Growth Mindset Plan

The Stockdale Paradox:

"You must retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties.

AND at the same time…

You must confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.

For me, the Stockdale Paradox carries an important lesson in personal development, a lesson in faith and honesty: Never doubt that you can achieve your goals, no matter how lofty they may be and no matter how many critics and naysayers you may have. But at the same time, always take honest stock of your current situation. Don’t lie to yourself for fear of short-term embarrassment or discomfort, because such deception will only come back to defeat you in the end."

Taken from http://io9.com/the-stockdale-paradox-reveals-why-hope-is-the-grimmest-1287812990

Reading about the Stockdale Paradox captivated me. I was very interested especially since I have a military background. Admiral Stockdale was a prisoner of war who experienced hell on earth and still managed to survive. 

In my classes, I want to teach them about the Stockdale Paradox. I am also going to start thinking about how I ask questions, not call on the first person who raises their hand, start adding "yet" to the end of things, give more detailed feedback on assignments, no longer use "good job", be specific.

I tried it last week! I waited for most of the students to raise their hand before I called on them. I said that if they are brave, they will try to answer the question, and it worked! I had several people attempt to answer the question even though it was a concept they had never seen before.

Leadership

I have been asked to speak at the Veteran's Day assembly at my high school on Friday, Nov 8. I am VERRRRYY nervous about this. I will have to give a 5-7 minute speech in front of 2,000 people, two times - 1,000 people will be in the audience each time.

I have been thinking of ideas for my speech and plan on writing it this week and next. My goal is to focus on service, not only service to our country, but service at any level.

I'll post again as I start writing my speech and after I give it.

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I gave my speech twice today during both Veterans' Day Assemblies. It went really well. I was nervous the first time through but got my better on the second try.

Here's my speech and the pictures I showed during the speech:

Speech

Pictures

Leadership

In October, I attended a BATT meeting at the middle school where I teach. I decided that I want to participate more in the BATT meetings to share my knowledge of technology and help the school grow with their technology usage.

This meeting was held after school on a Monday in the media center. The person who is in charge of the BATT is the same person that is runs the media center. She is an older lady that struggles with using technology.

The meeting was slightly disorganized. The person in charge struggled with using Google docs and knowing everything that was to be discussed on the agenda that she created. She did not have all of the details to help the team make good decisions.

For me, it made me more aware of how much more I can help and need to help with the BATT team, training teachers on technology usage, and discovering new ways to use technology that I can share with other teachers.

DI Plan & First Post

Differentiation Integration

Post twice a month on 15th and 30th about the following:
Strategies
Struggles
Questions
Ideas
Resources

Comment on each person's once a month

Put DI in the title

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Strategies:
I am struggling in my classes with DI. One of the strategies I've done is breaking the class into smaller groups and working with the students that still struggle on a concept. I have also given the students a choice on how to complete an assignment - they have a choice of the way they are going to complete the task whether it is with the technology they use or project they turn in.

Questions:
What are some more strategies that I can use within a high school classroom? This is a very generic question. I need to do some research on my own to help with this question.

Action Research Questions for October Conference

1. I'm still struggling with knowing that my data collection tools are going to sufficiently help me determine if implementing technology in my classroom will increase student motivation and engagement.

2. Should I include a survey of other teachers in the school as one of my data collection tools to determine if technology does or does not increase student motivation and engagement?

Curricular Design

Having a curricular design for my first unit of my high school Civil Engineering & Architecture has helped me feel planned and prepared to teach students. Because I feel so prepared, I now can focus on helping students and making sure they understand what I am trying to teach them. The focus has moved away from me and the curriculum and is now focused on the students and their understanding. This is the best feeling ever! 

One thing I struggle with is how to introduce my enduring understandings and making sure the students are getting it. I also struggle with the pre-assessment stage and successfully differentiating a lesson based on the pre-assessment.

I feel that having the curricular design and assessments based on the standards will help the students more in the long run, and they will be more successful on the end-of-year course assessment.

The curricular design piques my passion because it allows me to intertwine some really cool engineering concepts into the unit based on the enduring understandings. Since I have everything planned on, I can spend time on finding the really cool engineering things to add to the lesson and make it even better.