Monthly Archives: September 2016

Learning and the Brain – Part 1

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This is the first of a series of articles by Tamra Wade, classroom teacher and the school’s Numeracy Coach. It was originally published in the Newsletter on August 26th, 2016.

Each fortnight, this new section of the newsletter will provide parents with a glimpse at educational research based on neuroscience, how the brain learns and how this knowledge can support the learning of the students at CLG.

TOPIC 1: GROWTH VERSUS FIXED MINDSETS

Dr Carol Dweck, a professor of psychology at Stanford University, studies the mindset of children or how they think about their abilities. She believes that children are similar to adults in that they have one of two possible mindsets – a fixed mindset or a growth mindset.
Kids with a fixed mindsets believe they are ‘smart’ or ‘dumb’, talented at something; painting, music or football, or not. They believe the world is made of some gifted people, whom the rest admire from the sidelines. Alternatively, kids with a growth mindset appreciate that anyone can build themselves into anything they want to be. They recognise that people aren’t ‘smart’ or dumb’, only hard working people who have chosen to take their abilities to the next level.
Dweck’s research shows that students’ beliefs about intelligence play an important role in their school achievement, engagement and happiness.

  • We found that students’ mindsets – how they perceive their abilities- played a key role in their motivation and achievement, and we found that if we changed students’ mindsets, we could boost their achievement. Students who believed their intelligence could be developed (a growth mindset) outperformed those who believed their intelligence was fixed (a fixed mindset)” Carol Dweck, 2006
  1. How can you as a parent help your child to develop a growth mindset?
    Tips for promoting a growth mindset in kids:
  2. Help children understand that the brain works like a muscle, that can only grow through hard work, determination and lots and lots of practice.
  3. Don’t tell students they are smart, gifted or talented, since this implies that they were born with knowledge, and does not encourage growth or effort.
  4. Let kids know when they demonstrate a growth mindset.
  5. Praise the process. It’s effort, hard work and practice that allow children to achieve their true potential.
  6. Don’t praise the results. Test scores and rigid ways of measuring learning and knowledge limit the growth that would otherwise be tapped.
  7. Embrace failures and mistakes. Children sometimes learn the most when they fail. Let them know that mistakes are a big part of the learning process. There is nothing like the feeling of struggling through a very difficult problem, only to finally break through and solve it! The harder the problem, the more satisfying it is to find the solution.
  8. Don’t ask your kids what they enjoyed at school today,but rather what did you find challenging? Focus on the effort and mistakes that were made.

Follow the link below to view a video of Carol Dweck:
http://bit.ly/1wBJmZ6

Click here to download a PDF version of the article, with images, as presented in the newsletter

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Parent Engagement in Education

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This article was first published in the newsletter on August 26th 2016
LEARNING POTENTIAL WEBSITE AND APP
Parents, families and carers are a child’s first and most important teachers. Parent Engagement In Education is about parents being positively involved in their child’s learning and school community – to help them learn and enjoy school.
As a parent, you and your family play an important role in supporting your child’s education. The earlier you and your family become engaged, the better it is for your child’s learning. Parent engagement is more than being involved and informed about school activities. It is actively engaging with your child’s learning, both in the home and at school. When schools and families work together, children do better and stay in school longer. For this reason, ‘Engaging Parents In Education’ is one of the four pillars of the Australian Government’s Students First approach for quality school education.
What can parents do?
Being positively involved in your child’s learning can help them to do better at school, be more engaged with their school work, go to school more regularly, and have better behaviour and social skills. There are simple things you can do to support your child’s education. It doesn’t take much to make a big difference!
Research has identified five ways that you can make a big difference to your child’s learning:
  1. Set positive expectations
  2. Have regular conversations
  3. Support good study habits
  4. Encourage reading
  5. Build a partnership with your child’s teachers
The Learning Potential app is full of tips and ideas on how to put these ideas into practice, with specific suggestions depending on whether your child is under five, in primary school, or in high school.
Click the links below for an apple or android version of the app.
This is the link to the website:
Louisa Guest
Assistant Principal

Digital Technologies Workshop

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This article was originally published in the newsletter on September 8th 2016.
On the evening of Tuesday 6th September, 45 children and their parents attended a hands-on “digi tech” workshop.
Last year, our workshops focused on coding. This year, we wanted to show parents how we incorporate tech into all aspects of the curriculum. All teachers use the Australian Curriculum to program for children’s learning. Digital tools (ICTs) are used in every curriculum area. The part of the curriculum we refer to for this is called the ICT general capability. Skills are general with things like using social and ethical protocols (copyright, cyber safety, etc.) and managing and operating ICT (saving and backing up, locating information).
If you would like to read more about the ICT general capability, here’s the link:
The aspect of the curriculum that drives our teaching in using digital tools and systems is the Technologies: Digital Technology area. This is more specific in the skills and concepts that children must understand around the use of ICT, ICT systems, using ICT to solve problems and so on.
Here’s more information about that area:
The workshops that teachers offered were:
Writers’ Workshop and Puppet Pals (digital tools to improve literacy), unplugged coding (developing computational thinking skills), Beebots, Spheros, Scratch and Lego Mindstorms (digital tools to learn coding) green screen movie making (digital tools for creating and communicating).
Parents asked for a list of apps and websites shared at the workshops:
Apps: Bookcreator, Puppet Pals Directors Cut, Scratch Junior
Louisa Guest
Assistant Principal