Summer Assignments by: Jack Michael

As a student, summer assignments are gifted to you in all their glory at some point in your educational career. There are many silent and non-silent objections towards these assignments made by students. These objections mostly stem from the stress over losing the assignment, the amount of time completion will take, and student’s understanding of the topic on the assignment.  Summer Assignments receive little to no love from the student body. Although if a summer assignment is formatted correctly I believe it can provide much needed reinforcement for every type of student, but how do you format a summer assignment correctly?  

 

First start off with providing a “Backup” for students to use. This will entail having extras of the assignment being on hand or accessible to the student in some way. This way as a student moves along their summer if the assignment is lost they have the ability to attain another copy. Doing this allows an immense amount of pressure to be relieved from student’s shoulders by providing the reassurance that losing their packet is not the “end all, be all.”

 

The second recommendation I would give would be to make the assignment small. Students stress constantly over the amount of time the assignment will take. If the assignment is long, students will be deterred from even attempting the material. They also move to find answers elsewhere because the assignment needs to be turned in for a grade. As a student, when I receive a smaller assignment I am always more inclined to complete it because it feels like I have gotten a large quantity of work done during the summer. By shortening the assignment; students will not only be more inclined to finish it and they will be able to fit the packet into their busy summer schedules.

 

My final recommendation to create a summer assignment would be to make sure there are resources available for students who don’t understand the topic that is on the assignment. It is one of the worst feelings to look and an assignment and not understand what is on it. To relieve that area of stress make sure to provide ways for students that don’t understand material to either refresh their memories or to be re-taught what is being asked on the assignment. This can be done with YouTube videos, step by step tutorials or just checking your school email over the summer if a student might have a question.

 

As a student when a summer assignment is handed to me, my initial reaction might not be a positive one. Although if a assignment is formatted the way I have just described. My reaction at the beginning of the following year will be of gratitude and not of stress.

People Always Leave by: Dawson Unger

It’s that time of the year. When people go to college and start a new chapter of their life. I always want to be upset when I think about all of my friends leaving, but in the end I look at it as a good thing; a new chance to start over and to build stronger relationships with new people. When you settle, you stick to what you are comfortable with, but sometimes that is what holds you back from a better version of you.


Building new relationships is never an easy task, whether it’s with a friend, teacher, or a romantic relationship. It is always a new challenge since nobody is the same. With some people you will connect immediately, others it can take months to grow a connection, but in the end it is always worth it.


So when your friend, child, student, or significant other leaves for their next chapter in life. Remember that it will always be for the better and don’t give up, because it is better to heal a wound then to leave it open, even if it hurts a little more at first, in the end it will feel better.

Summer by: Rishi Singh

10 days left of summer and I did nothing. I just laid in bed and watched movies. At first, I was kind of hype for summer. Then I found out I wasn’t going anywhere but home. My hope for having a fun summer was destroyed. I barely hung out with any of my friends and never had the time to do anything. The only place I went was to my tutors. When I come back home, I just go back into my room and lay in bed. Honestly, it wasn’t that bad, but once you repeat doing the same thing every day, nothing is fun. I keep seeing stories on SnapChat about how amazing people’s summers have been. I look at those stories and don’t seem to care.

I can’t wait till summer is over though. This is one of the first times I’m excited for school. I can finally hang out with all my friends and I can get out of the house. The new school year may be terrible for me. Junior year is probably the hardest year overall. I have to take the SAT which is going to kill me, and I have to make my college resume. I’m very afraid of my junior year because I don’t know how I will do. On the other hand, I could get my license. I can’t wait to get out of the passenger seat and drive.

Nothing really happened to me this summer and I’m alright with it

Woofers & Rufers by: Sam Fremin

This summer a lot of my time has been dedicated towards taking part in musicals. Throughout July, I took on the role of Glen Guglia, a disgustingly materialistic Wall Street type in The Wedding Singer. After that show closed, I was right back into it with a production of Thirteen as the lighting designer. The former was a cast full of high schoolers and the latter was a cast full of middle schoolers. Almost every aspect of the two shows were different from each other (the plots, the age of participants, the style of music, the roles I would play, etc.), however one thing remained constant throughout: a sense of community.


