What do these individuals have in common?

Resilience The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties.

Links to Growth Mindset We need to teach students how to fail better and that learning happens through failure, effort and hard work. Fear of failure can be crippling, where students begin to avoid challenging work, tasks and reduce their motivation towards wanting to achieve. Students need to be taught that failure is a precursor to all success and a necessary component of learning. As educators we must understand that failure is a necessary part of learning for ourselves also and embrace this modus operandi in our classrooms as practitioners. Based on the work of Carol Dweck

How Resilient are you? Around the room are a range of skill sets. Move towards the one that you are most comfortable with. Move towards the one that you would like to develop further. Move towards the one which one would you like to promote further in your classroom.

Independence

Problem Solving

Optimism

Flexibility

Creativity

Determination

Collaboration

Humour

Resilient Mindset Resilience can also be described as a mindset. It is not a trait, rather it is a dynamic process whereby children use learned positive behaviours or coping strategies during times of difficulty, and the result is adaptation and growth. As teachers we are more likely to promote the skills that we are most confident with ourselves and can sometimes have a tendency to avoid tasks which focus on an area of our own perceived weaknesses. Therefore, in order to promote resilience we have to be prepared to model it ourselves – all aspects of it.

Step 1: What do you want your young people to think? I believe that mistakes are experiences from which to learn. I am confident at solving problems and make decisions on my own. I appreciate that others can help and support me. I can contribute and make a positive difference in the world.

Step 2: How will you use planning to promote resilience? Ensure that students know what resilience is and why it is essential to learning. Empower students by letting them set goals and take some form of control over their learning. Create problem solving tasks and opportunities for students. Avoid eliminating all risk – letting students fail is part of the learning process. Use starter and plenary activities which focus on resilient skills. Avoid providing all the answers or a set structure - encourage students to find out for themselves. Build in coping skills and practised learning routines for students to follow. Plan questions which focus on ‘how’ and the relevant learning ‘process’ which should be followed.

Step 3: How will you ensure your learning environment fosters resilience?

Step 4: How will you model resiliency? What skill do you need to work on? What key message do you want to get across? How can you model this? There is no such thing as failure, it is all part of the learning process

Step 5: How can you measure the impact? Evaluate resilience at the start and end of a topic with the students Student questionnaire Teacher observation Attitude of the students Willingness to collaborate Count the number of times they ask you for help Re-look at a resilience puzzle.