Resources: Perseverance

Perseverance Resources

Perseverance

       Planning meeting recordingBy clicking on the link above you can check out some awesome and creative lesson and activity ideas from our Core Program. Please note that you will need to download the free Webex software to view. 

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Family letter for Perseverance

Please find below the following resources:

• videos related to Perseverance
• lesson ideas
• websites
• book collections
• professional readings
• grit and growth mindset items for students 

Sample Student Videos about Perseverance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKcQa7_Iyr0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5dfYblIt-Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9XLH60AJ-g

Videos:

Meet the Robinsons 30-second clip celebrating failure. The end credits of the movie feature this Walt Disney quote: "Around here, however, we don't look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we're curious...and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths."

Famous Failures (recommended by Warren Moody, Whitecourt, AB)

Bruno Mars “Don’t give up.” It’s an ear worm. You’ve been warned. For the more discerning, here is the Broadway version of Defining Gravity (via the David Letterman, start at 0:45 -- and yes, that is the performer who also did the voice of Frozen's Elsa) and the Glee version (not great picture quality).

Diana Nyad’s 15-minute TED talk about swimming from Cuba to Florida, at age 64. Her book is here. Linking to Amazon because it has good info for finding it at your public library.

Nike ad: No excuses

Nike ad: Find your greatness. This video was called exploitive because it shows an obese kid running. The message is that we are all capable of greatness.

Michael Jordan: Maybe it’s my fault

Recommended from planning meetings:

Building Together -- Christine Theissen's students do a team building exercise encouraging working together through something hard

Kyle Maynard Speaking Intro -- a speaker recommended by Arin Kress. More about him here.

Courage of Famous Failures --- some inspirational quotes in slide show video format

Time lapse of a girl learning to dance over a year's time here

Smarter Everyday, a website of videos in which an average guy tries to learn new things.

Lesson ideas:

Pinterest board on Perseverance created by a school counselor

Wonderteacher blog, book recommendations and lesson ideas.

Drawing and writing with a non-dominate hand can be an interesting exercise. An article from Scientific American about this here, and Arin Kress' blog from last year about a drawing exercise in which kids were asked to draw with anything but hands here.

Yoga poses are another low prep thing to keep track of with a few minutes of practice each week. Lots of decks are available out there, or try Namaste Kids for pose instructions.

Websites:

The internet is awash with lists of people who have failed. Here’s one with memes. For more biographies, go to Olympics.org or Biography.com.

National Geographic feature “Failure is an Option.” Article for close reading, photo gallery and recording of a Google Hangout with explorers talking about how failure is a step toward reaching a goal.

Values.com has really great resources, under Grit, Perseverance, Persistence.

Quotes on Failure: Forbes, Goodreads, Brainy Quotes. Some teachers like to use quotes as something to discuss during transitions, or to inspire a quick write.

Books and Collections:

A collection of perseverance picture books recommended by Mary Heenan (North York, ON)

LibraryThing collection of picture books about perseverance.

Goodreads perseverance list (K-8)

Books kids love blog: determination

Barnes and Noble perseverance book list

Recommended from the planning meeting:
Rosie Revere Engineer

Iggy Peck Architect

Girls Who Look Under Rocks

J.K. Rowling - Very Good Lives She talks about how her failures taught her. If you love her story, might also like this Buzzfeed list of well loved authors whose books were initially rejected.

Salt in His Shoes about Michael Jordan.

On A Beam of Light (the story of Albert Einstein) is an AMAZING book for kids about his life, and how he was a little different, but achieved success by not quitting.

Soul Surfer, or anything on Brittany Hamilton, who lost an arm in a shark attack and became a pro surfer anyway.

Professional readings and videos:

What is growth mindset?  A really good MindShift article.

Edutopia Grit Collection: Blogs, articles, video series, podcasts.

Huffington Post roundup of education and parenting articles are grit.

Scholastic article: The power of defeat – how to raise a child with grit.

NPR article discussing the grit movement and the benefits (and drawbacks) of it.

Professor Angela Duckworth’s 3-minute TED talk about Grit, mentioning Growth Mindset. Learn more about her and her research from her University of Pennsylvania page here.

Mindset: the new psychology of success. This is the book by Carole Dweck about the value of a growth mindset. And how to cultivate it in all aspects of life. A TED style talk from her here. Her latest update to the research is here.

Lest we all need a reminder that sometimes the epic fails are the ones that result in the best belly laugh, this Buzzfeed list of Pinterest fails.

Don't call kids smart: The Atlantic

Grit and Growth Mindset for Kids:

Grit: The Key to your success (video for kids recommended by Jerome Clemons, WDC)

The Dot, a picture book that is a great example of growth mindset. Here it is as a video: The Dot


Grit and Growth Mindset for Families
Washington Post article

Fun list of familyA Fine Parent blog.
movie night selections for character education, including some that focus on grit.

CNN article: Have our kids gotten soft?

Resources: Goal Setting

Goal Setting

This video lesson may contain several big points:

1. The definition of a goal
2. Why goal setting skills are important
3. The types of goals (long or short term, personal or academic, etc.)
4. How the student athlete sets goals in his or her own life
5. The importance of telling others about your goals
6. A challenge to students to set their own long term and short term goals, and to share them with each other, their families, you, and your mentor.

You may want to prepare for watching the video lesson by:

1. Planning for vocabulary development as needed
2. Choosing an anchor text about goal setting
3. Thinking over what sort of anchor chart or graphic organizer you will want to use
4. Preparing a place in your classroom to display student goals throughout the year, or to help students record their progress over the year.

Monthly Summaries due by January 30. 

