Day 2, Thurs Aug 11, 2016

The Brain Surgeon
Today, we began my regular routine of designating a daily Brain Surgeon. Since this was our first day of the Brain Surgeon, I introduced the routines of the Drum Roll, Reading of the Dual Target, Music Cues, and the Wrinkle Sprinkle. The students seem to embrace the spirit of of it all.

Student Introductions
As with every new school year, I had each student briefly state their name and something interesting about themselves. When they were all done,  I recited all their names. That always impresses a class. Then I told them things about myself. I state that yesterday we started with math, because that is what we are all about here. But since I teach math to them, they are also important and I need to know who they are.

Growth Mindset
Most of our Course Teams across the district agreed to do some kind of growth mindset activity. Here was mine.

I started by summarizing the plethora of lists of fixed vs growth mind set statements with two pictures. I told the students that research in student learning is showing that self-perception of talent as a limit or as a starting point has a tremendous influence on their learning.

Then I shared that scans of the brain of someone with a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset, shows something very interesting. When faced with a challenge, the fixed mindset brain “goes cold.” It literally shuts down. However, when faced with the same challenge, the growth mindset brain “fires up.” It knows that more is being asked of it, so it kicks into high gear to meet the challenge, rather than duck it.
Now it was time to test out where we see ourselves demonstrating  a fixed or growth mindset.

Neuron Facts
I gave the students the worksheet with the Neuron Facts on the front side. I found these on the internet and thought they would make for a good lesson since they highlight the amazing function of our brains. I added the subheadings of Fast, Crowded ,etc. I started with a common practice of mine Notice & Wonder popularized by Annie Fetter (@MFAnnie) of Math Forum.  My Gradual Reel-In process looked something like this:

1. You Do: Independent response.
2. Ya’ll Do: Each member of the group shares both their notice and wonder.
3. We Do: Each group decides on one Notice and one Wonder from those shared. These get shared out by each group as I write them on the board.
4. I Do: I summarize the major point(s) that I want all students walking out with. Here it was the process of Noticing and Wondering and how we facilitate group discussion in class… And of course how amazing our brains are.

The groups were then tasked with doing one problem together. Homework was to do one more.

Wrinkle Sprinkle
Tying into the concept of the plasticity of the brain, I joke that when we learn we get a new wrinkle on the brain. Each class then concludes with what we learned that day. The brain surgeon leads and records the discussion. The students today stated that they learned…

• Negative thoughts shut down your brain
• Speed of the brain cell
• The amount of oxygen the brain uses