 Hi everybody, thanks for joining us for the first para training of to the 2021-2022 school year. I'm joined with Heidi Rethmeyer here for Math Mindset. Oh, I'm sorry Heidi, go ahead, go ahead. I just say good morning or good afternoon depending on when you're watching this. And yeah, I'm Steph Lundgren from the ESU 8 PD department. You probably know me if you're tuning into a para training but for all of those of you who are new. Thank you so much for joining in today. Here are our emails if you have any questions about today's presentation please reach out. All right, Math Mindset, Steph asked me to present a little bit on this because I'm doing some workshops this fall and just to kind of give you some background. Periodically we rewrite the standards and this year we are rewriting the math standards. And there has been a shift in the last few years and really all the standards about how we approach the teaching and learning and what happens in the classroom. And so with that, we're doing the same thing with math so here's what I want you just to do is just think for a minute about your childhood math class. And think about what things do you remember what sort of feelings, does it bring back. Matt Steph do you have any to share about your childhood math class. Lots of drill and practice, lots of worksheets time tests used to really rattle me. I thought I knew my math facts but when you put the time in it I got really nervous about that. Yeah, I remember two things very distinctly one was a time test for multiplication and the other one was it was probably second grade I don't know we were maybe even first grade we were learning subtraction. We were learning how to a term they called borrow which I don't like the term borrow and I failed the entire I did every single one wrong. And it just caused so much anxiety for me so go ahead and hit the next so. Yeah, and the next one. I you know I want did it make you feel anxious I think you heard me and Steph talk about some of the anxious feelings that that we felt when we think about our math class and I don't remember a whole lot of, you know, being really curious and wondering about things. Next one. Because it seemed like it was very much focused on speed and time tests, and not so much about being creative with our problem solving so those are some of the things that we're really trying to change. In terms of what math classes all about and the feelings that that maybe students have and that adults that we still have about math class so next slide. So I'm going to talk about several different mindsets that we're trying to really promote that I think as a para you could really help enforce in the classroom. And one is just messaging what kind of messaging is happening in the classroom. Are there any messages at all given to students about how they're thinking, or are they very generic, or are you really saying, you know, when a kid is struggling you say hey I know you can do this, your brain is working hard this is how you grow. So we want to hear some of that messaging happening in math class. Stephanie thoughts on any of those. I think yeah, always reminding kids that, you know, that that the struggle is where the learning occurs and so the more that we can help calm them down we've talked about some calming techniques with Paris over the past few years. Calm them down make them think in a different way. And maybe they need a short break because they've reached that overload level, and, or maybe they need to do some of the breathing exercises we've talked about just for a few minutes, and then get back into it. And we can help them through it rather than just take away any of that. It's like giving them an escape hatch we don't want to escape. We want to keep persevering through. Yeah, great thanks and we'll talk about all of those things and some of these mindset messages that we talked about and I appreciate the that, you know, as para is working alongside those students you can really help them with, you know, taking a deep breath. Maybe thinking about a different approach to a problem. The second math mindset is praising the learning process. You know, oftentimes again, math class often seems like it's just there's one right answer and you just need to get it and you need to get it done. And we want to focus more on the process as opposed to just the product. You know, are we praising them about their efforts and the different steps that they tried and the different strategies that they tried so when you do see a kid maybe getting stuck. You can praise them for hey I like that strategy you try this, or can you explain that strategy to me is there another way that you could think about it. And we're not asking you to have the answers here. I even tell the teachers that it's okay. We don't even necessarily know the answers or if we have a question that there is no one right answer, but can we help them think through the process. Right next slide. Students mindsets. This is kind of like what, what is the students self talk. How are they talking to themselves about math class. You know, do you hear them say, well, my mom was in a math person so I'm not a math person I know I get parents that say this a lot as well so we're really trying to change that. And so is there do kids express doubts in themselves and their abilities, or do they have confidence and say