128: The Power of Mistakes & Struggle

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Mistakes & the Brain:
  • Mistakes grown synapses.
  • Mistakes generate more brain activity than correct responses.
  • 2 brain responses to mistakes:
    1. ERN responses – increased electrical activity due to conflict between correct response and an error
    2. Pe responses – brain signal due to recognition of error
  • Brain sparks can occur even when people are unaware that mistakes were made
  • People with growth mindset show more brain activity in response to mistakes and are more likely to recognize errors
Mistakes & Life
  • More successful people make more mistakes than less successful people
  • Making mistakes is key to creative, entrepreneurial thinking
  • Successful people tend to:
    • feel comfortable being wrong
    • try wild ideas
    • are open to different experiences
    • play with ideas without judging them
    • persist through difficulties
    • willing to go against tradition
  • Practicing the attitudes above can help people learn math (or probably anything)
How Can We Change How Students View Mistakes?
  • Teach students about the positive impacts of mistakes on the brain
  • Crumble paper with mistakes, throw it against something to let out frustration.  Then open it and smooth it out and trace over crumple lines with marker to remind oneself of brain growth as result of mistake.  Then keep paper as a record of mistakes.
  • Teach and display positive brain messages.
  • Have teachers and students select and highlight “favorite mistakes”.
  • Have class discussions about mistakes.
  • Do not downgrade assignments for mistakes – upgrade assignments for mistakes.
  • Avoid over-testing and over-grading.
  • Display positive attitudes towards mistakes in group and individual settings.
  • Remind students repeatedly about brain growth that goes with mistakes and lack of brain growth that goes with correct responses
  • Teach students to appreciate & be aware of disequilibrium (Piaget) – state of disequilibrium occurs when students try to incorporate new information into existing mental maps – states of disequilibrium are uncomfortable but lead to wisdom
  • Expose students to math experiences that create disequilibrium
  • Value work with mistakes more than correct work
  • Make showing of mistakes a common occurrence in classroom and discussing how to think through the mistake

 

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Knowing about the impact of mistakes on the brain can teach students and teachers to value mistakes more and leverage them better to grow.  Knowing strategies for creating cultures that value mistakes will help students develop growth mindsets and help them to approach mistakes creatively and constructively.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Research strategies for creating classroom cultures that value mistakes.  See above.
  • Develop scaffolding activities and strategies that will be used to teach & remind students of the value of mistakes.
Early Implementation Steps
  • Implement policies, strategies, and scaffolding lessons that value student mistakes such as:
    • Presenting (teachers & students) mistakes and hold classroom discussion around them
    • Crumple paper strategy (see above)
    • Creating situations that will place students in disequilibrium and funnel students towards learning targets
    • Teaching students about the relationship between brain activity and mistakes
    • Selecting favorite mistakes and why they are so helpful
    • Reflections on how new attitudes towards mistakes impact learning
    • Using grading policies that value errors
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Create bank of problems that create disequilibrium that explore big ideas in mathematics
  • Create bank of discussion and question prompts that highlight and analyze mistakes

 

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109: 5 Non-Cognitive Factors Related to Academic Performance

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  1. Academic Behaviors:
    • “good student” behaviors
    • examples: high attendance, coming prepared to class, staying on task, completing homework, etc.
    • important for achievement
    • all other non-cognitive factors work through academic behaviors to get results
  2. Academic Perseverance:
    • completing academic tasks on task to best of one’s ability despite challenges
    • related attitudes: grit, persistence, delayed gratification, self discipline, self control
  3. Academic Mindsets:
    • beliefs that relate to academic work
    • 4 key examples:
      1. I belong in this academic community
        • relates to idea that learning is a social activity
        • feeling of belonging to a learning community improves student performance
      2. My ability and competence grow with effort
        • growth mindset
      3. I can succeed at this
        • people tend to embrace things they think they can do and avoid things they believe they can’t
      4. This work has value for me
        • attainment value: doing well on a task
        • intrinsic value: gaining enjoyment on task
        • utility value: task serves an important purpose
  4. Learning Strategies:
    • strategies that enhance thinking
    • examples:  strategies for …
      • better recall
      • monitoring comprehension
      • self correcting
      • goal setting
      • time management
  5. Social skills:
    • examples: cooperation, assertion, responsibility, empathy
    • behaviors that improve social interactions
Their model of how these 5 factor relate to academic behavior is shown below:

