Walking Through Questions

Hi, everyone! This week I want to walk through questions I asked teachers, why I chose them, and what they revealed about different teaching styles.

The first question was a general open-ended one, it was, "What do you know about grit and growth mindset?"

Most of the teachers I have interviewed so far have not known what growth mindset is but have a general idea of grit. The most common response was something along the lines of perseverance and determination, which is fairly close to the actual definition.

The second question was, "What classroom strategies are you aware of the foster grit and growth mindset?"

This question was aimed at finding out what strategies teachers were conscious of in the classroom. I got a wide array of strategies, from making sure that students know that there are multiple ways to get the same answer to giving hints to students. Interestingly, teachers were not aware that how they praise students affect they way they learn.

The third question is, "Have you implemented some strategies like the one in the previous question or have you created your own. If you have can you please explain it in detail and have you seen a positive impact on students since you began using this strategy?"

This question's purpose was similar to the last, it was aimed at finding out how aware teachers were of strategies that foster grit. Unfortunately, since this concept was new to most teachers they weren't aware of many strategies. A solution to this would be to educate teachers on strategies to teach growth mindset and grit. Perhaps they will become aware of strategies they are already using.

The next question was "Do you think sitting down with your students at the beginning of the year and have them set long-term goals for that class and then meeting with them every so often throughout the year to keep track of their progress is possible in the classroom or devoting somedays to teaching grit? What about in an AP setting?"

This was aimed at determining if teachers felt that they would actually have time to address this in their classrooms. Based off of my research, it should be possible for teachers to teach this concept through their teaching style alone. However, teachers felt like they would not have the time to meet one on one with about 20 kids per class, especially in an AP class where time is crucial.

The final question was a demographics question, "Do you see that different types of students (girls, boys, white, black, Asian, Hispanic, etc.) learn about grit differently? Have to had to make any adjustments to your teaching style to accommodate for them?"

Most teachers see a difference between how boys and girls learn, not as much across cultures and ethnicities. The general consensus was that boys are more hands on, loud, and tend to answer questions more while girls tend to be quieter and focus on their individual work.