TM Clevedon Workshop: Engagement & Courageous Curiosity

Full On Learning

Here’s what I covered at breakneck speed in my workshop at the most excellent event that was TeachMeet Clevedon. I must apologise to all those who came along as they won’t have realised the risk they were really taking by attending the workshop unless they’ve worked with me before. I really have no brakes when it comes to talking about learning, particularly when I’m running against the clock.

We did go rather quickly.

Sorry, but the pdf of the slides is below if it helps?!!!

Risk is personal

I’ve always been a bit bothered by the term ‘risk-taking’. The subjective nature of exactly what it is that we mean by taking any kind of risk is one thing, but the complexity of what exactly constitutes a risk is another. After all, for some, offering a response to a question in a lesson is the biggest risk a learner will take all term…

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Desirable Difficulties

Desirable Difficulties.

via Desirable Difficulties.

Being gritty about getting our kids grittier

Grit….getting it…developing it….keeping it….

Originally posted on Class Teaching:

Browsing through twitter I came across this Ted talk by Angela Lee Duckworth, an American psychologist talking about grit as the key to success. This ties in perfectly with the ideas of Dweck on ‘Growth Mindset’ and Berger on ‘an ethic of excellence’:

In it she describes grit as:

“sticking with your future — day in, day out, not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years — and working really hard to make that future a reality.”

“Grit is living life like it’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

“Passion and perseverance for long term goals”

“Working hard to make your future a reality”

So what does this mean in reality, on a day to day basis in the classroom? What do we as teachers need to be doing more of, to make our students more ‘gritty’? Here are a few initial thoughts:

• Not allowing students to…

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