The Friday Mindset - Issue #64

Up top, Friday, are we glad to see you, clothed in all your glory.

We've got one more newsletter after this one, then we're going to take a week off and recharge a little after a pretty crackers start to the year.

Thanks so much to those of you who've got in touch to say how much you're enjoying the letter each week. Sometimes weeks go by and no-one says anything and it feels a little like shouting into a void. Then an email arrives saying thanks and we get that good-feeling glow again.

*with renewed vigour* Right. Brew up, crew, and let's have ten minutes of reflection at the end of five days of madness.

Something to try...

For the last few weeks - OK, let's be honest here, for the last few years - we've been discussing Stranger Things on-and-off with classes. There's a lot of fans out there, and this week, we wondered if we could capitalise on students' interest in The Duffer Brothers by exploring their thoughts, ideas and guidance.

We dug up a recording of a visit the film-making duo made to their old university, Chapman, and a talk they gave centred around advice for being successful students. It's an hour long, so we've clipped out 4 minutes' worth - choosing the advice that's most generic and least specific to movie-making.

It might make a neat tutorial. Enjoy:

A short powerpoint with 4 minute video clip

Something we've been reading...

We're digging into a huge study at the moment (going through it pretty slowly given all the stuff on our plates.) The full paper is nearly 100 pages long, written by academics at the National Bureau of Economic Research (Cambridge, Mass., 2014) and can be accessed here, but we're going to go through it and share things as we extract them, turning them into short word documents.

A quick overview: the paper looks at barriers to educational success in the American school system. To use the authors' own words, "...we classified barriers into four general categories: 1) some students focus too much on the present, 2) some rely too much on routine, 3) some focus too much on negative identities, and 4) mistakes are more likely with many options or with little information."

There are interesting observations under each heading. We'll pick out the stuff that grabs us as we go along. This time we'll be sharing a section that snagged our attention under number 1); the author's exploration of impatience, short-term thinking, and its impact on effort.

We've cut-and-paste the section into a word document for you here. Just a side-and-a-half of text here, but plenty to think about. Enjoy:

Short word doc

Our latest offer...

Last year we did a free online masterclass exploring motivation. Since we ran it, a number of people have asked if we might do it again, so we thought we'd give it a go and see if there's any interest.

It will be a 45 minute session covering the theory and practice of motivating students, and will include 5 unpublished VESPA activities for you to try. It's quick, free and (hopefully) useful! We'll keep it pretty small so don't worry, there won't be loads of us. Here's the details:

An introduction to the theory and practice of motivation

Tuesday 8th November, 3:45-4:30pm

via Zoom.

For a meeting ID and passcode, email us at i[email protected].

And that's it for this week, folks! Pull on a pair of Etnies and a Carhartt hoodie and go and hang out at the skate park with your homegirls.

All the best to you and yours,

Steve and Martin