Theatrical shows are full of collaboration. Everyone is onstage, attempting to bring the same text to life for an audience’s entertainment. Without successful teamwork, the final product would be a mess. If an environment hasn’t been created where kids feel comfortable with one another, they are far more likely to take a more self-serving route to success, leaving the team on different pages. Conversely, when castmates are comfortable with their peers, they are more likely to solve problems together and lift each other up.


Much the same way, seamlessly functioning classrooms take place in environments where students feel safe and comfortable to branch out among the community. It is practically cliche at this point, but the ice needs to be broken early on. Although students can get to know one another through ‘icebreaker’ topics such as favorite ice cream flavor and favorite vacation spot, by a certain point every student has gone through that array of questions. It becomes tedious to have to answer the same ‘get to know you’ questions every year and no real bond or memory is created out of that experience. Through the musicals, I tried a different form of breaking the ice.


During one of the days of Thirteen’s production, I was tasked with getting all of the energetic middle schoolers hyped up. While it would be important to get them excited, it was also important that whatever I had them do was engaging and helped build the community between those involved. I had a strange idea. There was a line in the show that had gained cult popularity among the cast where one of the lead characters barked like a dog. Every time it was delivered, it received a laugh, so I wanted to use that pre-established inside joke as a building block for my activity. Then, I thought about my target audience. As I’ve said before, they were an energetic bunch. Rather than try to avoid that energy for controlling purposes, I figured it would be easier (and more fun for them) to tap into their excitement. The final step was coming up with a plan for how I would respond if the kids veered too far away from a healthily exciting environment and devolved into chaos.


On the day my quick activity was scheduled, everything had been planned out. I had the room split into two groups, by walking through the middle of everyone and designating who was ‘group one’ and who was ‘group two.’ I then had them all get to know their groups, but to their surprise, I disallowed them from communicating with human language. They had to become dogs. The kids had to crawl around and bark and shake paws to get to know their teams. Once they were well acquainted, they were pitted against one another in a barking match. One team was full of “woofers” and the other side was full of “ruffers,” to ensure we could declare a winner. After the competition, we all joined together to howl at the singular light in the room that refused to turn off.


Of course, this example of an icebreaker is a little bit out there. The absurdity of it all may be a bit too much, but the end result was arguably a success. Although the activity was ridiculous, that’s what made the kids bond. If nothing else, every kid walked away with a memory or a story from that experience, an instantaneous conversation starter. I would even go as far as saying a good portion of the kids enjoyed it and connected with others who felt the same. When everybody in a room is simultaneously making a fool of themselves, there isn’t any space for people’s guards to be up. While rounding up students and asking them to combatively bark at each other might not necessarily be a successful icebreaker, I would recommend using similar elements when planning your beginning of the year activities. Find ways to immediately push students not just to step out of their comfort zone, but leap out of it. It’s kind of funny how it works. On the first day, when kids are pushed to interact in a healthily uncomfortable environment, they will be set up for a more secure classroom experience in the long run.

Advisory by: Spencer Hill

From 1:00 to 4:00 today I was in my county’s advisory planning meeting. Advisory is just my county’s version of homeroom, where the school passes out forms and performs any other administrative roles. However, in the free time, it’s designed to be a rapport-building tool. In my school, an extracurricular exists where students create activities for the classrooms that are designed to build rapport within an advisory classroom (which consists of about 25 students). The students meet up every couple of months to choose key topics to make activities about. When discussing the optimization of these magical twenty-five minutes of morning with other students and teachers, the conclusion of our discussion was that the most challenging aspect of this rapport-building mini-period was the lack of engagement from the teacher and the students.


