Bear's Den

Rosemont Forest Elementary Staff Newsletter

January 4, 2019

Volume 15, Issue 17

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Bear Brags

Patty Cree for staying late on December 21st after the rest of us had started our vacations due to a plumbing emergency.
Donna V. and Jessica for your flexibility and positive attitudes. You always roll with the punches and there have been a lot of punches.

~ Greg Furlich ~

Performance Goals vs. Learning Goals

Carol Dweck describes two kinds of goals – performance goals and learning goals. Getting an A in French is a performance goal. Being able to speak French is a learning goal. According to Dweck, only learning goals lead to mastery. She conducted a study with junior high students who were learning new material in a science class. At the beginning of the study students created goals related to learning new material. Researchers categorized goals as either performance goals (a goal designed to make the student look smart and capable) or learning goals (a goal designed to help the student learn). Researchers determined that both categories of students were approaching the new material with roughly the same amount of mathematical and numerical reasoning skill. And both groups performed similarly in demonstrating the material they learned. But when the students were asked to apply their new knowledge to novel problems, the students who set learning goals fared much better. The learning-oriented goal setters scored higher on novel problems, which included fifty percent more writing in regard to deeper-thinking questions.

~ From The Growth Mindset Coach by Annie Brock and Heather Hundley

5 Sentences Your Students Need to Hear From You

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1. “I think you’d be good at it.”

In close to 20 years of working with a state student leadership program, I can tell you that the line I hear more than any other on why a student decided to step up and have the courage to get involved or run for office is, “I think you’d be good at it.” There is something about this simple, yet powerful statement that causes people to act and push their comfort zones. Maybe it has something to do with meeting the basic human need that all people have, which is to be paid attention to and appreciated.

2. “It’s all about relationships.”

Let’s face it, we were built to be relational. From the time we are babies to the day we die, there is evidence that we were built to be relational. From nurses wanting Moms to have skin to skin contact with brand new babies, to people on their death beds asking for loved ones to be by their side so that they are not alone - no matter what subject area is being taught, everyone has a responsibility to teach positive relationship skills. We must explicitly teach how to introduce yourself to someone, interact with someone in conversation, and teach the importance of helping others and asking for help yourself. All of these skills are important to strong relationships and can be woven into the fabric of what we teach in any subject area. We need to be as intentional with planning these skills into our day as we are with the content we teach. It’s not one more thing on the plate, it is the plate!

3. “We are responsible for how we respond.”

What is great about this sentence is that it identifies that we are not perfect, yet holds us
accountable to be “responsible” for a response. If students in our classrooms were given the space to make mistakes, but know that my expectation of them as their teacher is on how they respond to that mistake…growth is going to occur in my students both academically and socially.

4. “What did you do for others today?”

This is the question that is not getting asked. Ask any group of students, “How many of you have had a parent or guardian ask you at the end of a day in the last month, ‘What did you do for others today?’ and see how many hands go up. If we are going to change the colts and culture of our schools, communities, and world, we need to start directly and indirectly asking the question that is not getting asked.

5. “I was wrong.”

It is becoming more and more rare in today’s day-to-day life where we see examples
of humility in action. Humility is an absence of pride and arrogance and it seems that pride runs rampant in our society where likes, favorites, and retweets magnify the message that “It’s all about me and my wants and desires.” For an educator to genuinely say, “I was wrong” in any context carries so much weight because it is so rarely heard. It may be one of the greatest lessons you teach all year.

~From charachterstrong.com

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Data Chats

I’ll begin pulling selected third through fifth grade students for midyear data conversations on Monday. Please make sure that your students have access to their relevant scores (quarterly scores, most recent DRA, RI, etc.). I’ll only spend a few minutes with each child, beginning with third grade and moving up.

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Looking Ahead

Jan. 7 - 3:10 pm Bears On Air Meeting, Library

Jan. 8 - 3:15 pm RoFo Review, Rm.27

5:15 pm ODS Elementary Info Night

Jan. 9 - 3:15 pm Garden Club