Summer Slice Vol. II
LA Staff News
Missing EF Skills Looks Like No Motivation. What do we do?
- Accurate thinking – Assessing how difficult a task is, how long it will take, and one’s ability to do it;
- Initiation – Organizing one’s thoughts and getting started;
- Persistence – Sustaining effort in the face of errors and difficulty;
- Help-seeking – Knowing when to ask for support.
“Penalties and incentives don’t teach these skills and are unlikely to improve students’ behavior,” says Minahan. Instead, students feel misunderstood and rejected. Minahan’s analogy is training wheels when children are first learning to ride a bike – accommodations as they learn how to think accurately about challenges, get going, persist, and ask for help. “If we remove the supports before students are ready,” she says, “they’ll crash.”
Her suggestions:
• Accurate thinking – Anxious students tend to think all-or-nothing (I hate math) or engage in catastrophic thinking (I’ll probably flunk sixth grade). One strategy is having students rate the difficulty of an assignment beforehand (very difficult) and afterward (not that bad); comparing the two may help reset the student’s mindset. Another approach is breaking a task into parts and rating each one – I like it. It’s okay. I don’t like it. Looking over these after making a catastrophic statement can help isolate the problem.
• Initiation – Don’t ask students prone to negative thinking to work independently at first; instead, provide helpful support within 30 seconds of giving an assignment and then have them continue solo. Or go over the assignment beforehand: This is the math sheet we’ll be doing later. Let’s start the first and second problems together. Or chunk assignments and take one piece at a time. Or give the student a math sheet with all but the last two problems completed and ask the student to finish. Working with an erasable whiteboard is also helpful for students who are risk-averse and perfectionistic.
• Persistence – Some students need a dose of Carol Dweck: “Every time you push out of your comfort zone to learn hard things, your brain grows new connections and you get smarter.” It also helps to reward increments and get students monitoring themselves on persistence rather than the final product: Did I attempt more problems today than on my last quiz? Did I correct an answer?
• Help-seeking – “Students with anxiety or depression may lack the initiative to ask for help when they’re stuck or overwhelmed by a task,” says Minahan. Or they may be too embarrassed to ask. Agreeing on a silent signal may be the answer: Put a pencil behind your ear when you need help. Next get students thinking about how to reduce dependency: What do you need help with and why? The idea is for students to realize that they can solve some problems by themselves. Great! You didn’t need my help! I’m glad you figured it out. These students need to learn how to self-monitor, assess their needs, and find strategies to get help without depending on the teacher. The key is seeing where the student is at. Jeremy seemed unable to do research on the computer in his history class and answer two open-ended questions. Instead, he scrolled through social media and encouraged classmates to join him. Eventually the teacher kicked him out of the room. When Jeremy’s teachers were asked how often he completed open-ended assignments, they said, “Never!” They were “overshooting the method of output,” says Minahan. He wouldn’t engage in reading when there were more than two paragraphs on the page. The solution was simple: limit texts to one or two paragraphs and give Jeremy multiple choice questions. Within five weeks, he was completing work and moving toward reading one page of text in a book and answering fill-in-the-blank questions. “It’s like I’m a student,” said Jeremy. “I hand in work and get graded.” History was the one class he passed that term.
Mrs. Patterson is transitioning from an Academy teacher to be in charge of our Long Term Suspension program. She has a lot of ideas and experiences that have allowed her to create a vision for that space that will allow us to help students succeed.
Can anyone guess where she is now by this picture???????
Interested in Summer PD ($18/hour)
Let Melissa Know If You Want More Info!
Upcoming Dates to Note
July 29th: zSpace training at Liberty North 8-11 (Paul and Nick....and one more if interested)
August 5th-7th: New teachers to Liberty report (none from LA)
August 6th: Registration (optional if you want to meet kids) 4:00-6:00
August 7th: Registration (optional if you want to meet kids) 8:00-1:00
August 8th: All teachers return.
August 14th: First day of school.
August 19th: Back to School Night 6:00-7:00
Liberty Academy Staff 2019-2020
Debi Straws, Secretary
Lori Streu, Counselor
Andrea Johnson, Social Worker
Mark Krause, Interventionist
Eddie Richey, ISS Instructor
Justin Fetters, Security
Ted Maxwell, Safety
Christine Patterson, Long Term Suspension
Lisa Augustine, Missouri Option Program
Judy Smith, Alt. Ed. Teacher
Art Smith, Teacher
Chad Brinkmeyer, Teacher
Summer Kelley, Teacher
Nick Schwieder, Teacher
Paul Richardson, Teacher
Jared Haferbier, Special Education Teacher
Jodi Williams-Sipes, .75 Teacher
Zach Osborne, Teacher
Janet Knoke-LA Cafeteria
Stacey-LA Custodian
Kathy Wright-LMS Nurse
Ed Leal-Technology
Clayton Smith-LMS Head Custodian
Kim Sadler-LMS Cafeteria Manager