These two issues go hand in hand and were by far the most concerning issue to anyone I had talked to. Teachers were unenthusiastic due to disengaged students and students weren’t looking forward to it because the teachers didn’t care. It was an endless cycle that I had seen firsthand. Although my advisory teacher was usually very good at keeping the classroom motivated, sometimes, the students weren’t interested in the topic at hand. Throughout the course of that 25 minutes, my fellow students got more wired up and harder to control until my teacher decided that they weren’t going to deal with us on that day. It was sad to me, on the advisory team, to see an activity that someone had worked hard on, go to waste. Students definitely can be hard to work with at times, but there are ways to end this cycle. Teachers often have to take the first step towards ending the cycle though. Although it seems like it should be a student’s responsibility to take it upon themselves and learn, ultimately, a teacher’s job is to break the ice and provide students with an environment they’re comfortable participating in.

In the group that I broke into during the meeting, we discussed various methods that we could use early in the school year to break the ice and make more engaging activities. What we came up with was to use the highest caliber activities during the first week to set expectations, use simple games and competitions like Kahoot (a custom quizzing website), and to let students decide what activity topics they’d like to see in the future.


Although front stacking lessons might sound like cheating, it can be an effective tactic. The first week of a class is a massive sway in how a student will act in a class for the foreseeable future. Having very strong, well-thought-out lessons that exemplify the values of what you want to teach can set a student up for success throughout the rest of the year. Online quizzes are extremely effective, especially during the first week, at getting students hyped up during class or an activity. The students that at know love trivia and have a flair for competition, so a simple online quiz can be a fantastic and versatile way to get students involved in any subject. The last method is more helpful with a situation like advisory, which is short and can be about many subjects. Allowing students to deem which content is good for them to learn can help them build confidence coming into the new year.

The first of school is intimidating for both teachers and students but focusing on icebreakers and making sure everyone is comfortable first can ease the transition from summer into the school year.

Thespian by: Nihar Kandarpa

I’m a thespian, so it’s not all that surprising that I took part in two musicals this summer. The Wedding Singer, and 13: The Musical. Both were very fun but very different experiences. Also, I took a week trip to California, and visited different places like L.A., and San Diego. I definitely thought that this summer was an interesting experience, and it also shows that students can have very different experiences, and teachers have to treat them differently. This all goes back to rapport, though. The more experiences a teacher has with a student, the more the teacher will know about the student. Knowing students’ experiences and their hardships creates empathy, but also allows the teacher to treat that student in their own way.


A great example of students being treated differently happened within my drama camps. During The Wedding Singer, only High School students were allowed to participate, with involved a more in depth and mature experience for both the teachers and the students. With 13, however, Middle School Students were the ones who participated, setting the thing at a smaller, yet still positive standard.

Although differences like this in students can be very evident, some differences are hard to notice, at least from a teacher standpoint. Students can be putting on a positive cover, but actually be in a rather unhappy mood. If a teacher and a student have good rapport, then the teacher should easily be able to sit down with the student and talk about what the problem at hand is.


Teachers have to make sure that while students should be given equal care, they should be treated differently based on different experiences. Children can be going through a rough time, and being treated the right way is almost always exactly what they need.

Freshmen Year by: Jason Nguyen

My first year of high school is rapidly approaching and I am excited for all the new opportunities. The high schoolers of our county came together and talked about advisory classes for students. Different students from different backgrounds came together to make their school a better place. We discussed how those first days of school really set the tone for the rest of the year. The first day should be about building the relationship and type of classroom. Help students get to know each other by conducting icebreakers and games. Discuss with students about their other interest. This helps connect to you and the students. Get kids to interact with the activity and peers. When connecting to a teacher students are more inclined to listen more and fully engage themselves. This leads to a productive time in class.

At the end of the class try to get feedback to understand more of what the students want in class. The rest of the week should be more relationship bonding and receiving feedback. Getting this information can help you incorporate their interests into the lesson. Thus, encouraging students to pursue their goals and making class about what students want. Telling stories and talking with them as an equal helps kids open up more. All of this leads to teacher and student engagement, learning about something interesting, and thoroughly enjoying class. That is how I want my first days of high school to be.

Senior Year by: Kellen Pluntke

School is back in 10 days and for the first time since the third grade, I am genuinely excited. Last year was riddled with various complications that I was able to fight through thanks to the relationships that I was able to create with my friends and teachers. Now that I can walk into the first day of school with these great relationships already established, I can finally focus on my academics with a lot less stress than I had before. I’ve been waiting for the days to come when I can look back on my education and see all the progress I’ve made and feel pride and accomplishment, instead of resentment for the next years’ work that I know I will need to accomplish. I have finally reached that point. This next year I get to really work for my future. I cant wait to learn all the real life skills that I will need to take with me into whatever my next stage of life is.


