CORTNIE BELSER'S MSED PORTFOLIO
Managing Impulsivity
Take time to consider options; Think before speaking or acting; Remain calm when stressed or challenged;
Be thoughtful and considerate of others; Proceed carefully.
Table of Contents
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Introduction to Reinforcing Habits of Mind Targets ​
Reinforcement Sample: Personal Reflections
Reinforcement Sample: Text-Based Analysis
Reinforcement Sample: Homework Reflection Sheet
Reinforcement Sample: Progress and Report Card Anecdotals
Reinforcement Sample: Student-Led Creative Writing Assignments
Reinforcement Sample: Habits of Mind Awards
​Teacher Reflections
Introduction
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The reinforcement of habits of mind are the instructional strategies and activities incorporated in classroom content and culture that invest students in the habits. As an educator, I know for students to not only retain content, but internalize this learning, there needs to be continuous engagement with a skill. This mastery may not be observed in a week's time or the intended assessment period, but the goal is that students will apply classroom knowledge and skills into action when necessary. Thus, in addition to the introduction to habits of mind, I also spend instructional time having students analyze the habits in literature and personal experience as well as celebrate their exemplification of the habits. Through this process, students gain a sense of autonomy over their instruction and deepened investment in the habits of mind. With each reinforcement, students learn strategies that can follow them throughout their life. Based on the introductory student surveys, there are three targeted habits of mind that I have focused on reinforcing: Managing Impulsivity, Listening with Understanding and Empathy, and Striving for Accuracy.
Reinforcement 1: Sample Individualized Habit of Mind Lesson Plan
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Even though it is non-indicative of my classroom exclusively, student impulsivity persists as a barrier to allowing children the equal opportunity of expression, experience, and education in my school. Whether it is a student calling an answer out or getting up to throw trash away in the middle of a speaker, or merely completing assignments without reading directions, I have observed how my students not only distract themselves from learning but impact the student efficacy of peers around them. In my school, we utilize an online resource, Kickboard, to incentivize positive behaviors and hold students accountable who are not demonstrating growth. In a broad view, managing impulsivity addresses many common misbehaviors. Through explicit instruction, critical thinking, content lessons, and celebration of a growth mindset in managing impulsivity, my students are exposed to how the habits and mindsets can impact their short-term and long-term goals.
Explicit Instruction of Managing Impulsivity ​
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To support student achievement, I scaffolded my planning to develop and implement an introductory lesson on Managing Impulsivity. During this process, I recorded weekly observations that served as a baseline to how I will evaluate student growth in managing impulsivity. While the first half of the lesson focuses on a critical analysis of defining the vocabulary of "managing" and "impulsivity," the subsequent lessons centered on understanding this habit through examining it in content. Through the quarter's core text, supplemental readings, homework reflection, and other content-driven assignments, students build an awareness of what is and is not managing impulsivity.
Throughout the lesson, students worked collaboratively to annotate the definition of both the vocabulary and manifestation of the habit. Students apply prior knowledge to real-world experiences and student examples. Since much of the language of the habit is informal and familiar to students, the depth of explicit instruction stems from cultivating critical thinking for students to move beyond an objective view of the habit to a more subjective analysis of their own mindset.
The document to the left reflects my initial introductory steps and student observations I noted. As shown in the table highlighted in the red box on Page 2 and 3, I used my warm-up prompt to hook students into conversation about their guilty pleasures as a lens into how they understand impulses. Through this informal discourse, students became comfortable with discussing academic and personal behaviors and traits that they do consistently but are aware of its downfalls. As an initial step, this activity models how students can build their self-efficacy and growth mindset in understanding how to activate prior knowledge and build connections. Additionally, Page 3 highlights how I integrated Spongebob Squarepants and real-world examples as a strategy to familiarize students with the vocabulary of the habit of mind prior to its explicit instruction. Through a whole-class pre-discussion, I can evaluate potential gaps in the explicit instruction and begin to build individual student goals.
