Engaging and
Teaching
Disrupted
Populations:
Strategies For Success
With Pat Walsh
BT BOCES PD & RC
February 4, 2015
Outcomes For Our Work Together
• Explain how the Growth Mindset supports success
for all learners
• Describe how the five enrichment mindsets support
success for all students
• Explain poverty’s impact on the brain and cognitive
development
• Define strategies for building relationships and
improving behavior, effort and attitude and defend
why they work for disrupted learners
• Define Strategies for building cognitive
capacity/working memory/executive function skills
and defend why they work for disrupted learners
Have you seen me?
Who are you?
Poverty is…
not a cul_____, but
a ch _____ condition
affecting the m ind, body
and s __ resulting from
multiple adverse r___
f___.
Common “Faces” of Today’s
Poverty
Generational,
Situational,
Immigration
Situational
Abuse
• More prevalent than people realize, likely the most preventable
health problem children face
• 1/7 Girls, 1/25 boys sexually abused before they turn 18 –
average age when abuse begins- 9
• Only 38% of victims ever disclose
• 65% middle class abusers, 50% from Higher Educated family
backgrounds, 90% abused by trusted family friend or family
member
• Abuse can also be verbal or physical/sexual
Source - Darkness To Light - Foundation For Ending Child Sexual Abuse
How are these learners impacted?
• Acute/Chronic Stress
• Executive Function Skills
• Less Emotional Support
What should we focus on?
• How do we engage these students?
Teaching as decision making…..
Focus on decision making
that gets results for us and
all of our learners
 WHAT to do that you
don’t already do or what
you should stop doing
 Why to do it, so you get a
new reason to bring
energy and commitment
 How to do it in the case
that you have been doing
something ineffectively
Effective Teaching
A stream of conscious
decisions made before,
during and after instruction
that increase the probability
that learning will occur.
Madeline Hunter
Engagement of
Learners
The BACES are
teachable!
What do we mean
by
“Growth Mindset?”
Attitude/Belief
Our MINDSET Matters!
Mindset= the established set of
attitudes/beliefs held by someone
WE CAN CHANGE OUR MINDSET!
Find out how:
http://mindsetonline.com/changeyourmindset/natureofchange/index.html
Growth Mindset
Fixed
Mindset:
After a
Failure
 Feel helpless and
want to give up
 Avoid future tasks
similar to this one
 Invest little or no
effort since I will
not likely succeed
 I might consider
cheating, if need be
Growth Mindset:
After a Failure
 Resilience; I feel renewed
energy
 I will learn from my
mistakes to improve
 Effort is a positive, since I
can control how much I
apply
 I can be better the next
time I try this
5 Mindsets for
Success GROWTH!
1.
2.
3.
4.
Fierce Urgency
Empathy
Brains are designed to change
Teachers are the single greatest differencemaker!
5. No excuses!!!
• Acute/Chronic Stress
• Executive Function
Skills
• Less Emotional Support
How are these learners
impacted?
Your brain’s two filters are
Relevance and Control and they
choose stress or no stress based
on these
• 1. Perceived Relevance (Yes/No?)
• 2. Will you have Control (Yes/No?)
Greater Stress
Challenged
or Excited
Distress Shrinks Key Brain
Cells
Dendrites taken from rat PFC show effects of distress
Distress Shrinks Key Brain Cells
How much exposure to distress (in time)
would you predict it would take for
neurons to wither as shown?
1. 2 hours/day for 2 months
2. 30 minutes/day for 7 weeks
3. 1 hour/day for 10 weeks
4. 10 minutes/day for 5 days
"What were you thinking?"
Under high stress,
brains engage in
bottom-up
decision-making
for a more
reflexive strategy.
With Greater Stress….Flexibility
Drops and Stronger Habits Prevail
Good or Bad, you revert to your strongest habits
under stress. When change is needed, lower the
stress, make a new habit, then practice it!
