Driving with Daniel

Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind, has a new book that seamlessly interfaces business models and psychological theory to address the surprising truth about what motivates us. There are many interesting ideas in Drive. Pink proposes that we need a new operating system of motivation to look at leadership and economics.

His ideas have immediate relevance to education as we work to leave no child behind and race to the top! Educational decision making related to policy, programs, curriculum and children have final crossed the line into Bizarro Land. I have begun to collect "strange statements" they are becoming touted as the best practices in the daily life of public schooling. Like:

• Principals cannot use faculty meetings for professional development - Union rep
• We don't teach science and social studies; there is not time for that. - 3rd grade teacher
• You can do an engaging lesson when your university supervisor comes, but all other social studies lessons must be in a read and outline study skills format. - 5th grade teacher
• We have inclusion classrooms. One class per grade...20 students 16 with IEPs....- principal
• I will take the RtI group out for remediation; but no new learning can be taught while they are out of the room. - support teacher

More on this at a later time...I am still collecting!

The section I want to address is how Pink describes Mastery and goal setting. The ESU Professional Development Schools teaching faculty, grapple with these ideas as we work tirelessly to help Apprentice teachers plan engaging, meaningful learning experiences for children. There commitment to this learning goal is impressive.

Pink clarifies Mastery and goal setting through the lens of Carol Dweck's research https://www.stanford.edu/dept/psychology/cgi-bin/drupalm/cdweck. He describes Mastery, his first law in the new Motivation 3.0 operating system, as a "mindset" and the two "self-theory" approaches with differing expectations. One approach takes a finite view of intelligence, the "g" factor, a limited capacity we all receive at birth. Goals for this model are written in performance or behavior terminology. While the other mindset sees intelligence as something that is incremental and can increase with effort and experiences. Goals for this mindset are written as learning goals and these are the type that lead to Mastery! "Getting an A is a performance goal. Being able to speak French is a learning goal." (p. 122)

So how do Learning Goals factor into the intelligence equation? How can they lead children and teachers to mastery? Dwerk's research validates that:

• Students with learning goals scored significantly higher on novel tasks, suggesting cognitive transfer; those who had worked with only performance goals could not transfer learning to the new problems.
• Students work harder and longer if goals are stated in learning language; effort becomes enjoyable and self-fulfilling, rather than done that!
• Learning goals lead to mastery and more creative solutions in the face of challenge or adversity

If we look with vision at what and how we want for all our learners, we can see that setting learning goals, not performance goals will lead us out of Bizarro Land and into a place where learning really matters. So for all of you out there who write Lesson Plans with Learning Goals I have provide the link to the New Enabling Verbs. Enjoy!
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AS7IvKO9mDY3ZGZ4OTQ5cWZfMjVmenN2YjZmbQ&hl=en