The document to the right highlights individual student reflections through the explicit vocabulary content instruction of the habit of mind. Here, as students draw upon my definition and synonyms, they begin to connect our conversation on guilty pleasures with the connotation of impulsivity. Even though explicit instruction relies on the teacher to model exemplar thinking skills, since students are familiar with the Frayer vocabulary model, they are accustomed to offering a variety of examples and responses. As indicated in the fourth quadrant, "Examples/Synonyms," one student utilized this opportunity to call attention to peers who were not self-managing their impulsivity during instruction. Additionally, the impact of my initial steps and explicit instruction are evidenced through the student's response that not managing impulsivity conveys a lack of motivation to learn. Prior to reinforcement, students are already considering the implications of this habit of mind.
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Reinforcement: Grade 8 Content Area Lesson Plan and Student Work
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The document to the left are reflections on my student observations of them practicing managing impulsivity during instruction. As indicated in the middle red box, one student expresses how managing impulsivity can benefit college and career readiness through self-regulating the necessity of independence and assistance. For this student, the habit of mind has impacted how she challenges her self-efficacy. Since students are exposed to character traits, they also make sense of the habits of mind through drawing connections across content and skills. In addition, Page 4's highlight exemplifies how the habit of mind of managing impulsivity is cognizant to students who are motivated to improve. Through the explicit instruction modeling and real-world examples, students are aware of the depth managing impulsivity could have on their individual and collective achievement. It is through managing impulsivity as a foundational habit that will strengthen their development across other habits of mind, such as Listening with Understanding and Empathy. This evidence displays how individual students have internalized how to convey they're managing impulsivity and self-analyzing their own personal growth.
The documents to the right are a student sample of introductory and content area lesson handouts on managing impulsivity. On Page 2, the red box indicates student-led annotations and analysis of the definition and characteristics of the trait as it is widely understood. In the annotations, students discovered how the habit of mind not only focuses on behaviors and actions, but also mindsets and thinking. This student sample references how "coming up with more options" or considering "there could be multiple ones [answers] are metacognitive strategies to manage impulsivity. Here, through the guidance of my organized handout, students worked collaboratively to construct a rubric of the Do's and Don't's of the habit (Page 3) and even constructed a self-evaluation and character analysis using their rubric (Page 4). As the handout moves students from defining concepts, to creating criteria, and assessing text-based contexts, students were provided multiple avenues to internalize how they can lead themselves and peers towards mastery of this habit.
Reinforcement: Homework Reflection Sheet ​
Since the weekly homework sheet is a routine activity in my classroom, I utilized this structure to continue to build student investment and reinforce this habit of mind.
The document above shows my informal lesson planning for when I implement this activity again. Page 1's PowerPoint demonstrates how I can utilize the technology I now have to increase student engagement through the competition. Page 2's handout further the rigorous engagement for those students with higher mastery of reading informational text by increasing the number of missing pieces of evidence to synthesize. These two strategies allow me to integrate my reflections of this informal lesson plan and continue to evaluate, reflect, and adapt the effective planning for instruction through informal lesson plans.
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Reteaching Informal and Formal Lesson Plans ​
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As demonstrated in reflection of both informal and formal lesson plans, I can support my students in meeting their learning goals by constructing follow-up instruction that address gaps in knowledge and skill. Since teacher-constructed instructional time is limited in a LDC module, instances of reteaching content or skill often occur as I continue through the curriculum or as a supplemental assignment for those students.
The lesson plan shown above is a direct result of my implementation and reflections of the formal lesson plan sample. In understanding that my students struggled to identify specific literary evidence connected to author's purpose, I constructed a reteaching lesson that considers what skills and content knowledge were necessary for the previous lesson's formative writing assessment. To effectively plan for instruction to meet the needs of all my students, there is more engaging content and differentiation in this reteaching lesson. For example, as shown on page 7, I reference a popular children's movie to model my analysis and skill application for students. Through utilizing reteaching opportunities in my process of lesson planning, I am able to effectively plan instruction that addresses how to meet students where their are and build towards achievement of their learning goals.