you know I know this is hard but I can do this I can I can learn math. And maybe they're not good at something yet I love the power of yet, you know when they say that I don't know how to do it and say yet. That's how we grow and learn that has to do with some of the praising the learning process as well so I think again as a pair you can help them with their self talk, and you can help you with your own self talk. I know I've had to change some things even at home about my self talk and hearing some of my kids. So step did you have a thought on that one. I do. I've heard the phrase before that adults words or adults talk becomes the inner voice for kids. And so when we talk about parents who have said things like Oh, our families just not good at math, or something like that. We can start to change that in them, and we can ask them to repeat some good thoughts so if you hear a kid say something like that say, say, oh, can I help you with that thought could you say, um, you know, math gives me struggles but I persevere or, you know, give them that That that word that mantra that they can repeat that will help them think better thoughts. And then, you know, after they've gone through a struggle and maybe succeeded you know with a task or whatever. Remind them of that success so that they can draw on that again and say look at what you did. I want you to go home and tell what a good job you did today in math and how you work through this problem so well. Yeah, messaging is very important both the messaging we're giving to the students as well as the the inter talk that they have so alright next slide, and I think this is my funny one. This comes from a very prominent math person nationally she's I think she's in Stanford, you know this is not how it works. She's from England and they use math like plural so it always sounds funny to me it's almost like a tongue twister to say it but yeah, kids aren't born with a math brain or no math brain that's just not it I think we've conditioned them with historically how we've taught math that if you're not fast, you're not good, and we want to get away from that messaging of fast means you're good and I was really good at the math game in school. I was fast I could do the worksheets, but did I have really deep conceptual understanding, probably not as well as I should and that's what we want to focus on so. And I think another thing in this picture that I see is that the boy, the baby boy might be good at math. The girls aren't and I think that that's an old time misconception and stuff to that. You know girls are good it was a communication and boys with math. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Alright mistakes. This is another great mindset that you could help within the classroom. And I think I mentioned this is oftentimes we're just worried about getting the one right answer, and mistakes are bad, and we should avoid them all costs. Whereas, you know, school is where we're supposed to make these mistakes and learn from the process so we should explore those mistakes so if you see a kid making a mistake. You could ask them can't you know, can you explain to me what you did wrong there why that one was wrong and what you learned from that. We want them to be comfortable in sharing their mistakes and what they learned from them so you know, feel free to have asked some questions about what they learned from that particular process. So Heidi, I've seen in the past even video clips of teachers saying oh you need to go fix this part on this problem. And the teachers almost tell the kids. What's wrong and how they should fix it. Is it good for students to have to figure out how to fix it on their own sometimes. Yeah, I think that would be great and even better and this is something else for trying to promote in the classroom is to collaborate with the peer. It would be great if you if the student could partner up with someone and see how they did it. And then they can compare their steps compare their strategies, and maybe then they will find where their mistake was and have a better understanding. So that's that fine balance which we'll talk about in a second about productive struggle we don't want them to shut down. But I think they can get a lot of help from their peers and looking at how someone else did it and then reflecting on how they did it so I would encourage teachers and as a para to do that as well so great point. Alright so here's our struggle and persistence as Steph has mentioned a couple times now. Again, I think this is something we've kind of conditioned kids for if they get stuck to just go straight to the teacher. You know, do they ask a classmates, do they go to their textbook, do they look for other resources, or are they just shutting down. So I want to celebrate that productive struggle and again use some positive messaging that you know this is how your brain is growing. And you're learning through this process and if they do get stuck. Again that's where we can say okay let's maybe draw a picture or let's try another strategy. I think drawing especially when you have kids maybe working with word problems have them draw a picture have them try to visualize it. It's a very visual subject, but we've kind of gotten away from that so I would encourage more kids to draw even high school kids draw a picture. I know I told my junior high