1. Use your to-do list to boost your confidence 

To build confidence for the big goals, you first need to focus on the tiny ones, and that starts with the actions you take every day. After Hamden makes her daily to-do list, she looks at the list and asks herself,  “What is the one thing on here that I want to do the least?”

She says, “I think a tint bit about why, and then I make myself do it.” Quite often, she finds the task is one that — deep down — she is unsure how to do or is worried she might fail at. As she explains, “Confidence gets built when you try something new that’s a little scary, and you succeed and then you do it again and again. You have to get into a process of being brave.”  Your reluctance or fear is usually a signal that you care.

When you notice yourself avoiding something, ask yourself what you’re scared of and consider what would happen if you failed. You’d be disappointed, of course, if things go as badly, but what would the actual cost be to you?

“I used to do this all the time when I was a student and taking exams,” says Hamden. “I would be like, ‘No matter what happens, I’m still going to be alive at the end of this.’ A lot of the negative downsides are frequently in our heads.”

2. Separate your value from your work

When you fail, one knee-jerk reaction is to apply that failure to your overall worth, thinking, “If no one buys my pitch/product/idea, then it, and I, must not be very good.”

But that thinking — in addition to making you feel lousy — causes you to miss out on some valuable feedback that can help you move forward. “I think the point of doing something is being able to ask afterwards: ‘What did you learn from it?’” says Hamden. “You learn more when things don’t go correctly.”

In the disappointing weeks after FIREBall’s failed launch, Hamden took time off, and she made a point of not dwelling on any one feeling or turning her defeat into a referendum about her as a person. “You are valuable because you exist,” she says. “I think it’s really important to avoid those feelings of guilt or shame — feeling guilty about something is a way to make sure you never pick it up again.” Remind yourself: Your work is just something you do — and yes, it is an important part of your life — but it’s not a reflection of your value as a person.

3. Develop — and depend on — a mutual support group 

Developed by writers and best friends Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman, who coauthored the recent book Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close, the concept of Shine Theory is, as Sow and Friedman put it, “an investment, over the long term, in helping someone be their best self — and relying on their help in return [to do the same].” Shine Theory can apply to all your relationships, not just your personal friendships.

The more you shine, the more you light up everyone around you. While it can sometimes feel strange to share your  accomplishments for fear of coming across as a braggart, Shine Theory is about leaning into the idea of mutual abundance and how someone else’s success doesn’t take away your own. In fact, you get a boost.

Building your own support group can also help you get through moments of self-doubt or failure. To find these relationships, Hamden advocates having open conversations in which you plainly state what you need.

“When you have a friendship where you can say, ‘I’m feeling really down, can I talk to you?’ or ‘I’m really thrilled and want to celebrate,’” then your failures and successes don’t have to stop and start with you,” she explains. “If you feel like you don’t have people who are capable or willing to do that,  seek them out and cultivate these relationships. You can tell yourself, ‘I’m valuable’ every day, but if the people around you don’t value you, it’s going to be hard for you to believe that.”

And if you find yourself interacting with people who leave you feeling not so good about yourself, you should avoid them — or minimize your time with them — in the future, says Hamden.

4. Remember that no one cares about your failures as much as you do

For better or worse, everyone is the hero of their own story, says Hamden. As a result, “people are not paying as close attention as you think that they are” to your personal failures. However, you might be in a professional environment where others are scrutinizing your performance, and you can learn from their responses.

For example, if you stumble and a coworker takes the opportunity to bring you down further, unfortunately you’ll know that this might not be a healthy environment for you. “The way people react tells you so much about them,” says Hamden, “and it helps to inform you about the world that you’re in.”

5. Be mindful of burnout 

As you work on your next challenging project, it’s important for you to set strict limits and boundaries on the time spent on it because the longer you’re able to put in on a project, the more you can build your confidence. “Getting time away on a regular basis is really important,” says Hamden.

Taxing projects are frequently a combination of a marathon and a sprint —  many, many intense deadlines and tasks on the way towards accomplishing a larger goal. So take the time to celebrate those sprints after they’re done, says Hamden, comparing it to the common practice of relaxing into the savasana pose after a challenging yoga session.

6. Believe in the possibility of future success  

The level of effort you put into something can correlate to how you feel about its failure — the bigger and more important it is, the more disappointed you’ll feel when it doesn’t pan out. As you get more distance between yourself and your failure, most likely you’ll be amazed at your own resilience. Reflecting on the FIREBall launch more than two years later, Hamden has a new perspective: “I got through that project and mission, and I can get through anything.”

Now she and her colleagues are preparing for their next launch in 2021. No matter what happens, she says, “the universe will still be there.”  Sometimes getting past failure is as simple as looking up and believing something new is possible.

https://hls.ted.com/project_masters/499/manifest.m3u8?intro_master_id=2346

• There are countless failures, heartbreaking failures… None of these failures are the reasons for them to give up.
• The discovery is mostly a process of finding things that don’t work and failure is inevitable when you’re pushing the limits of knowledge, so I am choosing to keep going!

