Fostering Deep Learning Through GRIT
GRIT Questions
Below are questions designed to help
students reflect on their learning.
Ken Bain Teaching Principles related to the GRIT questions
Ken Bain explains, people learn most deeply in ways that have
a sustained and substantial influence on the way they
subsequently think, act, or feel when:
Activity
Below are some reflection questions you might use to incorporate these principles into your teaching.
1. How can we help you achieve your
dream?
They feel invited to engage in the consideration of matters they find
personally relevant and important.
1. What do my courses promise to students and why are those promises important.
2. How will students fulfill those promises?
3. How will the students and I understand the nature and progress of the students' learning?
Exercise: Craft an introduction to your course that reads like an invitation (yes, like an invitation to a party). The invitation should
include the following elements: why the course is important to you, personally; why the course is important to your field; how we’re
going to achieve the promise of the course together; here’s how the students are going to contribute to that effort; here’s what
students are going to get out of the course (something tangible).
2. What risks are you willing to take to
achieve your dream?
They can speculate even before they know anything.
3. What inspires you and why?
They believe their work will matter.
Can I build my class around a project, problem or question bigger than the class? How can I introduce students to a real-world issue
or event outside the class. How can I give them opportunities to speculate and collaborate to address those problems before I give
them the tools or answers. After they’ve made attempts, begin to give them the tools they will need.
After taking my course, what kinds of conversations can students join? How do the conversations change with time and place? What
kinds of questions can they ask? What kinds of arguments can they advance? With whom will they hold these conversations?
4. Did you do something this week you’ve
never done before?
They face repeated challenges to their existing fundamental paradigms and
they feel that their existing paradigms do not work.
What major paradigms do students bring to my course that I want them to question? How will I create expectation failure? What
problems do you confront students with that are fascinating, rich and conceptual, as well as challenging to the assumptions or
expectations they bring to class?
5. Are you a driver or a passenger in your
own life?
They feel in control of their own learning, not manipulated, and can
collaborate with other learners struggling with the same problems.
Can I design an experience that raises important questions for my students, enables them to do the discipline before they know the
discipline and asks them to work inductively rather that deductively? Can I shift any of my teaching-by-lecture to teaching-by-doing?
What learning experiences can I create to help students learn by doing my discipline?
6. If there were no grades, what would
motivate you?
They believe that intelligence and abilities are expandable, that if they work
hard, they will get better at it; they believe other people have faith in their
ability to learn; and they believe they can learn.
What does the grade in my course represent, in terms of abilities? What is an authentic assessment process that evaluates what I
want students to do? What does the grade represent: where students are at the end or an average of where they’ve been? What
does the grade represent, with reference to a standard, each other, themselves?
7. How has this semester changed you?
They are trying to answer questions or solve problems they find intriguing,
important or beautiful.
8. What opportunity did you miss? What
are you going to do now?
They can get support (emotional, physical, and intellectual assistance) when
they need it.
What big questions will my course help students answer (or what answers will it help them question), or what skills, abilities, or
qualities will it help students develop, and how will I help and encourage my students’ interest in these questions and abilities? How
will I create a learning environment in which I embed the skills and information I wish to teach in assignments (questions and tasks)
student will find fascinating – authentic tasks that will arouse curiosity, challenge students to rethink their assumptions and examine
their mental models of reality? How will I create a safe environment in which students can speculate and receive feedback and try
again?
How can I make my class a safe, low-stakes space for learning? How do I show intellectual respect for students? Am I transparent? Do
I create and convey a sense of trust with students? Do I teach for growth? Do I provide early success opportunities? Can I teach less,
better?