School Name: Chilcotin Road Elementary
School District: SD#27 Cariboo-Chilcotin
Inquiry Team Members:Mairen Hutchinson: mairen.hutchinson@sd27.bc.ca, Kaarina Fichtner: kaarina.fichtner@sd27.bc.ca, Jutta Bienhaus: jutta.bienhaus@sd27.bc.ca, Melissa Porter: melissa.porter@sd27.bc.ca, stacey Bergen: stacey.bergen@sd27.bc.ca: Patsy Mclean: patsy.mclean@sd27.bc.ca: Reanne Sacchetti: reanne.sacchetti@sd27.bc.ca, Breanne Donaldson: breanne.donaldson@sd27.bc.ca, Deborah Reiter: deborah.reiter@sd27.bc.ca, Rachel Davis: rachel.davis@sd27.bc.ca, Allison Everett: allison.everett@sd27.bc.ca
Inquiry Team Contact Email: reanne.sacchetti@sd27.bc.ca
Type of Inquiry: NOIIE
Grade Levels: Primary (K-3), Intermediate (4-7)
Curricular Area(s): Applied Design, skills & Technology, Arts Education, Career Education, Language Arts – Literacy, Language Arts – Oral Language, Language Arts – Reading, Language Arts – Writing, Matahematics / Numeracy, Physical & Health Education, Science, Social Studies
Focus Addressed: Growth mindset
In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? We focussed on Growth Mindset because of the social/emotional benefits children will gain.
Scanning: We created a scanning tool which we called a Student Profile. For the primary students it focuses on Social Emotional Learning and for intermediate students it focuses on Multiple Intelligences and Learning Differences. During our scanning process we discovered that students sometimes get frustrated and upset when learning something new. Many students do not understand that learning requires, effort and hard work. They need to understand that struggles are normal and mistakes help us learn.
Focus: We decided to focus on the topic of Growth Mindset because of the social/emotional benefits children will gain and because it teaches children about the learning process. One of our new teachers had studied this in topic in university and felt it would be a valuable focus.
Hunch: When discussing this topic with staff we recognized fixed mindsets in how we praise students. We also know how emotionally upset some students get when they do not achieve.
New Professional Learning: We explored Carol Dweck’s research on Growth Mindset and read her book, “Mindset The new psychology of success.” As well, we will be reading Mathematical Mindsets by Jo Boaler.
Taking Action: We used Mindset Journal activities and Interactive Notebook activities. During PLC teachers will report on what they used in their classrooms and how it worked.
Checking: Teachers compared anecdotal evidence from the beginning of the year until now. They indicated the following:
• Growth Mindset has made students more personally aware.
• Students and teachers have changed to Growth Mindset language.
• Students have become more encouraging, patient and understanding towards one another.
• Students are more willing to try new things and accept mistakes as opportunities to learn.
• Students do not give up as easily.
Reflections/Advice: We learned that Growth Mindset is really the foundation for learning and essential for handling problems and difficulties in life. This was too important of a topic to just do for one year. We have decided to make our school a Growth Mindset school and keep it as our lens in everything we do.
We decided to carry on with Growth Mindset for one more year in order to track the results of the program better and implement the program thoroughly. Our first year was focused on gaining knowledge of the program and identification of students and second year will be implementation and tracking.