 

model

 

  • Interesting features of the model:
    • academic mindsets can give rise to social skills, academic behaviors, academic perseverance, and learning strategies
    • academic mindsets, social skills, academic perseverance, and learning strategies use academic behaviors as a vehicle for achieving academic performance
    • using learning strategies can lead to more academic perseverance and more academic behaviors that lead to academic performance
    • academic performance can influence academic mindsets

 

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Knowing the research-backed factors that improve academic performance can help teachers plan classroom management systems that build the skills, mindsets, and attitudes that support academic success.  Having a model for how these factors interact can help one understand how focusing on one factor can influence the other factors.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Conduct more research on factors related to academic success.  See Agency articles and hyperlinked articles above for ideas.
  • Create character learning targets based on key features of 5 non cognitive factors listed above
  • Research strategies and activities that can be implemented to reach character learning targets related to 5 non cognitive factors
Early Implementation Steps
  • Throughout the year, facilitate activities and strategies that help students reach character learning targets
  • Use formative assessments and related reflections related to Agency rubric to see if activities and strategies are improving students’ agency
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Use student reflections and assessment results to identify most effective strategies.  Incorporate these into classroom routines.
  • Use model (see graphic above) to help students see and reflect upon the connections between skills, attitudes, behaviors and performance
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104: Cooperative Learning

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Research on Cooperative Learning:
  • Homogeneous ability grouping can lead to widening of ability gaps in students
  • 5 Elements of Cooperative Learning:
    1. Positive interdependence
      • all members’ efforts needed to succeed
    2. Face-to-face promotive interaction
      • encouraging feedback
    3. Individual and group accountability
    4. Interpersonal and small group skills
      • communication, trust, leadership, decision making and conflict resolution skills
      • For ideas on how to scaffold these skills, see Collaboration articles
    5. Group processing
      • reflection on how group collaborates in order to improve collaboration
  • Cooperative learning has outperformed competitive learning and individual learning in several research studies
  • 3 Generalizations from research:
    1. Organizing groups based on ability should be done sparingly
      • homogeneous ability grouping does not help low performing students
    2. Cooperative learning groups should be kept small in size
      • suggest 3 to 4 members per team
    3. Cooperative learning should be applied consistently and systematically, but not overused.
      • signs of overuse
        • task is not designed to required team work
        • not enough time built in for independent practice
      • cooperative learning improves when applied at least once per week
 
Classroom Practices:
  • Use a variety of grouping methods
    • random – by color they’re wearing, picking out of hat, by birthday
    • by common interests – can build on common experiences
  • Use informal, formal and base groups
    • informal:
      • examples: pair-share, turn to your neighbor that last few minutes per class periods
      • uses: clarify expectations, co-process information, co-reflect/closure on activities
    • formal:
      • examples: project teams
      • tips:  design tasks that include 5 elements of cooperative learning
    • base groups
      • support groups that are long term (could be semester long)
      • sample use:  meet 5 minutes each day to discuss upcoming deadlines and homework
  • Managing group size
    • task should match size of team
    • larger teams require more collaborative social skills
  • Combining Cooperative Learning with other classroom structures:
    • allow time for individual processing and independent practice

 

