Mike’s Blog
Strategies, Ideas and Insights for Teachers and Leaders
Category: Growth Mindsets
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The easy way to establish a challenge culture in your classroom and use this to promote growth mindsets
Learners working from the perspective of a growth mindset may be more likely to see challenge as a good thing. For them, challenges represent an opportunity to learn. There is…
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Three techniques you can use to help learners open their minds and start thinking critically about strategies and strategy selection
Narrating Problem-Solving Strategies Problem-solving strategies are the ways of thinking we employ when faced with challenges. For example, when I am faced with the challenge of writing a book, the…
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Discover how to use two low-planning, easily accessible strategies that prioritise metacognition for your learners
Modelling Self-Regulation Self-regulation is the process whereby learners exert control over their actions and thoughts. This control helps them to be more successful. They can direct their attention and their…
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Twenty ready-made reflection questions that promote metacognition and help learners see their thinking as open to change
Reflective questioning asks learners to look at what they have done and to think critically about it. The aim is simple. To help learners assess and critique their own thinking,…
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What is metacognition and how does it connect to growth mindsets?
What do we think about when we think about thinking? What are you thinking? How are you thinking about it? Are you able to observe the thinking that you do…
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More than a dozen tried and tested techniques you can use to make feedback implementation close to automatic in your classroom
If learners don’t have time in which to implement the feedback you provide then that feedback is wasted. Feedback only has an impact if it is used – not if…
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Seven strategies you can start using right now that will subtly shift how learners think about your feedback
Focussing on processes means giving learners feedback about how they think and the things they do when creating work. Processes are inherent to learners; the products they produce are external…
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Understand why some learners are defensive around feedback and the hidden strategies you can use to change minds
Learners operating under a growth mindset are more likely to see feedback as useful. This is because their thinking is animated by the central premise that intelligence, ability and talent…
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Three simple strategies any teacher can use to help learners target their effort effectively
Categories of Assessment When a teacher looks at a piece of learner work, they do so through learned eyes. It is as if they are wearing a pair of thought…
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The magical number you need to know if you want to help learners sustain their effort, even when the going gets tough
Working memory is limited. There is a consensus among psychologists that it is roughly limited to 7 pieces of information, plus or minus two. Working memory is what we use…