This being said, I know there are many upcoming freshmen that are coming into high school that are likely very anxious about their future in high school. There are lots of things that I know now that I wish I knew walking into my first year. The most useful of these pieces of knowledge that I found way too late is how you set up appointments to meet with your councilor, and how to use your councilor to advise you for the future. I encourage any teacher of a freshman class to share with the students that they are able to go to their councilor to discuss how their education is going, or to get advice on anything they need. I often found myself confused about picking classes for the next year with little to no information provided, and I would have been able to pick classes that are a good fit for me with much less stress if I knew that I could ask my councilor, those decisions wouldn’t have been so difficult.

Another tip that I didn’t know about until my junior year is that you can go to other teachers for help even if you don’t have them in class. My freshmen year, I had a hard time in one of my math classes so I decided to come in early one day to make sure I understood the content before I took the test later that day. I felt like I was really showing my initiative by doing this and was happy about my choice to come in until I walked down the hallway, and saw that her class was full of students asking the same kinds of questions I came to ask. I ended up just sitting in the room waiting for her to have a gap in teaching other kids so I could ask my questions, but the moment never came. This happened often until my junior year, when I decided I was just going to try and ask another math teacher for help.

DIVE INTO INQUIRY & SPIDER WEB DISCUSSIONS by: Jason Augustowski

Happy Tuesday!  As promised yesterday, below is the conclusion to my three part summer piece regarding the six texts I read in preparation for my new classes.  Today I will share my takeaways from Dive Into Inquiry by: Trevor Mackenzie and published by EdTechTeam Press and The Greatest Class You Never Taught by: Alexis Wiggins and published by ASCD.  Let's DIVE IN.  Get it?

INQUIRY

1.  Have students help in creating course syllabus.  Discuss how they like to learn, be assessed, and graded.  Have them list traits of positive and negative experiences from the past (without names).  Introduce then evaluate the pros and cons of inquiry style learning.
2.  There are four types of inquiry: structured, controlled, guided, and free so that teachers are able to scaffold students into full on autonomous inquiry.
3.  The four pillars of inquiry are: passion, goals, curiosity, and new learning.  Once students reach free inquiry they can develop their own essential questions.
4.  Students should pitch their free inquiry projects to their teachers and once approved let the exploring begin!
5.  Reflection is built in with journals, conferences, and feedback from authentic audiences.

My takeaways:  I will be using this method with my freshmen next year as we engage in the different types per quarter (beginning with structured, moving to controlled, next to guided, and ending in a fourth quarter of free inquiry.  I will be mixing this idea with the genius hour presented in Empower.  I also really like this idea for how to begin the year with syllabus and a reflection of the past/look towards the future.

SPIDER WEB DISCUSSIONS

1.  Spider web discussions must be an unweighted group grade and the teacher must sit back to collect the data and make the "web."  The SPIDER is an acronym for what the students are expected to do.
2.  Teachers can code the discussions while mapping to indicate who made great points, who interrupted, who built upon previous concepts, anything.
3.  The book explained how to quiet some superstars and extract some quiet kids so that everyone in the discussion shares an equal amount.  Some ways to help can be to assign students specific "roles" within discussions.
4.  Be empathetic towards all kinds of children throughout the process and assess the class based on clear rubrics and debriefing sessions that follow the general principles of what comprises a spider web discussion.
5.  Spider web discussions allow us to teach our content while vastly improving our students' social skills - thus preparing them for the real world.

My takeaways:  I will be using Spider Web discussion in my APLang classes next year to ensure that all students are able to openly discuss the nonfiction articles we read and they will use these discussions to help them better understand and debrief their argument, rhetorical analysis, and synthesis writings.  We will also weave in and employ the high level of literary vocabulary into these discussions that students will need in order to be successful on the AP exam at the end of the year.