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Cooperative learning is a regular feature of project-based learning (PBL).  The five elements of cooperative learning can be used to design and refine tasks that help students learn and work better in teams.  Using different types of groups (informal, base, and formal) can help students get peer support from multiple class mates.  Being mindful of possible overuses of cooperative learning can help PBL facilitator create opportunities for individual learning to balance out cooperative learning experiences.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Design lessons that leverage informal grouping to extend academic talk
  • Research strategies that relate to 5 elements of cooperative learning and incorporate these into design for content and collaboration scaffolding
  • Design group activities that incorporate 5 elements of cooperative learning. See above
Early Implementation Steps
  • Implement group activities that incorporate 5 elements of cooperative learning.
  • Use informal grouping to  extend academic talk during scaffolding activities
  • Have teams reflect on which of the 5 elements of cooperative learning are at play in activities, how they are working and how to improve them
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Create notebook resources that provide strategies that connect to 5 cooperative learning strategies
  • Have students use collaborative strategies resource to help design and implement group contracts and to help facilitate team meetings
  • Explicitly teach students social skills needed to collaborate effectively.  See Collaboration articles for ideas.
  • Use base value groups to provide steady support for students – can use to provide encouraging feedback, reminders of deadlines, practice individual goal setting skills, etc

 

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102: Assumption Ladder

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Assumption Ladder – from bottom rung to the top
  • Available data and experiences
    • Ask questions or report the facts and findings
  • I select data to observe
    • Ask questions or share
      • focus of observations
      • highlights of observations
  • I make assumptions based on what I’ve selected.
    • Ask questions or share
      • Assumptions
      • Possible causes
      • Possible next steps
  • I draw conclusions
    • Ask questions or share
      • Summaries
      • Conclusions
      • Learnings
  • I make actions based on my conclusions
    • Ask questions or share
      • Plan of action
      • Next steps
Uses of ladder:
  • Metaphor for communicating full problem solving train of thought
  • Easier to have a dialogue about the things at the bottom of the ladder
  • Disagreements at the top of the ladder (without knowledge of bottom rungs) are hard to resolve
  • Ladder slows down thinking process and makes it more visible to the individual and team
  • Once a decision is made it becomes a self fulfilling force – hard to change direction
 
How to use the ladder:
  • Create an Assumption ladder visual and refer to it during discussions
  • Facilitator asks questions and uses cues that indicate to the group what rung of the ladder they are on
  • Use the ladder to settle disagreements – try to diagnose at what rung of the ladder did the disagreement start
  • Do’s:
    • Get people to hold up ladder as you go
    • Open up for multiple viewpoints
    • Invite others to challenge you
    • Practice walking up and down the ladder
    • Listen and inquire versus just advocating
  • Do nots:
    • Use the ladder as a weapon
    • Try to knock others off their ladder
    • Get defensive
    • Expect this to be easy
    • Advocate without inquiry

 

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Students and teachers are constantly making judgements about content and about character.  These lead to next steps related to improving academic  and character skills.  The assumption ladder is a tool that can be used to convey the full train of thought supporting next steps relating to upcoming goals.  This visual can be especially helpful when there are disagreements about next steps and new directions.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Look at project calendar and list of project actions and identify areas where teams will need to problem solve together to arrive at a consensus about their team or their products
  • Create Assumption Ladder visuals for classrooms and for student folders or notebooks
Early Implementation Steps
  • Model being different roles around a conversation that uses Assumption ladder
  • Scaffold lessons about Assumption ladder – in lesson offer modeling, role playing, discussion and reflection opportunities
  • Brainstorm uses for Assumption ladder with students
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Teach students how to facilitate team discussions using the Assumption ladder
  • Have students identify when its effective to use Assumption Ladder conversations and independently start these as needed
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100: Reinforcing Effort & Providing Recognition

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What research has to say about reinforcing effort:

  • Not all students realize the impact of effort.
  • Students can change their beliefs on the importance of effort.

