In preparation for the Using VEX123 and VEX GO in your Regular Education Classroom online course @Audra_Selkowitz and I are currently teaching here on PD+, I rewatched part one of the video interview series with Claire Cameron - Intro and School Readiness. Something she says really stuck out to me as being incredibly powerful as well as hopeful. She talks about how the idea of school readiness should include a school’s readiness to take children wherever they come in and support their learning, which I absolutely agree with. That led me to thinking about how there are so many things beyond a teacher’s direct control that influence what happens in the classroom, but that one thing a teacher can control is the classroom environment they provide for their students.
And, even if resources and time are limited, as teachers we have power over our own mindsets, which are the most influential and important factor in creating classrooms where all students feel like valued and empowered members of a learning community.
It makes sense to me to set aside time for teachers to allow themselves to think flexibly and nurture their own mindsets at the beginning of the school year. This has so much value and power - more than any bulletin board possibly could (don’t get me wrong - I love a cute bulletin board! 
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Teachers - what do you do to nurture and sustain a flexible mindset at the beginning (or throughout) the year? What do you notice about how your mindset affects your classroom environment? Does your school or administration have specific ways of supporting you in this area? I’d love to know!
Hi Aimee,
One way of addressing this is through some sort of pre-assessment task. This isn’t a quiz or a task with a specific set of steps to follow. It needs a low barrier to entry and be engaging enough that students can see a way to being successful, even if that way isn’t the most efficient one.
Open challenges like those across the various VEX platforms are perfect for this. You let students work an open-ended task. As long as the objective is clear, students are free to complete the task in different ways and there are no right answers. The teacher simply observes what the students are choosing to do and asks questions about the students’ choices along the way.
Many teachers also feel inclined to complete a task themselves so they know how to nudge students in the right direction. This can be good for getting intuition for the details of using the tool. It also models how someone with more problem solving experience goes through the process. When the teacher then tries to get students to solve the problem in the same way he/she did, this gets into sticky territory. Guessing what’s in the teacher’s head is what students do in many classrooms, but that isn’t as fun as what we can do with VEX.
This approach is messier than a step-by-step curriculum, for sure. When students see repeatedly that iteration is part of figuring out this type of challenge, they get less discouraged when an approach doesn’t work right away. I regularly show students that I use this approach in my own work so they believe that I’m not just making this up .
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@Evan_Weinberg Yes! Giving students an open-ended task, and then closely observing how each student approaches it can be incredibly powerful! It’s probably the best way to get a window into students’ problem solving styles and abilities, and can help you plan where to go next with your curriculum and instruction.
And, you’ve perfectly described the nuance of what I think of as a “hand-holding” dilemma - how can we, as teachers, support students’ development of problem-solving skills enough so that they aren’t frustrated, but not try “to get students to solve the problem in the same way he/she did”. In a way, that’s the never ending question of teaching - where’s the line between too much, and not enough? (Actually, parenting too, when you think about it!)
Thanks so much for your thoughtful response!