That's it for now!  I will write back in September to discuss the past three posts in action and let everyone know how my lines are going and how my students are doing.  Enjoy your end of summer!

Teacher's Attitude by: TQ Williamson

The start of the school year can be a stressful time for some, and the best part of the year for others. Personally, I try to always go into it being optimistic and hopeful for what's to come. The first day of the school year is an important time for me and many students. No matter what attitude students bring with them to the classroom on the first day of school, the teachers attitude is what will effect the rapport and environment of the classroom for a large chunk of the beginning of the school year. People always say how important first impressions are and it's true. Students will most likely enter the class with an idea of the type of teacher they have based off of what past students have told them.

This means that before a student even hears a teachers voice, they already have thoughts about the teacher. Negative or not, these ideas about who their teacher is can be swayed with a simple introduction. If I walk into a class and the teacher starts talking about getting to work right away and how much homework we are going to have throughout the year, I am immediately discouraged. On the other hand, if my teacher starts class with a smile and gives off a positive vibe than i am excited for what's to come.

A great way to start off the year is icebreakers. Lots and lots of ice breakers, and the craziest ones you can find. Going around in a circle and saying names and favorite color is far better than nothing at all, but multiple games that involve throwing my shoes across the room and pterodactyl screeching in front of a peer I've never met before, make the class much more interesting to me. The goal of icebreakers is not only to share your name and learn others, but to “break” the “ice” and even embarrass yourself a bit. The teachers can also involve themselves in the ice breakers to possibly increase their rapport with their students.

The teacher’s attitude is what sets the mood for the rest of the year. Not only on the first day, but every single day after it. My mood will change no matter what type of day I'm having based on my teachers mood, or their mood in past classes. A positive teacher leads to positive, ready to learn students.

Friendships by: Aaron Eichenlaub

As the school year starts, setting up new friendships is very important. Most of the friendships that form at the beginning of the school year last until summer, or longer. Unfortunately, some kids are very shy and don’t like getting out there. For me, personally I find it easier to connect with new people when there is an activity or challenge for us to complete. If the teacher just talks the whole time, there’s no chance for the students to connect.


On the first day of school, the class should mainly be about the students, and making new friendships. Have the students split into groups of 4 to 5 with people they don’t know. Then bring in some board games they can play. This can be just what the students need to have fun and make new friends. During these games good conversations can start, and students can actually get to know each other.

Whereas, when everyone stands up and states their name we don’t know anything about each other.

It is also important to establish the classroom as a fun place at the start of the year. This can really affect the student’s views of this specific class. First impressions are important, and a student doesn’t want to start off the year in a dry and boring class. The start of the school year is very important in building bonds that could last throughout the whole year.

Relationships by: Connor Grady

Another year.  Some of us are readily awaiting it.  Others are dreading it. Despite having been at my school for a whole year now, there are still plenty of students in my grade with whom I’ve never so much as exchanged a glance.  As for teachers, each new class is almost certain to introduce new people to act as my mentors for the rest of the year. This is likely the same for many other students across America this August.  Our relationship with these people, whether we like it or not, is going to shape our educational experience throughout the course of the 2018-19 school year.

It can be difficult, and admittedly daunting, to go out and seek relationships with people you don’t know.  Especially in high school. To start of this year, capitalizing on my retrospect of last year’s successes and shortcomings, I want to revise my previous suggestions regarding the first days of school.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that students naturally expect teachers to be distant.  Commonly, this distance comes in the form of a lack of interest (or ability) to get to know all of their students personally.  However, the lesser known twin of this distance, overzealousness, can be just as damaging to a teacher’s rapport with their students.  I’m sure that many of the teachers reading this post are genuinely interested in making their classroom environment the best place to learn.  If this is the case, the question must be asked; why are ice-breakers the standard for building relationships? Ice-breakers are the epitome of this distant/overzealous disconnect between students and staff.  If the activity clearly displays that the teacher’s objective is to gain the compliance of their students in class, then the ice-breaker fails. Similarly, if the teacher seems too excited (or even falsely so) then the activity can feel invasive and ingenuine.  To make the best use of your class time, the genuine interest of the teacher must be to better know their students. They want to feel that the teacher respects them as individual and intelligent people, rather than opinionless vessels of learning.

