Curiosity is not sedentary and passive.

This cat is inspired by a quote from Jackie Gerstein's blog post: The Future Belongs to the Curious: How Are We Bringing Curiosity Into School?

And here are some more cats inspired by Jackie Gerstein.

Curiosity is not sedentary and passive.

The image is from cheezburger.

Curiosity: the quest for new ideas and information.

This post is inspired by Jackie Gerstein's great blog post: The Future Belongs to the Curious: How Are We Bringing Curiosity Into School?

This particular quote is something Jackie cites which comes from Cultivating Curiosity in Our Students as a Catalyst for Learning by Maryellen Weimer: "Curiosity is the quest for new ideas and information. Folks who are curious aren’t satisfied with what they already know or have figured out. They go after what they don’t know or can’t understand—and that missing information can become a driving need to find out."

The image is from Cheezburger.

Curiosity: the quest for new ideas and information.

This may take some time and effort.

This cat doesn't think, "This is too hard!" ... but it may indeed take some time and effort. :-)

(cheezburger)

I first found the "Change Your Words" graphic at a blog post by Jackie Gerstein: The Educator with a Growth Mindset: A Staff Workshop (see that graphic below). I've also seen this version of the sayings making the rounds:

Here's the other version of the graphic: colorful, but harder to read. I've transcribed the text below.

Growth Mindset and SBG Bulletin Board Downloads

from Math = Love

(visit the blog post for full-sized version)

I'm not good at this.

What am I missing?

This is too hard.

This may take some time and effort.

I'm awesome at this!

I'm on the right track.

I give up.

I'll use some of the strategies I've learned.

It's good enough.

Is this really my best work?

I'll never be as smart as her.

I'm going to figure out what she does and try it.

I made a mistake.

Mistakes help me improve.

I can't do math.

I'm going to train my brain in math.

I can't make this any better.

I can always improve; I'll keep trying.

Curiosity: the will to explore.

Today's cat is inspired by a quote cited in this article by Jackie Gerstein: "The Future Belongs to the Curious: How Are We Bringing Curiosity Into School?"

Here is the quote: “Curiosity’s most distinguishing characteristic is its open willingness to explore….” 

Curiosity: the will to explore.

(cheezburger)

Helping Learners Move Beyond “I Can’t Do This”

I was excited about the references to growth mindset in the Twitter stream from #InstCon today, and here's a fantastic new infographic from Jackie Gerstein that has a lot of relevance to the growth mindset approach; read the blog post for details about each item in the infographic: Helping Learners Move Beyond “I Can’t Do This” — and here's the infographic, with the transcription below:

Helping Learners Move Beyond "I Can't"

• Help learners focus on “I can’t do this . . .  YET.”
• Teach learners strategies for dealing with frustration.
• Encourage learners to ask for help from their peers.
• Give learners tasks a little above their ability levels.
• Emphasize the processes of learning rather than its product.
• Reframe mistakes and difficulties as opportunities for learning.
• Focus on mastery of learning; mastery of skills.
• Avoid the urge to rescue them.
• Provide multiple opportunities to learn and build upon previous learning.
• May need to push learners beyond self-perceived limits.
• Help learners accept an “it’s okay” when a task really is too hard (only as a last resort).
• Build reflection into the learning process.

Hard work leads to positive results.

Today's cat is inspired by Jackie Gerstein's infographic on the maker mindset / growth mindset intersection:

Hard work leads to positive results.

(cheezburger)

There is a transcription of the infographic here:

I made a new thing!

This cat was inspired by Jackie Gerstein's "making reflection" below.

I made a new thing!

(cheezburger)

There's a transcription of the infographic here:

All learners are smart in their own unique ways.

This cat was inspired by Jackie Gerstein's infographic below.

All learners are smart in their own unique ways.

(cheezburger)

The infographic is from a blog post by Jackie Gerstein: How Educators Can Assist Learners in Developing a Growth Mindset. And I've prepared a transcript of the infographic also:

To grow yourself, you must know yourself.

In a separate post I've provided a detailed response to Jackie Gerstein's post about growth mindset last week, and in that post she also shared a great infographic about self-reflection which you can see below. Today's cat is inspired by that need for honest, continuous self-reflection.

To grow yourself, you must know yourself.

The image is from cheezburger.

The infographic from Jackie Gerstein - Growth Mindset: Personal Accountability and Reflection, and there is a transcription of the text here.

Picture your brain forming new connections.

The quote is from Carol Dweck's Mindset: "Picture your brain forming new connections as you meet the challenge and learn."

The image is from cheezburger.

Picture your brain forming new connections.

And neutral connections are just one of the many types of connections that help learning to happen, as you can see in this great graphic from Jackie Gerstein: Learning: It’s All About the Connections.

English: The future belongs to the curious.

The future belongs to the curious.

The image is from cheezburger.

Curiosity is one of the most important dimensions of the growth mindset, and this cat is inspired by a blog post by one of my favorite bloggers, Jackie Gerstein: The Future Belongs to the Curious: How Are We Bringing Curiosity Into School?

English: They never said it would be easy.

They never said it would be easy.

They only said it would be worth it.

I picked the quote I liked best and made two LOLCats. The first one is a cat climbing a tree:

I like this one of the cat with a fish even better, but some people have told me the fish-eye freaks them out. You can decide which one you like best:

This quote came from a great poster that Jackie Gerstein shared at Twitter. Click here to see the full-sized version of the poster.