Classroom Practices

  • Explicit practices
    • Teachers share stories of how effort carried the day when success did not seem imminent
    • Share examples (videos) from famous people who triumphed through effort
    • Share examples of effort from famous stories
    • Students recall times when they prevailed through effort
  • Use rubrics to track effort and achievement:
rubrics
  • Ask students to see correlation between effort and achievement variables
    • Ask students to reflect on what they learned about effort
    • Graph effort and achievement data
      • Achievement vs Effort
      • Achievement vs Time
      • Effort vs Time
    • Have students use graphs to notice patterns in their effort and achievement

 

What Research has to say about Providing Recognition:

  • Rewards do not necessarily have a negative effect on intrinsic motivation
    • Worst effect – giving praise for easy tasks can undermine achievement
  • Reward is most effective when it is contingent on reaching known performance standards
  • Abstract symbolic recognition is more effective than tangible rewards
    • Tangible awards = physical prizes, candy
    • Verbal praise is effective
    • Abstract rewards = recognition for reaching a performance standards
    • Tangible awards are still effective when tied to performance standards

Classroom practices related to Recognition:

  • Personal Best Honor Roll – students who met individual target goals made this honor roll regardless of whether or not they qualified for absolute grade-based honor roll
  • Pause, prompt and praise
    • Pause students in work
    • Prompt – have supportive conversation on how to improve work
    • Praise – After some time and evidence of improvement, congratulate student on their new found success
  • Symbolic signs of recognition
    • Stickers, stamps, ..
    • Make sure these tokens are given for meeting performance standards to create positive or no impact on intrinsic motivation

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Teaching about the importance of effort relates to building growth versus fixed mindsets in students.  Showing students how their efforts tie to results by tracking rubric stores and through recognition could reinforce beliefs that tie effort to success.

 

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Preparation Steps

  • Gather stories (articles, videos) about people who triumphed through effort
  • Gather goal setting and tracking tools such as the Effort & Achievement Rubric (see above)
  • Design lessons on the importance of effort and its connection to external results (achievements) and internal results (brain development)

Early Implementation Steps

  • Implement lessons about importance of effort – incorporate model stories, discussions, and opportunities for students to tie lessons to their own lives
  • Use Effort & Achievement Rubric and a Task chart to record effort and achievement scores daily over a period of time
  • Create summary graphs of effort and achievement shorts:  achievement vs effort, achievement vs time, effort vs time
  • Have students identify and reflect upon patterns in summary charts

Advanced Implementation Steps

  • Ask students what strategies and practices do they want to incorporate into their daily habits and routines as a result of achievement / effort tracking
  • Experiment with different ways for recognizing student effort
  • Use student feedback to identify most effective ways for recognizing student work – incorporate these into classroom routines
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99: Development FIRST

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Development FIRST Steps

(David Peterson and Mary Dee Hicks)

  1. Focus on priorities:
    • What are the most important skills in your development plan?
    • Select 1-2 areas.
    • Work with focus areas for 1-2 months before moving on.
    • Figure out:
      • where are you know and where do you want to go?
      • what are you actually going to do differently?
      • what are the impacts of these changes?
  2. Implement something every day.
    • At least  5 min per day on development (micro initiative that might grow to macro impacts)
    • Seek out situations with:
      • High stakes and visibility
      • Novelty to stretch your comfort zone
      • Challenges that require you to do more than you’ve done in the past
      • Interactions that require you to work with non-subordinates
    • In these situations ask:
      • Can I take a risk each day?
      • How can I use my strengths?
      • What resources do I need?
      • What do I need to face?
  3. Reflect on your experience.
    • What have you learned from successes and mistake?
    • Write each day:
      • proudest moment
      • high light of the day
    • Look for patterns in reflections
  4. Seek feedback and support:
    • the more people you involve, the more chance of success
    • Supporters can give you
      • feedback
      • direction
      • new strategies
      • support
      • motivation
      • accountability
    • Guiding questions
      • Who are the best people to support you?
      • Who are the best people to get feedback from?
      • Can you tell them what you need and how they can help?
      • What kind of feedback is unhelpful?
      • How can you foster mentoring relationships with them?
  5. Transfer learnings into next steps:
    • Codify successes into patterns, resources, and supports needed to move forward
    • When success occurs:
      • write down success steps
      • ask others what they saw you do that was helpful
      • teach someone else how you did it
      • teach your learning to your team
      • ask others to hold you accountable to better patterns and make you aware of when you’re slipping back into old habits