References: https://ideas.ted.com/how-to-move-on-after-failure-and-rebuild-confidence-erika-hamden/?fbclid=IwAR1my0r3oDB8ie1mdHe4wkmCyJafdrBAmCa83M5beRWirBzkiNqNdmXe0io

I read an interesting book these few days. The hear of the PIRATE system and philosophy is as follows.

• Passion
• Immersion
• Papport
• Ask and Analyze
• Transformation
• Enthusiasm

I am passionate about not letting my students fall victim to the horrific educational trends that would have us turn children into test-taking automatons who are able to spit out facts and trivia but are unable to speak about anything of significance or meaning.

Light yourself on fire with enthusiasm and people will come from miles around just to watch you burn!

Students can feel you present.

“It just different when you’re there” This eye-opening conversation offer dramatical proof of the significant difference personal power, attitude, and full presence of the instructor learning environment. An instructor who is fully immersed in the moment has a special type of intensity that resonates with great power in the classroom, regardless of the activity. 

An additional key to developing rapport is spending informal time with your students— buy in.

Nothing is more important than creating the proper atmosphere right form the start.

Too often school is a place where creativity is systematically killed, individuality is stamped out, and boredom reigns supreme.

Professional makes you feel comfortable as an audience because the long, hard work of eliminating awkward moments has created a unifying and congruent experience.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine this week is resulting in images in the media of buildings exploding in fire, people bloodied and injured from missile attacks, and fearful children and parents getting in cars and buses to flee to safety. It is difficult to watch but hard to ignore. That is the case for children and teenagers as well as adults.

1. First and foremost, consider the developmental and age levels of your students

Talking about issues like war looks very different with high school students than it does with elementary school children. The horrifying pictures already emerging from the Russian invasion of Ukraine might be OK to share with high school students because they are seeing similar images on the news. But educators of younger children need to be more careful about how they talk about war and what images they show, even though kids in the digital era likely have easy access to information about the situation. “With younger kids, you usually want to take your cues from the kids themselves—as far as how much they are seeing and hearing, whether they understand the things that they’re seeing and hearing, and then offering them some ideas and possibilities for how to manage or cope with their emotions,” advises Kathleen Minke, the executive director of the National Association of School Psychologists, in a recent interview with Education Week.

2. Encourage students to feel a sense of agency about how they can make a difference

Minke emphasizes that people of any age will feel a greater sense of hopefulness if they feel like they can do something to help others. Of course, that could be very difficult and complicated in this moment regarding the situation in Ukraine, because it is such a fluid, unpredictable environment. But brainstorming with students about how they could help—maybe rallying community members to donate to international aid groups such as the Red Cross—might be a good start.

3. Explain why it is important to pay attention to what is happening in other parts of the world

“The crisis is a great opportunity for teachers to do a few things. One is to explain: Something that’s happening across the world in Europe, why does this matter to some young person in the United States, or to the United States?” said Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonprofit think tank that focuses on international relations and foreign policy. The group also publishes curriculum and simulation resources for high school and college educators. “In order to be an informed citizen, one needs to be globally literate. One needs to understand why the world matters, how it works, how foreign policy affects the world.”

4. Pose nuanced, objective questions to high school students about the crisis

Asking nuanced questions and encouraging students to evaluate different sources of information to develop their own answers to those questions can be a path forward, said Emma Humphries, the chief education officer at iCivics, a nonprofit that promotes civics education and provides educational resources for teachers. Haass adds that getting students to this place where they can wrestle with these questions of foreign policy is a process. “Once you absorb [why international affairs matter], either in principle or specifically, you can go on to: What are the options? What are the potential tools? What should be our priorities? What costs should we be willing to pay?”

5. Share stories of what regular people are experiencing

It’s important for students to hear the voices of everyday people, said Jody Sokolower, the co-coordinator of the Teach Palestine Project at the Middle East Children’s Alliance. Sokolower, a former managing editor at Rethinking Schools, also edited Teaching About the Wars, that organization’s guide to teaching about the Iraq war and U.S. involvement in the Middle East. “Traditionally, history is taught in terms of kings and presidents and military leaders,” she said. “And if you look at history in terms of who are the people and who are the movements, what were the issues that they were confronting and how were they trying to fight for more freedom, it really casts things in a different light.”

References: https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/how-to-talk-with-students-about-the-russia-ukraine-war-5-teaching-tips/2022/02?fbclid=IwAR1522Et7J00vAA_HOuNEFdTU3tdUndmucvNapkAVPM8VSCkoRwZizGjGM8

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework that guides educators in designing learning experiences that meet the needs of all learners. It helps teachers move from a one-size-fits-all approach toward one that adapts to learner variability. UDL embraces the idea that we should have firm goals for students—using flexible means to reach those goals. The result is more equitable and engaging classrooms.

