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The Braden Bin - 2/26/16

What I am watching:  

  • A few weeks ago, I posted a video from El Dorado High School in El Dorado, AR.  The video is titled "Students react to being called important".  It hit home like a ton of bricks.  I watched it and shared it with my staff smack dab in the middle of a highly emotional week for me.  I was able to share the video during a staff meeting but wasn't really able to say anything afterwords due to man tears.  Luckily, one of our counselors, Ms. Carreno and our 5th grade team leader, Ms. Wisler had my back.  
  • We wondered what it would be like if we did this with elementary aged students.  Would they get it?  Would they understand what we were telling them?  Turns out, they got it.  Turns out, they understood.  Without further ado (if you haven't watched it already), here is Barron's edition of Students react to being called important!  




Website I frequent:  Wonderopolis 

  • This is kind of a hold on from my days in the classroom.  Wonderopolis - somebody poses something they "wonder" about and the people of Wonderopolis do their best to explain it.  
  • I love how they highlight and define important vocabulary words.  I also love how every article they write comes with a video to act as an attention grabber.  On top of all that, there is the option to listen to the article and follow along as it is read for you!  
  • Wonderopolis was used as a station in my classroom.  The students could use the "wonder of the day" or pick any wonder they wondered about!  We would usually follow up the reading of a wonder with a 3-2-1 writing activity:  3 things the student learned from their wonder, 2 things that they found interesting and wanted to learn more about and 1 question they still had about the material.  
  • Anybody else use Wonderopolis?  Would love to know how you use it!  
  • I think this is one of the more important articles I've read this year.  It really does a nice job of resetting expectations and realities of Growth Mindset research and practices.  It's kind of an educational buzzword and far too often educational buzzwords come and go.  Carol Dweck is going to make sure this particular buzzword is here to stay.  
What I'm reading (bonus):   Greg Popovich broke down what he looks for in players, and it was an inspiring life lesson. 

  • I am fascinated in learning what great leaders believe to be the "secret formula" to their success as a leader.  Far too often, unless you have access that most people don't, you never really know what it was that made that person tick.  Thanks Pop for giving us common folk a little insight!  


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