Tag: tara martin

#IMMOOC Growth Mindset vs. Innovator’s Mindset: 3 Ways to Amplify Your Professional Development

#IMMOOC Growth Mindset vs. Innovator’s Mindset: 3 Ways to Amplify Your Professional Development

During week 3 of the Innovator’s Mindset MOOC (#IMMOOC), Tara Martin shared her ideas about challenging ourselves professionally. It’s not enough to have a growth mindset because it’s still a passive form of professional growth. When you have a growth mindset, although you know you can learn and change, you’re still just a “consumer of learning” and not adding something to the landscape of education until you become a “contributor of learning”, which, in Tara’s definition, is what is the key distinguishing factor of an “innovator’s mindset”.  When I heard her say that, it really resonated with me and made me think about how educators can make the shift from a growth mindset to an innovator’s mindset.

These are 3 ways that you can start making the transition from learning to becoming an innovator in education.

Develop Competance: Take your professional development seriously: 

Stop waiting for your administrators to send you to a workshop or sign you up for a course. If you’re going to be a leader of learning, then you have to set professional goals for yourself and develop your own “course” of learning. I created a whole podcast around developing a personalized professional learning plan and wrote an ebook around it because I know how impactful it can be to take charge of your professional development.  Challenge yourself to cancel your Netflix subscription or cable service for 1 month and just take that “down time” to create personal learning time. You’ll be amazed what can happen in your classroom when you go from “mindless” activities to “mindfull” activities when you begin to dedicate yourself to lifelong learning. Then take those learnings and put them into practice in the classroom.

Develop Confidence: Start a blog/vlog/podcast:

Recently our PYP coordinator shared The Profile of a Modern Teacher which encapsulates so much of what we talk about during our Innovator’s Mindset MOOC, in which it’s not about our use of technology but it’s our “habits of the mind” that determines the impact we make in our classroom. And the 1st Habit of the Mind that a Modern Teacher has is to choose to be vulnerable. I found that interesting and poignant of the state of where we are in education. As educators, we need to expose our thinking and practices so that we can be a contributing “digital citizen” and help our students appreciate and navigate their roles in the digital landscape that they will be a part of (if they are not already). I’ve written about this before: if you’re not struggling and embarrassed, then you’re not teaching digital natives.   At the bare minimum, you have to experiment with one if not all of these forms of media. But more importantly, you need to start taking your role as a digital citizen seriously and find a way to contribute to the larger discussion about education. I know you have wonderful and compelling ideas–start sharing them!! A blog is probably the easiest and requires the least amount of tech saavy to start but videos are also amazingly easy to do too with all the software we have out there. And, yes, your first attempts are going to be lame–that’s just a part of the process. And it doesn’t even have to be about education–maybe your passion is golf or making homemade peanut butter–do that then. But do something. You will never get better if you don’t get started. If you aren’t exploring one of these platforms, today is the day! (No pressure….. but pressure!!)

 

Dialogue Digitally: Share and connect with others:

If I’m being honest (and vulnerable), this is something that I am working on developing.  I’m a person who likes to connect with people face to face and find it awkward with sending a message or reaching out to someone digitally to discuss an idea or ask a question if I haven’t met them in “real” life. I’m really good at looking at the Twitter feeds or joining Facebook groups to get some inspiration, but I rarely share my “learning moments” in the classroom or add to the discussion. If you met me in person, I have a strong voice (a little on the loud side) and I am a bit self-conscious about it. So, in my digital social life, I am rather quiet. Are you like that too?

I know being a “connected educator” is hugely important. Again, because we have to embrace and practice the skills of a digital citizen; however, there’s an incredible amount of power in connecting with educators or thought leaders outside your 4 walls. And when I read in the Innovator’s Mindset that quote about the difference between a “school teacher” vs. a “classroom teacher”, it got me thinking about how I might impact students outside of my grade level. As I think about the power of collaboration, my silence is not adding value to my practice nor to the landscape of education. I really should be reaching out to other educators, not only because it is helpful for MY students but ALL the students at our school, as well as the ideas I share or the conversations I have that can impact students at OTHER schools. The ripple effect is possible with social media, isn’t it?

So, I am making a commitment to make baby steps towards developing myself as a “school teacher” as well as participating in larger conversations through online chats. At our school, we have started displaying Tweet Beams using our hashtag #ourvis. Besides trying to stay active in this wonderful IMMOOC community, I also want to contribute to my school’s digital identity by trying to make tweets about what we are up to in our grade 1 classroom. I’m also trying to make a point to make comment on the blogs that I read so that I can engage in a discussion with people whose ideas I find challenging or interesting. I may have a small number of ways that I am connecting and developing my professional learning network (PLN), but it’s something that I am creating an intention around for my professional growth. Maybe you might feel compelled to do the same.

I hope these ideas have planted a seed in how you can go from being a “consumer” to being a “contributor” in our educational landscape. I’m deeply curious what other suggestions you might have about ways in which we can challenge ourselves into becoming more innovative. Please comment below.

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