How do I know Ted would embrace UDL?

At its core, UDL is a mindset, or set of beliefs, that guides educators in everything they do. And Ted has that mindset. It’s all about believing—in students and their potential; in the importance of the process as much as the result; and in the power of continual growth, reflection, and lifelong learning.

BEGIN BY EMBRACING FOUR BELIEFS

While we become teachers to positively impact students, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed with day-to-day challenges, especially in these past few years. Still, ask any teacher, and they’ll say that the goal of education is more than just helping students acquire and regurgitate knowledge. Instead, we want to equip children with tools for success—show them how to reach their goals and prepare them for ever-changing jobs and a world we can’t quite imagine. So how can we do this?

I won’t pretend it’s easy, but it’s crucial to commit to the UDL mindset in order to have success. Embracing the following four beliefs is the first step in designing learning experiences that serve all students.

1. All students can reach the high expectations we set. When we set firm goals for all students, we’re sending the message that we believe they’re capable. We start by clearly identifying the goals we’re focusing on. Then, reflect honestly: Do we truly believe that every student can reach these goals?

As a teacher, I involved students in tracking and monitoring their goals by creating digital Data Notebooks where we tracked academic, behavioral, and other goals. We had frequent one-on-one check-ins and monitored these together. These opportunities to conference around goals made them more manageable and helped us all stay committed to them.

2. Barriers to success exist in the system, not in the students. After firm goals are set, we need to recognize that external barriers can prevent students from being successful. Therefore, we need to be flexible by providing multiple pathways for students to reach their goals. When planning, we can ask ourselves, “What barriers might arise within each of these factors: curriculum, teaching methods, resources, materials, and assessments?”

When teaching, I aimed to address many barriers before we began a unit. Sometimes students didn’t have background knowledge, so we’d cover relevant topics and skills at the start. Other times, content wasn’t academically interesting or culturally relevant, so we found ways to tie it to their lives. I realized that many students needed clearer directions, checklists, and check-ins, so I created systems within our classroom to address this.

3. Learner variability is the norm, so a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work.We can empower students with choices and autonomy so that they can overcome those barriers and reach their goals. This belief allows us to embrace the three UDL principles that help us design more accessible, inclusive, and engaging learning experiences:

• Multiple means of engagement: Learners vary in how they are motivated and want to engage in learning, so we can provide multiple options for engagement.
• Multiple means of representation: Learners perceive and comprehend information differently, so we can provide multiple options for acquiring knowledge.
• Multiple means of action and expression: Learners vary in how they navigate learning and express what they know, so we can provide multiple options for them to demonstrate learning.

We can put these principles into practice in many ways. Are there opportunities for students to have choice in what topic they study and how they take in information (reading, listening, watching)? Can we create scaffolds for students? Or offer choices in how they demonstrate their learning?

When I created units, I started by looking at our goals and brainstorming ways in which I could offer students autonomy that would still lead them to those goals. Sometimes, they chose their own text or topic. Other times, I offered materials in multiple modalities for them to choose from: reading, watching, and/or listening. Lastly, I saw so much creativity and engagement when students had a choice over how they demonstrated their learning—for example, choosing between a written response, a slide presentation, or a video.

4. Continual self-reflection leads to lifelong, expert learners. There’s a lot of uncertainty around the future of work and our world. We know that the ability to learn is crucial. The ultimate goal of UDL is to develop “expert learners” who are purposeful and motivated, resourceful and knowledgeable, and strategic and goal-directed. Even though this approach may make us nervous, when we show trust by giving students choices, when we teach them how to reflect on those choices and their work, and when we value growth as much as results, we are developing expert learners.

In my teaching, I focused on creating an environment where students felt safe and valued. To emphasize growth, I offered opportunities for revisions rather than only grading final work. I built reflection questions into both our end-of-unit review and our everyday work, mainly through exit tickets. Students practiced reflecting on their work and their choices: If they could do the assignment over again, would they have made the same choices? Why or why not?

START SMALL

Of course there’s more to great teaching, preparing our students for the future, and applying UDL than these four beliefs, but it’s only if we hold these beliefs that the other pieces then fall into place.

With so much on their plates, many teachers are feeling overwhelmed right now. It’s OK to start small: Commit every day to having high expectations for all students. Believe in them. You can print out this 4 Beliefs poster and put it on your desk. Encourage your colleagues to do the same. While it may not seem like you’re doing much, you’ll be able to feel a difference. And better yet, so will your students. Over time, believing in your students can lead to their believing in themselves, which is a gift that’ll last a lifetime.

Reference: https://www.edutopia.org/article/4-principles-universal-design-learning-approach?fbclid=IwAR2x-khr5ru1aWk02h-87nerOT8pcO2nxSLzIZ3WIy-PnJGERE9FNv5-39U