 

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There are so many skills teachers can acquire to become better educators.  With so many options out there, it’s sometimes hard to choose and stick to a development plan that will lead to substantial change and success in any one area.  Following the steps above can help teachers and students achieve goals that relate to tricky change efforts.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • For teacher development plans:
    • Do an inventory of the teaching strategies and skills you would like to master to become a better teacher
    • Prioritize your inventory – seek out 1-2 focus areas
    • Brainstorm how you can take small risks each day to learn something new about your focus areas
    • Recruit people who can offer support, advice and feedback
  • For student development plans
    • Help students use learning targets to identify 1-2 focus areas
    • Research and develop scaffolding strategies, tools and activities that students can implement every day to become more skilled focus areas
    • Have students assume appropriate roles in development plans – thought partners, observers, feedback partners – train students how to perform roles well
Early Implementation Steps
  • For teacher development plans:
    • Keep record of risk tried each day and related learnings
    • Supplement notes with advice, feedback and observations from support team
  • For student development plans:
    • Have students record what they tried and what they learned from it.
    • Have student supplement their reflections with advice and observations from their support teams.
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • For teacher and student development plans:
    • Look for patterns in successes in journal entries
    • Identify the most effective strategies
    • Solidify the HOW in the effective strategies by teaching them to another team member
    • Identify new patterns you’d like to convert into routines
    • Recruit an accountability team that will let you know when you are sticking to new routines and when you’re slipping back into old habits

 

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98: Coaching Conversations

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  1. Hear the problem or issue fully.
    • Ask questions to determine what happened, when it happened, why it happened.
    • Reflect back content and emotions without giving advice.
  2. Get more details.
    • Ask more questions to find out:
      • duration of problem?
      • what’s been tried already?
      • who’s been affected?
      • what does everyone think the problem is?
      • anything work at all (even part time)?
    • Reflect back content and emotions without giving advice.
  3. Honor their ideas for a solution.
    • Ask questions to help him, her or them describe their possible next steps
      • What should be done next?
      • Who might benefit?
      • How long will next step(s) take?
      • What resources do you need?
      • How will you know if it’s working?
      • What are the merits of various solutions?
  4. Ask if they want your advice.
    • If not, confirm what they will next.
    • If they really need but don’t want it, offer it.
  5. Give your advice and make a plan.
    • Don’t just give the answer – create a mentoring moment
    • Think aloud (making thinking visible).
    • Explain considerations for choice
    • Explain why you selected choice
    • Explain what was considered and ruled out and why
    • If one exists, explain impact of a similar experience you’ve had and what you would’ve done better now that you know more
    • Explain what things they did not consider in their choice – unintended consequences, impact on stakeholders, resources needed, time needed, skills needed, etc.
  6. Plan
    • Decide on a next step
    • Decide when they will check back with you
    • Decide how they will know if next step is working

 

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Coaching conversations are a critical tool in managing teams during PBL projects.  Teams will sometimes reach an impasse and will need the assistance of a facilitator to think through a problem.  Observing the steps above will help teachers guide students through the process of analyzing, brainstorming, evaluating, and planning possible solutions to their team problems.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Prior to needing to facilitate these conversations, offer up the Coaching Conversation as one of a selection of extra support tools that teams can use when they are feeling stuck or overwhelmed.
  • Teach students what are the purpose and format of Coaching conversations.
  • Observe teams to identify if any teams might need a coaching conversation.
Early Implementation Steps
  • If a team requests (or is perceived to be in need of) a coaching conversations, facilitate one using the steps listed in the WHAT section.
  • After the conversations have students reflect and provide feedback on how the session went.
  • Set up a plan to implement and evaluate next steps.
  • Check in on teams to see if their next steps worked.
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Teach students how to have coaching conversations with their team mates.  While scaffolding this skill provide: a checklist of steps, modeling of steps, and practice role play opportunities.
  • After observing the steps being modeled or role played, ask students to brainstorm situations that may require coaching conversations.
  • To help students be more effective listeners during coaching conversations, look at ideas in here and here.
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97: Building Empathy

