Growth Mindset (EDLD 5302)

I am currently beginning my 6th year of teaching, so I am still relatively new to the field. Throughout my first two years of teaching as well as my undergraduate courses, there was a large focus on technology and implementing new tools into the classroom. My viewpoints on these various tools varied from when I was a student to when I was a teacher. As a teacher, it often felt like the staff developers just wanted us to implement more, but these technology tools were not really enhancing the learning. From there, I made it a personal goal of mine to continue to implement new technology tools into my mathematics classroom, but to always compare my new tools to what I would have done in the past to ensure that they are truly enhancing my instruction and student learning.

I feel that I have a growth mindset when it comes to my teaching/learning. I am aware that I may never be where I want to be as a teacher, however, each day I reflect on my performance and provide myself with feedback. Additionally, I try to always have open communication with my peers to learn from them and hear different strategies that worked/didn’t work for them. This mindset allows me to continue to work towards my goal of implementing new tools in the best manner.

When I first began teaching, I did fear failure and would be quite rattled when I had a lesson not go well. However, my confidence and trust with myself has increased significantly over the years and I have reached a point where I am not only okay with a lesson not going well/as planned but can view it as a learning experience. I also feel comfortable continuing to try to use whatever the tool may be again, rather than simply avoiding it as I may have in the past. I follow many different teachers/education consultants on Twitter who I consider part of my learning community who are constantly providing feedback, suggestions, and support for such things.

Many students dread math, especially at the high school level, as it is often dry and strictly computational. With that said, I try to emphasize the why every day in my classroom. Starting with answering the question “why are we learning this?” Providing a rationale often helps motivational and a deeper understanding. I try to do the same thing when I am coaching baseball, explaining why we are doing the different things we do at practice.

Lastly, although we are the educators now, we all know we learn best when we are engaged and interested in the content (which I believe comes from the why). Personalized learning allows the learning to be tailored to everyone. This can be achieving in a variety of different ways, but nonetheless will significantly impact the comprehension of whatever the topic may be.