We'll start with preparing for the video lesson. I'm sharing lots of information that might be helpful. Please pick and chose what makes sense to you.

Vocabulary Development

• Create a working definition of "Goal." Your student athlete's video have some really good ideas on this, and it might even be worth watching just the first minute of other athlete's videos to see different people's takes on this topic.
• Aspects of goal setting to take into account when creating a definition might be:
• specific
• measurable
• time related
• something the person wants to do (personal investment)
• can be broken down into steps
• with support, it is something a person could really make happen
• Students could practice this sort of vocabulary and try out talking about the topic by interviewing each other, as outlined in this Edutopia article.

Anchor texts for Goal Setting

The best way to learn about setting and accomplishing goals is to analyze the methods of people who have successfully done that. Biographical texts of innovators and accomplished people are going to lay out the process in an easily understood way. Finding a biography of someone relevant to another subject area you are working on this month is a great way to integrate College Champions topics into your core curriculum. 

Here are some favorites, appropriate for most grade levels. The links are to Amazon because those listings contain the information that you need to order the book from the library.

Salt in his Shoes, Michael Jordan's life story. See also Dream Big 

Wilma Unlimited, about the world's fastest woman

Fly High: The story of Bessie Coleman, aviation pioneer

Mr. Ferris and his Wheel, engineering innovator

Want more? A roundup of biographies by Goodreads, Barnes and Nobel (including some graphic novels and books for older students), and Powell's Books (mostly middle readers).

For middle school students, I am also a big fan of the narrative nonfiction profiling innovators and dreamers in magazines like National Geographic, Sports Illustrated, Wired, and Fast Company.

These fictional accounts are also a good read about specific parts of the topic this month.

Rosie Revere, Engineer -- finding a good support team for your dreams

The Perfect Percival Priggs -- finding your own passion, not the thing others might chose for you.

Need a video?

This four-minute animated TedEd video by Steve talks about decision making, consistency, and sometimes adjusting the plan on the way to a goal.

Anchor charts, graphic organizers, and displaying goals

The very best examples of this are the ones created by other teachers, and I have put a few here. They used everything from goals written on clouds, to mini me drawings on paths and tracks and roads, to dreamcatchers, banners, sentence strips, and photos of students holding signs.

Consider:

1. Sharing your own goal, and modeling the decision making and documenting involved.
2. Setting a class goal so everyone can work together toward something.
3. Individual goals
4. Display the goals in the classroom. Teachers displayed goals on walls, classroom doors, ceilings, taped to desks, and inside of personal journals.
5. Send a copy of the goals home with the family newsletter so families can be involved in the conversation.

The target chart (pictured) and a pyramid (first introduced in this classic video lesson) have both been effective graphic organizers over the years.

This blogger uses a hand as a graphic organizer.

A few interesting resources for you as a learner

NPR recently reported on a research project in participated in writing exercises around goal setting erased the gender and race gap among 700 students. (Thank you teacher Janet Ilko for this link)

A TED playlist of goal setting and decision making talks, including one of my favorite TED talks ever: Diana Nyad and her swim from Cuba to the US at age 64.

How goal setting -- and running -- help the homeless, from All Things Considered.

Ten Tips for Setting Successful Goals with Students from Education Week.

-Heatherle

Resources: Welcome to Our Journey

Welcome to Our Journey

This video lesson may contain two big points:

1. The student athlete introduces himself and his sport.
2. The student athlete defines her relationship with the kids, and what to expect over the program in a general way.

You may want to prepare for watching the video lesson by:

1. Giving some background information about College Champions
2. Building context about the Olympics
3. Designing a Big Reveal for your students to place value on the mentor relationship

Monthly Summaries due by January 30, surveys for grade 4+ are to be done prior to introducing the student athletes and the program.

We'll start with preparing for the video lesson. I'm sharing lots of information that might be helpful. Please pick and chose what makes sense to you.

About College Champions:

This article about Steve and Classroom Champions in Sports Illustrated is a nice place to start for kids.

Need a cat video? This one introduces the idea of being an adventurer, doing things you didn't think you could do, and basically the growth mindset. 

It might also be worth setting a Google alert for news about your student athlete or his or her Penn team. Here's how.

The Big Reveal can be so, so simple. The purpose is to place value on the mentor relationship by making it exciting for the kids to get to know the student athlete. They might be super excited to learn his or her name, or to watching the first video together. Be sure and get some video or photos of that because that is super fun for the student athletes to see.

Some ideas:

1. A simple sentence strip a day that includes a fact about your mentor.
2. A large photograph of your athlete, cut into squares, and during transitions or morning openings each day for a week you flip over one or two squares and tell something about the mentor.
3. A 20-questions type exercise where kids "vote" on whether they think that the mentor is male or female, winter or summer, racing or playing a game... options here are endless. If you want to tech it up, consider a PowToon that asks these type of questions and has photos of many mentors that drop out one by one until your mentor is left.

Are students curious about mentors and advice? A teacher in the core program suggests The Strange Case of Origami Yoda for a story about receiving and following advice. The link here is to Amazon so that you have all the info you need to order it from your library.

Responding to your student athlete:

The Welcome to Our Journey videos don't have a challenge because we know you are settling into the new year. If you feel so moved, you could:

1. Write a simple sentence or two post in Google+ in the comments section below the video. This is always appreciated.
2. Post the photos or a short film clip of the kids watching the first video lesson or finding out the mentor's name.
3. Send a simple video saying hello, and showing your student athlete your classroom or school. Less than three minutes is the perfect length for all teacher and student produced videos.
4. Welcome your athlete to your classroom with some photos of your class and school, and post it with a paragraph about you (maybe even written by a kid and transcribed by you for Google+)