The Effects of Chronic
Stress on our Students
•
Greater impulsivity (blurts, talking back, less
reflection, more scattered)
•
Hyper vigilant (in your face, angry) or Hypo
responsiveness (passive aggressive, detached)
•
Inappropriate classroom behaviors
•
Less effort put out in class/ academic
underperformance
•
Poor working memory*
What can we do?
The stress we experience is our reaction to a perceived loss
of control over an adverse situation.
• Increase the control and our stress goes down
• Decrease the control and our stress goes up
REGULATE YOUR OWN
STRESS LEVEL FIRST
HOW ARE YOU KEEPING
YOURSELF ENERGIZED
AND FULFILLED?
Help your students manage stress
 Take Action If appropriate ( talk with the person agitating you,
brainstorm solutions for your problem)
 Write down what is stressing you and what action you will take
 Positive self talk, breathing , meditation
 Release the stress – If it won’t matter one week from now- let it go
 Work it off with play, exercise
• Acute/Chronic Stress
• Less Emotional Support
• Executive Function Skills
How are these learners
impacted?
Kids “download” the
negatives of chaos,
disharmony, poor
relationships, foul
language, poor manners
and weak vocabulary just
as quickly and just as
automatically as they
would any positive or
enrichment input.
The effects of less emotional
support
Fewer hours of attunement leading to a
narrower set of emotional responses
Far fewer experiences with quality
emotional punctuation that shapes
appropriate behaviors
Less trust in adult relationships
More classroom misbehaviors
Managing emotional states
and building relationships
with challenging children and
young adults
Classroom
Climate
We Can:
• Create a safe emotional environment
• Regulate our own behavior and
language
• Acknowledge student feelings
• Use language that coaches
cooperation and commitment
Students will rationally change their
own behaviors.
Safe Emotional Environment
Recognize individual differences
Eliminate sarcasm, ridicule, bullying
Relationship, relationship, relationship
Respect the power you have
High expectations for all (hopes and
dreams)
Don’t tell a student their problem is no
“big deal” – if they are talking about it, it
is a big deal to them
How do I deal with feelings
that interfere with student
learning?
Since there is a direct connection
between how kids feel and how they
behave, when kids feel right, they will
behave right. How do we help them
feel right? We accept their feelings!
(Faber & Mazlish)
Do you accept kid’s
feelings?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
S I can’t write.
T That’s not true.
S
But I can’t think of anything to write about.
T
Yes, you can. Just quit complaining and start writing.
S
I hate history. Who cares about what happened a
hundred years ago?
T
You should care. It’s important to know your country’s
history.
S It’s boring.
T
No, it isn’t! If you paid attention, you’d find it interesting.
You are a teenager and you
have made the school team
• Denial of feelings
• Philosophical response
You went to your first practice
session full of excitement and
anticipation.
The coach calls you aside and
tells you that you were cut
from the team.
You see one of your teachers
in the hallway and tell her
what happened.
Write down what the kid
inside of you feels or thinks
after each of these teacher
responses:
• Advice
• Questions
• Defense of the other
person
• Pity
• Amateur psychoanalysis
Strategies for Acknowledging
Student’s Feelings
• Identify the student’s feelings
• Acknowledge the student’s feelings with a sound or
word
• Give the student in fantasy what you can’t give
them in reality
• Accept the student’s feelings even as you stop
unacceptable behavior
• Sometimes we have to help students identify
their feelings (outbursts)
• Be cautious about moving in with instant advice
– after student has been “heard out” you may
ask questions like:
How would you feel about? Do you think it would
help if…
• Sometimes students (people) prefer to work
through problems on their own – we can let them
know we are there for them if they change their
minds
When you are “tested”
It is not about you
Stop what you are doing
Think, don’t react or engage
Instead of the long lecture …
- quietly say “I didn’t like
what I
just heard.
If you are angry, tell me
another way and I’ll be glad to listen”
Learners Who Challenge Us
Read your selected article, be prepared
to “Say Something” with colleagues.
• Acute/Chronic Stress
• Less Emotional Support
• Executive Function Skills
How are these learners
impacted?
File – Folder
Memory – what goes in here?