These first days of school, and the relationships founded in them, are the most important days of the year.  Teachers must initiate the respect that they hope to gain from their students throughout the academic year.

Life Skills by: Christian Sporre

Once again summer has flown by and it is time to go back to school. Summer has always been a blink and you miss it event, but this one seemed like it was over before I blinked. I did a ton of running this summer. Summer training for cross country is one of my favorite things. I don’t have to worry about anything else, just running. I spent six days in the rolling hills and mountains of West Virginia, running and learning how to become a better athlete. I also did another camp, which was twice a week until cross country season starts. I am super excited to see where my team and I go during this season. 

As much as I love summer, I am not incredibly sad to see it go. I am actually kind of excited to start the new school year, despite all the comments I have heard about junior year being the most difficult. I know colleges primarily look at your performance in junior year, and that is why I am determined to be on top of my work. In order to do that, I need to learn new time management and study skills. I think these two things should be introduced and taught on the first day of school.

If these are introduced early on in the school year, students can build on these skills as time goes on. I have built solid skills in these two areas, but nothing is ever perfect. Cross Country and track has forced me to explore new ways to manage my time, and study more effectively. For example, last year I did the majority of my homework in the morning, at school. This was combining both time management, and study skills. I decided to do my work in the morning because after practice I was never focused on my work, which means I could not study effectively. I solved this problem by managing my time, making sure I had enough to get my work done in the morning. I could of completed my homework at my house, but I find it hard to concentrate there.

When I am at school I know it is time to work, so I like to get as much as my work done there as possible. I consider where you chose to study to be a study skill, it always has a big impact on concentration. I am taking AP courses for the first time this year. I am trying to prepare myself for the workload these classes will bring. Social skills should also be focused on along with time management and study skills during the beginning of the year. These are other skills that provide a good base students can build upon.

You can introduce social skills with an ice breaker. This will get your students to talk and connect with one another. After this, students can collaborate and share ideas. Students are never ready for school after a 3 month break, that's why it is important to ease them back into the schooling environment. Going over these skills is a great way to get students back into the flow of things. These are just a few tips to help students in the long run and help them get acclimated to school life again. I am excited to tackle this challenging year and see what I can do

Summer by: Joseph O'Such

Ah summer, the pinnacle of student laziness and binge watching the entire Office series twice in a week. Summer is a time of relaxation and stress free. As some people know, the original purpose of an extensive summer break was for the children to head back to their homes and help the summer harvest. This was clearly when most people did indeed farm, something that has changed a lot to this day.

Although summer does clearly hold this calm lazy mindset, by the time high school rolls around, I felt that path of thought increasingly harder to belief. Not only are high school students sometimes bombarded with summer assignments, but also often feel obliged to prepare for college, whether it be via working a job to save up some money, vying to win scholarships, PSAT/SAT prep, summer classes to cram in the ever growing number of AP and other college level classes, the list goes on and on.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there is still plenty of time to do other wants (for myself at least). Even then, the peskiest thing about summer duties isn’t the working a job, scholarships or even the PSAT/SAT prep classes. It is the summer assignments that proves most annoying. Although in many of my classes, I received no or applicable summer assignments. In my science classes, the past few years we have had to read a singular book, about different topics. One book was about globally impacting substances that changed the world forever, tying together history through a more scientific lens, and was truly an enjoyable and interesting book. 

This was in my mind an example of a good summer assignment. But then were the packets, and whenever you thought you were done, it just kept on going. And the fact that these packets that were supposed to “refresh” our knowledge just inclined us to continuously google until the answer was found, and this would all be done likely the night before that dreaded first day, if it was done at all. That’s not to mention that fact that many students particularly in high school already participate in a variety of different academic activities, which in my mind actually refreshes my memories far better compared to any summer packet.

The point is that the best way to preserve learning throughout the summer is to give minimal enjoyable work and encourage different summer camps and jobs/internships, offering some personal examples, because getting some real world experience and prep early can greatly benefit students later on in college, so that they can pull money and skill learned from those jobs and camps. I’m not sure how many people can feel even a remotely similar thing from camps.

