Friday Mindset #76

Happy Friday!

We were lucky enough to attend a conference in Porto a couple of weeks ago.

We'd never been to a conference of international schools, and despite our sessions going very well, the sense of impostor syndrome was strong - we spent hours in the run-up meticulously planning, re-planning, pacing and wondering why would anyone want to hear what we have to say? In the end, it turned out great and we needn't have worried.

But it's meant we've been thinking a lot about impostor syndrome, and that's reflected in this week's materials. Our activity this week is from our online slide deck. (You can access all 40 activities from The A Level Mindset, or all 40 activities from The GCSE Mindset as slide decks. They all follow the format you'll see below.)

And our reading suggestion is the work of one of the other speakers we heard present at the conference as well. A rare newsletter with a theme!

Let's dive in...

Something to try...

This activity, "Inner Storytelling" is a fun and engaging way of helping students challenge their own impostor syndrome. We were inspired by writer and NYT journalist Nir Eyal discussing the role self-identification plays in willpower. The clip on its own is useful, so have a look/download it here:

But we thought we'd share the whole activity with you too. If you want to learn more about our tutor resource please visit our website www.vespa.academy or email [email protected].

Something we're reading...

As it always is with these things, the highlight of the Porto conference was the chance to connect with and listen to, other teachers. Many impressed us mightily. One of them was Ewan McIntosh. He was telling us about provocations - short essays designed to inspire reflection or discussion - as a method for encouraging cultural change in schools/colleges.

We discussed a number of his recent provocations. The one we came away remembering most is below; written at a different time of the academic year about schools we don't know and will probably never visit, in a context a million miles from our own, but powerful nevertheless. It's about planning for change, about learning from other disciplines and most importantly, about what Cal Newport might call slow productivity.

It's a provocation remember - specially designed to be pithy and controversial - so it's only a short read, and it finishes with one of our favourite quotes, which you can see below. Check it out.

Portal Talk...

Hi, this week I wanted to discuss "Cycle 2 Dip". Many of our schools are currently undertaking their 2nd Cycle of the VESPA questionnaire and have noticed a dip in student scores, particularly student EFFORT and SYSTEMS scores. We are so conditioned in schools to always expect an upward progression that this feel like students are regressing somewhat, in fact the opposite is nearly always true!

The VESPA questionnaire deals with student perception. Once these perceptions are challenged, ie with the work that takes place between cycle 1 and cycle 2, students begin to understand the true nature of the challenges they are facing. A good example of this occurs with effort scores. We all know the student who "thinks" they are making loads of effort, when in reality they are simply doing a little bit more than their friends, who themselves aren't really doing a great deal. You'll have identified these students weeks ago!

Once these students have an objective measure of Effort, for example the actual number of hours studying they should be doing to achieve success, they are able to compare their own effort to something tangible. For these students a drop in effort scores suggest that they're now scoring their own effort against an objective measure, rather than their previous score, based on a subjective, woolly, feeling.

Our activity - "The 1-10 Scale" deals with this issue directly. Please click on the link below to view and use the slides.

NEW FEATURE - "The Mindset Pulse"

Something new next - we're very excited to introduce our new experimental polling feature! We'd like to gauge the pulse of the teaching community with a topical poll - in a teachertapp kind of way. Our polls will be very simple and only allow one answer, however you are able to elaborate on your response if you wish. We would also like to invite our readers to submit their own polls for us to add too. Please email us at [email protected]y if you have a burning question you would like to ask your fellow teachers. We'll do this now and again, and the results of each poll will be published in the following week's newsletter.

For our first poll we want to investigate the number of independent study hours you are recommending in your context...

Our latest offer...

Quick final reminder for next week's session:

Practice - a crash course in teaching revision, a super-quick 45 minute summary of how we're currently teaching effective revision. There's some theory, followed by 4 or 5 quick (and new) VESPA activities - all practice ones, obviously.

Wednesday 15th February - 3:45 - 4:45pm, Zoom.

For a link to the session, just email us at [email protected] and we'll send it out.

And that's it for now. Have a great weekend! All the best to you and yours,

Steve, Tony and Martin