I am a 4th and 5th Grade Teacher in the Bay Area, California.
My goal is to create a culture of learning, where students can direct and articulate their own learning, by offering a curriculum that invokes authentic curiosity, that explicitly teaches the skills and metacognition children need to develop confidence in their ability to learn, and that creates a classroom environment that is safe, inclusive, and celebratory enough to generate joy in the learning process.
This blog is dedicated to making the process of creating a 'culture of learning' visible.
The Reasoning My teacher training taught me how to develop clear objectives, make the curriculum engaging, and assess what students had learned. Once I had my own classroom, I realized that those things were important, but they were not enough to create a culture of learning in my classroom, which seems strange, given that humans are hardwired for learning. From the moment we are born, we actively explore our environment through our senses, test hypotheses about our experiences, and then learn from the results, incrementally self-correcting our ideas until we figure out how the world works. Now, Neuroscience has proven that each new experience actually alters our physical brain, and that we can direct the growth of our brain by choosing what we want it to focus on! This physiological validation of the growth mindset is good news for all of us, but great news for teachers, especially now that there is so much information out there about 'brain-compatible' learning. While it doesn't mean that all students will learn the same things, at the same time, in the same way, it does mean that teachers have a vital role to play in teaching children how to optimize their learning potential and own their own learning. All we need to do is find a way to reconnect each of our students with their inner scientist (curiosity), foster their confidence in themselves as learners, provide some appetizing food for thought (content), and generate enough warmth (joy) that they can flourish. As you can see from the graphic below, it's not a 'one size fits all' formula, and not suited to scripted instruction. It requires teachers to cultivate the innate curiosity in each child, and to create an environment conducive to empowered learning - with opportunities for healthy social connections, an engaging curriculum, and a classroom culture that fosters a belief in self-efficacy.
"Mindsets are powerful shapers of our experience, but people aren't born with them. They develop through one's interactions with others, particularly in learning situations and in the feedback and input one receives in those situations."