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Empathy:
  • Ability to understand people
  • Accurately hear unspoken feelings, thoughts and concerns of others
  • Seeing other people’s perspectives
Expressed and Unexpressed Feelings:
  • Challenges:
    • Not all feelings are spoken
    • People aren’t always aware of how they feel
Johari Window:
johari
  • Quadrant 1 Tips (Top left, Feelings are known to self and expressed)
    • Listen for blinking (feeling) words
    • Respond compassionately and attentively to feeling words
  • Quadrant 2 Tips (Bottom left, Feelings are known to self but unexpressed)
    • Observe body language
    • Ask questions related to perceived feelings
    • Put yourself in other’s shoes
  • Quadrant 3 Tips (Top right, Feeling are unknown to self, but expressed = Blind spot)
    • Ask person if he would like feedback and use SSBIR method
    • Be sensitive.  Don’t pry.  If needed, ask probing questions in private
    • Observe body language
  • Quadrant 4 Tips (Bottom right, feelings are unknown to all)
    • Ask questions
    • Put yourself in other’s shoes
Carkuff model:
  • Listen deeply by paraphrasing what was just heard without asking questions or giving advice
 
4 Levels of Listening:  For more listening tips, go here.
  1. Paraphrase content
  2. Paraphrase feelings
  3. Paraphrase feelings and content
  4. Paraphrase feelings, content and meaning
Star Listening:
  • Mostly at level 3 or above
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In team interactions, not all important emotions are expressed.  Teaching the Johari Window to students and related strategies can help students to practice empathy towards team members that are feeling emotions that are either unknown (but impactful) or difficult to express.  Teaching students how to actively listen and demonstrate empathy will help them build rapport with their team mates and to improve their shared trust and collaboration.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Research more strategies relating to showing empathy for different states in the Johari window
  • Develop visuals, handouts and scaffolding activities to teach students how to actively listen during different Johari window states
  • Develop learning targets (long term and supporting) that relate to skillful listening
Early Implementation Steps
  • Implement scaffolding lessons prepped above – include modeling, guided role playing, small / large group discussions and reflections
  • Have students reflect on how they felt when they were demonstrating and receiving strategies related to building empathy
  • Have students communicate with their team mates on how they can better read each other’s feelings and what questions help them best communicate unexpressed emotions
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Have students reflect over time on how practicing empathy building strategies affects their understanding of teammates and team morale
  • Ask students to use their reflections over time to uncover habits they would like to develop to continue to build empathy with others
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96: Building Rapport & Listening Skills

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Thinking Instead of Listening:

  • We can speak at 150 words / minute
  • We can think at 450 – 600 words / minute
  • Fast thoughts can create a distracting back chatter that makes listening challenging
  • Covey – We don’t listen to understanding; we listen to reply.

7 Barriers to Listening:

  1. Rehearsing a response:
    • mentally practicing to say your part
  2. False reassurances:
    • nod head like you’re listening, but you’re really looking for an opening to speak
  3. Cliches:
    • offer false cliches to appear like you’re paying attention
  4. Misdirected quotes:
    • ask questions that divert person from what they were saying before understanding it
  5. Not focusing:
    • paying attention to details outside the conversation
  6. Daydreaming:
    • paying attention to inside thoughts rather than conversation
  7. Selective listening:
    • catch a few words and pretend to listen

Good Listening Skills:  For more tips for building listening skills, go here.