and high school kids that all the time draw a picture of what's happening so to help them persist through a problem. And I don't know Steph have you talked about kind of a little productive struggle in the learning pit with with some of your parents. I think we have but I love these pictures we were just talking about drawing a picture right that us understand it better. Yeah, so I found two pictures of the learning pit so you know there's a learning path on the left and then you're introduced with a new topic and then you kind of get down in this pit where you really have to struggle and dig out of. And then you come out the other side with some new learning. So as teachers and just adults, we like to try to build a bridge. And we can't build that bridge, the kids have to really struggle for them to learn. All right, so I found these two particular graphics of the learning pit. Messaging is a little different on the way down into the pit. So if you look at the one on the left. It's kind of a negative self talk of the student of I don't understand it's too hard I just want to quit. The one on the right has a little more positive messaging of I don't understand this yet. And this is challenging and I'm confused, but you know I'm still willing to try so I think that goes back to our messaging and students self talk that we can really help them when they are struggling. Yeah, I think kids have to get used to that feeling of struggle right and we as teachers have to get more comfortable with seeing a kid struggle. And I think you know when we hear a kid saying it's too hard I don't get it. We feel like we have to swoop in and save the day and our theme this year is superhero Paris. And yes you do swoop in and save the day, but unless we let them struggle a little bit and learn to get over that. We're going to have too many, too many times we have to swoop in and save the day right. We can't teach them to work on their own and start to learn on their own. Yeah, and that swooping in might be teaching them coping mechanisms. Okay, what do we do when we're, you know frustrated, maybe take a deep breath, maybe take a lap around the room, and then maybe come back and try a different strategy. And this last slide I just wanted to give you some phrases some some things to say when you know you encounter a kid that's, you know, maybe having a, you know, addressing a word problem that they're really struggling with so you know some creative problem solving so you might say well what's another way to think about this problem, or how could we draw a picture. You know when they make a mistake. What kind of self talk is happening in the kiddo, you know is they're shaming are they saying oh I was so stupid, or they saying oh I can learn from this. You know and asking them well what can you learn from this mistake and you know turn it into a learning opportunity. Okay, go ahead. I'm sorry I'm I'm seeing carry over in these questions to other areas to just not math so yeah absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, as I mentioned, I think we're seeing a seeing a real shift in what our state is trying to do with our content areas. So yeah, and then communicating ideas, hopefully the kids are talking about math in the classroom and they have a chance to collaborate. You know I said you know hopefully they can partner up and compare what they did. Or maybe a kiddo was struggling with something or you just see them, they did a problem and you're like hey will you just explain how you did that. See if they can explain it to you so it makes sense to you. I really hope that we instill some more curiosity in the kiddos and that math isn't always just one right answer math can be very visual and open ended. So, you know when a kiddo is first encountering a problem here are my two go to questions, what do you notice what do you wonder, you can use those all the time. And then ultimately, we want deep understanding we don't want it to just be about speed and the kid playing the game but do they really understand what they're doing. Can they show you why something works can they make a model can they draw a picture so I think those are all great questions that you can put in your back pocket. So, any other thoughts there stuff. No, I just, I see such carry over again so I think, you know, think about how you can use these questions all through the day to really ask kids, you know, about their thinking, the more we can think about our thinking and think about you know what why does why do I think about that part. And you know what what gets me hung up there, then that informs what we need to learn and then students can think, think more about that and, and try to learn ways to cope through. You bet. Well Heidi, so that's all I had and I sure appreciate the opportunity to talk to the Paris so thank you for this. Hi, we appreciate you and again Heidi's email is at the beginning of this presentation so if you need anything please reach out. All right, thank you. Thanks so much. Bye bye. Hi. I think that we're going to focus on each month is the power of positivity so I heard from many of you that that that's something you'd like to work on each month. So, again, we're going to shine on and how can we focus on positivity. There is a phrase called practical optimism which combines the commitment to plan and execute the steps needed to