UNCOMMON LEARNING & GROWTH MINDSET by: Jason Augustowski

Hello again!  Since my last blog, our incredible students at Belmont Ridge Middle School successfully put on 13, The Musical.  A hilarious coming of age piece about growing pains in middle school (originally starring Ariana Grande on the West End). We were also able to attend a musical awards night hosted by the incomparable NYA (National Youth Arts) and Rob Hopper to graciously accept our awards for last year's shows: Grease, Crybaby, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.  The students who won offered eloquent and thoughtful acceptance speeches and the pride in the eye of the kids and their parents encompassed exactly why we as educators do what they do.  They have found their people and are doing what they love.  What could be better?

Continuing on with my takeaways from summer reading, today I will share with you my thoughts on the professional texts: UNCOMMON LEARNING by: Eric C. Sheninger (and published by Corwin) and THE GROWTH MINDSET COACH by: Annie Brock & Heather Hundley (and published by Ulysses Press).  I have no idea why I just introduced these books in this order because I am going to speak about them in reverse.  Summer brain!  Here we go!

THE GROWTH MINDSET COACH

1.  Defines and encourages a growth mindset.  Also defines a fixed mindset and discusses how easy it is to fall into this line of thinking and why it can be so counterproductive.
2.  Discusses the importance of sharing the idea of growth mindset with your students' parents so they can help perpetuate that mindset at home as well.
3.  Encouraged brain breaks in class to re-energize students' neurons.  Use these breaks to continue developing rapport with students.
4.  Suggested being transparent with kids about your pedagogy and teaching them metacognition so that they can think about their own line of thinking and share that with others.
5.  Used the image of three kids looking over a fence at a baseball game to explain the difference between equality and equity.  Look it up - it is such a classic.
6.  Advocates that ALL students can learn and grow.  We as teachers should hold high expectations, nurture our students at all levels, differentiate, and praise kids for HARD WORK (not for intelligence).  This also improves equity.  Everyone can work hard and hard work is a life skill that makes one successful later in life.  This also allows students to move away from trying to maintain an aura of "smartness."
7.  We should teach students GRIT.  They need to know how to bounce back from setbacks.  They will not always win.  Students should create a routine for when they fail: highlight the positives, analyze how to fix, and how to engage others in problem-solving.
8.  They offer a comparative between video games and teaching and how students find video games fun and engaging because they are so well scaffolded and they increase in rigor as a student develops their skills.  This is exactly what the English classroom should look like too. (Including players "leveling up" or earning badges for acquired skills (mastery).
9.  Grades should not be about FAILING.  They should be about growth mindset so students can get valuable data and continually improve.
10.  Finally, practice what you preach: if you expect students to have a growth mindset, you better have one too.  (Including areas where you are the student: faculty meetings, professional developments, etc).

My takeaways:  I plan on using this mindset in my Creative Writing and Public Speaking electives this year.  These classes are typically areas where students believe themselves to be fundamentally weak.  Very few students identify as a powerhouse writer or speaker and they often speak with fixed mindsets.  I believe teaching them how to think in and utilize a growth mindset (including all of the aspects mentioned above) will set them up for great success and exponential rewards (in writing, speaking, and life).

UNCOMMON LEARNING

1.  Create environments that foster student autonomy and choice.  The classroom is for students not for teachers.
2.  Model any new initiative.  Don't boss impersonally from afar.  If you integrate technology - work with it yourself and show the students your thinking and where you struggle.
3.  Social media follows a lot of the same narrative as an English classroom.  Utilize this and support it with time-tested and sound pedagogy (like teaching rhetorical devices in APLang) to engage kids.
4.  Create maker-spaces in your classroom and encourage genius hours and student designed/led inquiry projects.
5.  Get on Twitter and establish a PLN!  :-)  (Follow me @misteramistera)

My takeaways:  I plan on using much of these themes in my sophomore English classes this year (paired with leadership activities that worked last year) to not only improve my students' skills in their social interactions and oral presentations but also to engage them in their reading and writing of British literature.

Stop back tomorrow as I review my final two for the summer!