitive territory, but I can talk from experience about how I changed the way I spoke to my son after reading Mindset by Dweck.

We are not interested in plastering our school in motivational posters about growth mindsets. We want growth mindsets to be apparent in the all the myriad conversations that take place between students, parents and teachers every day in our community.

We will evaluate our efforts through attitudinal surveys of students.  Whilst we clearly seek to improve learning, we will measure changes in mindset as a proxy. The evidence of a positive link between mindset and learning is so strong that I feel comfortable doing so.

If you are thinking about nurturing growth mindsets in your school community, you may also find the following links useful:



School Leadership: The Journey to the Dark Side.⤴

from @ Learning Stuff About Stuff

As Professional Learning Communities get under way here at North Berwick, I can see how a school leader might be drawn to the dark side.  It goes something like this:

Start teaching
.
.
.
"School leaders are idiots.  They think that top-down direction will improve schools, but what teachers really need is the space and time to collaborate and enquire into their own practice.  Teachers are not the problem - teachers are the solution"
.
.
.
Get promoted
.
.
.
Implement a programme in school that sets aside time for teachers to collaborate and enquire into their own practice
.
.
.
Some teachers think the programme is a waste of time.  They think that another idiot leader is trying to change the school through a top-down intervention
.
.
.
"What is wrong with these teachers? They are a real problem."


I will strive to avoid falling into this trap!

School Leadership: The Journey to the Dark Side.⤴

from @ Learning Stuff About Stuff

As Professional Learning Communities get under way here at North Berwick, I can see how a school leader might be drawn to the dark side.  It goes something like this:

Start teaching
.
.
.
"School leaders are idiots.  They think that top-down direction will improve schools, but what teachers really need is the space and time to collaborate and enquire into their own practice.  Teachers are not the problem - teachers are the solution"
.
.
.
Get promoted
.
.
.
Implement a programme in school that sets aside time for teachers to collaborate and enquire into their own practice
.
.
.
Some teachers think the programme is a waste of time.  They think that another idiot leader is trying to change the school through a top-down intervention
.
.
.
"What is wrong with these teachers? They are a real problem."


I will strive to avoid falling into this trap!

Professional Learning Communities: Why bother?⤴

from @ Learning Stuff About Stuff

I imagine some colleagues thinking something along these lines about being in a PLC:

Seriously Robert, I do buy into the whole improvement thing, but if you want me to get better as a teacher, why don't you just observe me, then tell me something that I could improve?  I'd be up for it.  Why do I have to spend hours attending PLC meetings, observing, coaching, being observed and being coached?  It just seems like a huge waste of time, when we all know that we are desperately time-poor as teachers.

I would respond as follows:

 There are many reasons why I think it is better to be in a PLC than to follow your suggestion, even though PLCs take more time.

1. Being told to make a change to one's practice rarely leads to a permanent change in practice.  I wish this were not true, but all the research I have seen indicates that it is.  And not just for other people - it is true for you and me!

2. PLCs  improve the capacity of participants to drive their own improvement. Even if my intervention in your class did lead to a permanent change in your practice, further intervention would be required from me to elicit further improvement in your practice.  My effort is like pushing a car with square wheels. It moves, but generates no momentum of its own.

3. In your PLC, you will (if it works well) be exposed to the ideas of colleagues and educational thinkers in a way that challenges and deepens your thinking about education, learning and teaching.  You will reflect critically on the ideas of others, and have others challenge your thinking.  This is the real meat of professional learning. You get none of this if I tell you how to change your practice.

4.  I don't necessarily know how you can improve your practice.  Nor do you!  The best you can do is to reflect on your current practice, look at what research says, try something that has been seen to work for others, and evaluate the impact that the change in your practice has on your learners. This is how we work in PLCs.  This approach puts you in control of your own practice.

5. PLCs offer you enormous professional autonomy.  The price for this autonomy is your commitment to continuous improvement throughout your career, and to engagement in the systematic processes that drive that improvement. The alternative is to go through your career being told how to get better by others.

5.  The new standard for full registration  expects you to have a reflective, enquiring, research-engaged approach to your practice. PLCs will support you in developing this stance.  My telling you how to change your practice will not.

Professional Learning Communities: Why bother?⤴

from @ Learning Stuff About Stuff

I imagine some colleagues thinking something along these lines about being in a PLC:

Seriously Robert, I do buy into the whole improvement thing, but if you want me to get better as a teacher, why don't you just observe me, then tell me something that I could improve?  I'd be up for it.  Why do I have to spend hours attending PLC meetings, observing, coaching, being observed and being coached?  It just seems like a huge waste of time, when we all know that we are desperately time-poor as teachers.

I would respond as follows:

 There are many reasons why I think it is better to be in a PLC than to follow your suggestion, even though PLCs take more time.

1. Being told to make a change to one's practice rarely leads to a permanent change in practice.  I wish this were not true, but all the research I have seen indicates that it is.  And not just for other people - it is true for you and me!

2. PLCs  improve the capacity of participants to drive their own improvement. Even if my intervention in your class did lead to a permanent change in your practice, further intervention would be required from me to elicit further improvement in your practice.  My effort is like pushing a car with square wheels. It moves, but generates no momentum of its own.

3. In your PLC, you will (if it works well) be exposed to the ideas of colleagues and educational thinkers in a way that challenges and deepens your thinking about education, learning and teaching.  You will reflect critically on the ideas of others, and have others challenge your thinking.  This is the real meat of professional learning. You get none of this if I tell you how to change your practice.

4.  I don't necessarily know how you can improve your practice.  Nor do you!  The best you can do is to reflect on your current practice, look at what research says, try something that has been seen to work for others, and evaluate the impact that the change in your practice has on your learners. This is how we work in PLCs.  This approach puts you in control of your own practice.

5. PLCs offer you enormous professional autonomy.  The price for this autonomy is your commitment to continuous improvement throughout your career, and to engagement in the systematic processes that drive that improvement. The alternative is to go through your career being told how to get better by others.

5.  The new standard for full registration  expects you to have a reflective, enquiring, research-engaged approach to your practice. PLCs will support you in developing this stance.  My telling you how to change your practice will not.

Professional Learning Communities: What do I mean by a PLC?⤴

from @ Learning Stuff About Stuff

PLCs have been around for years in a variety of guises, including Teacher Learning Communities in the Dylan Wiliam/Tapestry model.

As I understand them, PLCs aim to improve the learning of pupils through the professional learning of teachers.

Our implementation of PLCs at North Berwick High School has grown organically over a period of 18 months, and has been described both as "The Coaching Project" and "Coaching for Professional Enquiry".  We eventually settled on "Professional Learning Communities" when we realised that our model bore so many similarities to other implementations that it seemed pointless to hold on to our distinct name.

The North Berwick PLCs are groups of eight to ten teachers who have volunteered to participate.  They come together for 75 minute meetings six times per session, and participants engage in peer-observation, peer-coaching and collaborative professional enquiry throughout the year.  Each PLC is chaired by someone who has previously participated in a PLC. The meetings provide opportunities for planning, goal setting, reporting back on progress and discussions about pedagogy.

Our PLCs are founded on the following principles:


  • every teacher needs to improve, because every teacher is capable of improving
  • improvement comes through increased awareness of our impact on learners, and through taking responsibility for developing our own practice
  • improvement comes through taking a positive, solution-focused approach
  • improvement comes through being asked good questions, not through being told what to do
  • improvement comes through looking in the right places
  • improvement comes through reflection, enquiry, evaluation, discussion and feedback - not through judging or being judged