If you’re anything like me, you come back from a Professional Learning workshop or conference just bubbling with ideas to try with your students, teammates, or school. Just because you are excited and wanting to delve head-first into the new changes, does not mean that your students, teammates, or school environment will be as willing to experiment.
How, then, do you lead and encourage change that you know will make school much more enjoyable and meaningful for the members of your school community?
In “Creating a Community of Exploration”, one of my presentations from last week’s STEM-a-Palooza, I shared some tips and tricks to help other educators create and guide change so that others within their communities are willing to try new things alongside them. Some of those tips included:
- Book recommendations:
- Mindset by Carol S. Dweck, Ph. D.
- Leading Change by John P. Kotter
- Grit by Angela Duckworth
- Peak by Anders Ericsson
- Information on Growth vs. Fixed Mindset
- Managing Change
- Encouraging hard work (grit)
- The importance of targeted practice
In essence, ensure that your community knows the following so that they feel safer with exploration:
- The goal is to learn, not to get a specific grade/evaluation score,
- Growth Mindset reflects one’s willingness to enhance one’s skills without being tied to the specific outcome, and that
- Hard work and targeted practice are what ensure meaningful growth.
Start small. The larger the group, the more challenging it can be to encourage and sustain a change in culture from one focused solely on the “end result” and not the learning process. That said, if you work to get your teammates or students aboard with trying new things, failing, and trying new things again, you will be more likely to inspire others to do the same.
Feel free to check out the Canva presentation I used in this session and let me know your thoughts.
What are some things you would like to explore within your community?
Looking forward to seeing what you choose to explore this year!
-Ms. W.
