Last day of LALLI

Reading into the day.

Completing some close reading of Mindset: 

On our last day at LALLI, we began by reading into the day.  We read a passage from Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck.  The article supported the fact that cultivating a growth mindset in our classrooms and schools is needed to have students who are successful at learning and feel successful at learning. An important part of cultivating a growth mindset in our classrooms is building positive, strong relationships with our students, getting to know their individual needs. I noticed quite a few of us requesting that Penny copy other sections of the text.  Naturally, she was happy to oblige.
















Next, Mike led the group in a discussion of school planning.  Each school group was asked to think about what made school wide initiatives not work in their school.  This was a subject of interest to everyone ( I think) and was a subject we all had an opinion about.  Many of those opinions were shared  during group discussions.  During whole group discussion, I noticed lots of nods of agreement when inconsistency, lack of accountability, lack of clearly explained purpose, and lack of "buy-in" were raised as reasons why these initiatives were ineffective. We were then asked to discuss with our peers from our specific schools to come up with ideas on what would make initiatives effective at our schools. When we came together for whole group discussion the following ideas were mentioned: using a growth mindset (as opposed to fixed), being patient with the implementation, and communicating results using honest feedback. This entire discussion could have gone on all day and been productive!

Mike facilitating the discussion. "Be the tail rudder."

Effective Chart

Ineffective Chart

My experience at LALLI has been fantastic.  I have added to my teacher "bag of tricks." It is great to have so many new strategies to take into the classroom and use. I cannot wait to get back into the classroom and start the new school year introducing my students to Accountable Talk, Code Switching, and the Growth Mindset. Thank you to all our LALLI leaders/mentors: Deb, Mike, Jean, Amy, Ryan, Marsha, and Penny