Christian's Epic Blog

     This week I picked out a couple of articles that I felt could apply to me in particular.  The first one that I chose for this post was Preschoolers and Praise: What Kind of Messages Help Kids Grow?   This one initially stood out as I happen to work with preschoolers through first grade most of the time while I'm at work!  While this has definitely helped my patience, I knew that there were still a lot of things that I could improve upon.  At times, it's hard to understand exactly the best approach to take when trying to help young kids and I thought that this article may help.  Immediately I noticed I tend to do a lot of what this article discourages: generic praise.  One specific line about the cons of generic praise is that it lacks instructional value.  The article spoke of a different kind of praise that would be better to implement: process praise.  Process praise works to tie children's actions to their own success. ...

     Once again I am grateful for the list of articles.  While reluctant to get started at first, once I found the articles that fit myself and starting reading through them I immediately saw how they could be beneficial.  I think feedback is something that we generally don't get enough of, at least in a positive way.  I really like that aspect of this class when compared to just getting grades back.  The first article I picked was " A fixed mindset could be holding you back-here's how to change it ."  This article again touched on the value of having a growth mindset.  I was surprised to read that constantly boosting a kid and telling them they're awesome isn't always beneficial.  I work at a school, and I try to be as positive as I can just because I know some kids might need it more than others.  It makes sense that you can't always do this however; if they think they are perfect, when they find out they are not it could potentia...