achieve one's goals with a positive outlook that success is possible. So when we have practical optimism at school doesn't mean that we see all things as Rosie and all things as perfect, but that we are really practical about that and we're going to help achieve our goals with this. Good outlook. And so we need to stay focused on the upside right and the more we do that the better we practice this in August when we had our training, and we played a game called flip that thought right we turned it from negative to positive. And I like this meme that says if you can't turn that frown upside down sideways is an okay start so we start to gradually get more positive in our day so focus on the positives. And express gratitude. And this is the time of year which we do a little bit more of that when we can infuse that throughout our year is when we see the positive effects actually expressing your gratitude lessons feelings of social isolation. It actually increases joy and optimism. It enhances acting with more generosity and compassion and actually improves your physical health. They've seen that happen with blood pressure lowering and things like that where your physical health goes up as well. So we practice our gratitude some people keep a gratitude journal. I tend to lay in bed at night and run through all the things that I'm thankful for and it can be really minuscule little things. But it really helps me focus on positive good things in my life. And then I'm you can commit small acts of kindness right. So one phrase that we use is random acts of kindness where we don't even attach our name to it people don't know where it comes from. And there's a random active acts of kindness website that's good. But just simple little things like post positive notes around your community. Can you imagine around your school just leaving a few sticky notes here and there that have something positive on them. One time my third grade class actually made smiley faces and we went up and put them all over the high school kids lockers. Just as a random act of kindness. And another simple one is to give compliments to the people you interact with to the kids that you're around to the other pairs. Remember we need to be each other's cheerleaders. And you know leave leave a little bit of change in the vending machine so that somebody can help themselves to a treat. And then with some litter outside that you see and make a meal for somebody who's in need that's what I do a lot. And you could send letters with stickers to the kids in your life. Okay, so then you ask yourself how does it make you feel. So it's not enough that we just do these acts but also for our own health how did that make you feel to do something kind for others. And that's where we see that gain for ourselves. And then we have to be mindful of our emotional state so I love this little meme over here. And I often talk about squashing those bad thoughts right and so anything that comes up we're going to bat it out right just like this kitten is doing. There's a nice article here about how I'm being really mindful and we were just talked about mindfulness with with Heidi right now mindset. But we can be really mindful about our thoughts and how that actually improves our brain health that we can change our brain and change the function of our brain by having these positive thoughts. So it's kind of encouraging I think. And then you can give your brain and your body a positive workout. So you want to boost those endorphins, and it just makes you feel so much better I know sometimes if I catch myself in a bad mood, a nice brisk walk can really change things. Sometimes even just getting outside in nature will help that. But like when you get in a funk you have to think about what what are your ways to get out of that so anyway physical exercise can help a lot. And then we can infuse positivity into our surroundings. So whether that's having a nice organized workspace. I think about it too about if my house is a mess. I feel a little on edge right I like cleaner environments things picked up put away. It puts me in a better mood. But when we think about our surroundings also we have to think about the people in our surroundings. So you carefully consider who you interact with. You know, if, and if lunchtime is full of gossip. Maybe that's something you avoid, if certain people turn to the negative, maybe those are people you avoid. But then also we want to positively affect our environment right so we have to think about what am I saying, and doing in my environment, am I making that a toxic area for others, or am I helping spread. You know that sunshine and light around that we'd like to do. So, again, always reflecting on how do you feel good vibes in good vibes out. And it's a really deliberate effort, we have to decide to be happy every day. We have to decide on good thoughts and good feelings and staying positive. So I hope you tune in. I'm throughout the year. You can tune in next time same bat time same bat channel right. We'll be here in December. The first Tuesday at 2pm. We of course always record our zooms. And we're going to talk more about adverse childhood experiences or aces. We're asked to hear more about those after Sonya secups talk in August. So we're so glad to have you with us. You Paris truly are superheroes. Thank you so much, and we'll catch you soon.