  1. Don’t talk
  2. Nod head occasionally
  3. Softly look at person without staring
  4. Move away or look away from distractions
  5. Open body posture – don’t cross arms, don’t look at watch
  6. Give brief verbal acknowledgements – “Really”, “Wow”, “Interesting”, …
  7. Pace responses – if you give too may they’ll think you’re getting impatient or bored
  8. Ask clarifying questions

Building Rapport:

  • Listening – see above
  • Make deposits into emotional bank account:
    • deposit actions include: asking for ideas, listening, acknowledging their ideas, providing resources, etc
    • withdrawals include: asking for favors, negative feedback, etc.
  • Find things shared in common besides work
  • Be aware of attending behavior (how you look and act while you listen)
    • if your attending behavior includes off-putting stuff like frowning – make an effort to fix it
  • Match and mirror their communication style, learning style, or problem solving approaches
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Our brain is wired in such a way that good listening is a challenge.  Practicing good listening skills enhances communication and builds rapport.  Learning how to practice skills that build rapport will help one be a more charismatic leader and team player.  Teaching and practicing listening and rapport-building skills will help teachers and students to interact in ways that make deposits into persons’ emotional bank accounts.

 

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Preparation Steps

  • Design lessons and related resources that teach students how to improve their listening and rapport-building skills.

Early Implementation Steps

  • Early on in the year and in projects, facilitate workshops and activities that build students’ listening skills and the rapport they feel for each other.
  • While scaffolding these skills – offer modeling, practice opportunities, and encouraging feedback.
  • Have students reflect on how practicing these skills is affecting their team’s morale, relationships, and communication.

Advanced Implementation Steps

  • Periodically have students deliberately practice listening and practice building rapport.
  • Have students reflect on what makes these practices challenging and what they can improve in order to make their efforts feel and be perceived as more sincere
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95: Giving Feedback (SSBIR)

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Center for Creative Leadership Model for Giving Feedback (SSBIR):
  • Set the Stage: Intention / readiness to listen:
    • Ask if now is a good time to share feedback
    • Prepare listener for feedback
  • State the Situation:
    • What, where, when of the situation
  • State the Behavior:
    • Report facts (not interpretations, judgements) about behavior
  • State the Impact:
    • Most important step
    • Describe how behavior is affecting situations, time, money, and stakeholders
  • Resolution:
    • Ask how to resolve situation
    • Ask how to prevent future occurrences
    • If behavior is good, ask – how can we continue or enhance this?
When to give feedback:
  • Frequently
    • Easier to reinforce behavior
    • Start with positive feedback
    • Put money in emotional bank account
  • Timely
    • While experience is fresh
    • Don’t wait till experience or project is done
    • Can give feedback as they approach goals
    • Put money in emotional bank account
  • Development opportunity
    • Communicate opportunities to achieve goals
  • Solve performance problems
    • After there is money in the emotional bank account
    • Help listener arrive at strategies that will improve performance
More feedback tips
  • If it’s important, make an appointment for feedback
  • Be sensitive to power imbalance (choose neutral location to mitigate this)
  • Keep it simple
  • Leverage their strengths
  • Prepare feedback to fit listener’s communication style
  • Offer suggestions and support
  • Get their feedback about the feedback
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Giving constructive feedback is an important skill for teachers to have in order to set and manage high classroom expectations.  This is also an important skill to teach to students so they can communicate in ways that set and manage high expectations for their project teams.  The SSBIR method is a process that can be practiced by teachers and students in order to give both positive and negative feedback.

 

4-nowwhatPreparation Steps

  • Create visuals and role-play situations for SSBIR method
  • Create visuals and handouts for feedback methods and tips
  • Practice using SSBIR method in classroom and team management situations

Early Implementation Steps

  • Model and role-play SSBIR method with student teams.  Have each student practice being the speaker and the listener in the process.
  • Have students reflect on practice sessions with SSBIR method and predict when they will use this method in the future to give both positive and negative feedback.
  • Stage times for teams to have meetings dedicated to SSBIR feedback cycles so that students can practice giving each other constructive feedback.

Advanced Implementation Steps

  • Make frequent constructive feedback a part of team management routines.
  • Have students reflect on the SSBIR conversations and offer suggestions for how they can be better speakers and listeners during these conversations.
  • Have students document the next steps that emerge from SSBIR conversations and add these to their team’s goal setting documentation.
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