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To learn we must reach out …..

stretch beyond the point of our present competencies ….

and achieve at a new level.

1 Encourage your child to take on new challenges.

We need to move into our Zone of Proximal Development.

The ZPD represents the difference between what a learner can do without help and what he or she can do with help.

It is a concept developed by Lev Vygotsky (1896 – 1934).

Scaffolding is the act of giving just enough support to a learner so they can achieve a goal without actually doing it for them.

This can be done by asking them guiding questions, demonstrating, encouraging & suggesting alternative actions.

2 Provide them with scaffolding for success

Support should be gradually withdrawn as a function of the child’s increasing mastery of a given task.

Learning a new skill is like crossing a river.You can’t jump it

but with support

You can cross it one step at a time.

Support your child to take successful small steps to reach bigger goals.

Parents have an important role to play in helping to keep learning enjoyable and positive for children even when it gets hard.

Learning can be hard work and children who are supported to persevere with tasks until they are mastered learn to have faith in their own abilities.

Those who are allowed toopt out of challenges ultimately limit their achievement and lower their ability to displayresilience in the face of difficulties.

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3. Support your child to successfully undertake additional learning at home.

Support needs to consist of more than saying, “Get to your room and do your homework.”

It's quality that matters, not quantity - the kind of homework your child does is often more important than the amount.

Homework helps your child to practise and build on what they have learned at school

It's not your time or ability, but a positive and encouraging attitude to your child's learning that really matters.

Even if you have little time, or don't know much about the subject or level your child is studying, you can still be effectively involved

BECAUSE…..

Homework is for children to do, not for parents.

Please, oh please don’t let Dad offer to help me with my homework.

4 Seek to understandlisten to and watch your child and try to see things through their eyes.

It is in the primary years of schooling that students develop their essential foundational skills and understandings in the areas of maths, literacy and social learning.

Whenever your child appears to be having difficulties with a learning task, before you start to offer them support, ask yourself,“What foundational skills do they need to achieve this task?”Then check that they have them. Avoid making assumptions.

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5 Send positive messages that link success

to effort and acknowledge difficulty.

100% 75/25 50/50 75/25 100%Effort Talent or Ability

Theory of IntelligenceIntelligence can be seen as the sum of EFFORT + ABILITY

A student’s view of intelligence is linked to resilience, depending on whether they take a mastery response to challenges or a helplessness response.

32% of those with an ability (fixed) theory driving their response completed it successfully.

Research: When a short information passage was given to students to read, that had a nonsensical first paragraph, their ability to persevere with something that appeared complicated was tested. The outcome was that:

75% of students who had a mastery (growth) theory orientation went on to complete reading the whole passage, while only

Mastery Kids don’t not view failure as a personal failing, hence it does not damage their self-image.

Beliefs about intelligence only matter in a challenging / failure possible situation hence bright kids may appear to be using mastery theory until they strike difficulty.

They then may fall apart.

These students accept support as they believe that effort makes a difference.

Fixed Theory of Intelligence: The belief that ability highly outranks effort

Growth Theory of Intelligence: The belief that effort is more important than natural ability.

Many of the students with a fixed theory of intelligence will not easily accept learning support. There is often an attitude of “Why bother if I do not have the talent / ability / brains to be good at this task.

People avoid failure if it is seen as expressing a lack of ability that is permanently set.

How can we determine if a Child’s belief about intelligence is Fixed or Growth?

To find out you need only ask if they “Strongly agree, agree, mostly agree, mostly disagree, disagree or strongly disagree to these following questions.

1. You have a certain amount of intelligence and you really can’t do much about it.

2. Your intelligence is something that you can’t change very much3. You can learn to new things but you can’t really change your

basic intelligence4. No matter how much intelligence you have you can always

change it quite a bit.

Their responses indicate how stronglythey hold one theory or the other.

Able students with fixed theory can fall apart when faced with difficulties.

Especially as they move to High School and come up against new challenges that require them to make an effort beyond the level they have had to make in the past.

These kids don’t think they should put in effort, as effort is seen as evidence of lack of talent and ability.

1. Avoid the subject2. Drop the course it involved or

In one piece of research able students given a test and told a false low score. They where then asked what they would do in the future if faced with a similar test.

Growth theory students most commonly responded with:

I would study or work harder

Fixed theory students stated they would:

This response demonstrated a strong need to maintain their image of competence in the eye of others.

3. CHEAT

6 Don’t praise outcomes as easy success gives the wrong message instead praise effort or strategy

When students are praised for outcomes, not effort, they have the fixed theory subtly reinforced.

The language of praise de-powers kids when it puts a focus on traits that appear to be innate “Your good at this because you are talented. You're very clever."

Be conscious that your interactions are continually impacting on a child’s self-theory.

No one likes failure especially if it feels like no one else experiences it.

Resiliency is the result of children developing the ability to cope with negative emotions in a positive way.

When we shield children from failure we prevent them becoming resilient.

Acknowledge negative feelings but also assist them to experience how problems can be overcome by effort.

Feedback is the breakfast of champions.

7. Help your child to self monitor their achievement.

Premier’s Reading ChallengeCertificates and medals

Charting progress

Graphing – recording changes:

Quantitive - how much more they can do. - how much quicker they are

Qualitative How much better they can do a particular task.

8. Set strong routines for your child doing homework so they do not have to make excuses for failing to complete it.

Set a

• a time• a place• a strategy

be proactive – what are the problems my child might face and what can I do to avoid them?

9 See yourself as your child’s life coach….and be:

• Patient

• accepting

• Supportive

• Challenging

• Motivating

And don’t let your child throw in the towel.

When they can’t be strong for themselves and teach them self discipline.

Learning to:

Do what they have to do

when they have to do it

whether they feel like it or not.

10. Be strong for them

Thank you for attending.

Mark Hansen AGM 2010