•
•
•
Person A – suggest a
word/thought about memory
that could go in the folder
Person B - Repeat what A
said, then add your
word/thought
Keep going until you hear
“stop”
WHAT IS LEARNING?
The efficient functioning of the brain’s
memory system. The process of learning
means:
•
•
•
•
Creating representations of some type of
information
Storing that representation in long term
memory
Being able to retrieve that representation
to interpret reality and solve new
problems
The above represent physical changes
in the brain and they become our life
experiences (schema)
What controls these
processes for all of
us on a daily basis?
Something called Executive Function – It is our
operating system! We use this to plan, organize,
strategize, pay attention to and remember details,
manage time and space, control impulses and store
things in working memory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efCq_vHUMqs
Brain differences for
impacted
learners……
• Lack of vocabulary for school
success
• Sub-grade level in language
• Weaker executive function
(impulsivity, working memory,
processing, sequencing, and
locus of control)
45 Million Words
HIGH SES
26 Million Words
Middle SES
13 Million Words
Low SES
Hart, B. & Risley, T.R. “The Early
Catastrophe” (2004). Education
For over 100 years,
scientists accepted as
"fact" that our brain
never grew new cells.
Why care about Neurogenesis?
1. It is highly correlated with the following
benefits
 Improved cognitive performance
 Elevated mood (less anger and stress)
 Enhanced memory
2. Neurogenesis is the raw material for learning!
You increase or decrease the above benefits by
how you teach (teaching decisions you make)
How do we build
cognitive capacity?
Coach Memory Systems
Our memory systems are the root of
all learning
Which factor (when
tested at Age 5) is a far
greater predictor of
student success at age
11 than IQ?
•
•
•
•
•
motivation level
math scores
reading scores
attitude
working memory
1. What is working memory
2. How does it function?
3. What does it look like when
working memory breaks down?
4. How do we “coach it?”
Executive function
Skills
Short Term
Phonological loop
Long Term
Memory
Verbal
Visual
Visual/Spatial
Sketchpad
There are two main sub types
sounds –
(phonological)
systems – connects
incoming language
to language we have
stored in LTM)
visual/spatial sketchpad
– stores images and
info. about an object’s
location and movement
•
• Language
• Reading/writing
instructions
•
•
It allows you to envision
something, keep it in
your “minds eye”
Visualize places, ie:
layout of the classroom
Math, patterns, images,
sequences of events
It’s amazing but, it’s
fragile!
Working memory allows us to comprehend this
sentence by remembering its beginning in order to
make sense of the rest.
Mel Levine
It is limited in two fundamental ways:
 The time it can hold information
 The amount of information it can juggle
Teaching Points for Building Working Memory
1. Buy in and “backgrounding”
2. Break down the learning or “chunk it’
3. Create temporary places for students to “hold
their thinking”
4. Allow frequent opportunities for students to
process (verbally and in writing)
5. Practice Recall
Get “Buy in”
“If the brain isn’t buying then the
brain isn’t changing”
Eric Jensen
WHAT IS “BUY IN?”
By “buy In”……we are thinking
about Meaning
Meaning is a principle of
learning that creates a
relationship between the
learner and the material.
Meaning
continuum
Low Buy-In
No
meaning
High Buy-in
Little
meaning
A lot of
meaning
Tremendous
meaning
Ways to Add Meaning
• Create purpose, use and
value
• Link to past experiences,
Build experience
• Provide clear organization
Teaching Points for Building Working
Memory
1. Buy in and “backgrounding” – MEANING
2. Break down the learning or “chunk it’
3. Create temporary places for students to “hold their
thinking”
4. Allow frequent opportunities for students to process
(verbally and in writing)
5. Practice Recall
Two Step Word splash
Words or phrases associated with today’s learning
MIP’S AND QUESTIONS
Until we learn together again 
• Thank you so much!
Resources
Baily F. and Pransky, K. (2014) Memory at Work in the Classroom: Strategies to Help
Underachieving Students. Alexandria, Va: Association for Supervision and Curriculum
Development
Dweck, C. (2006) Mindset. The New Psychology of Success: How we Can Learn to Fulfill Our
Potential. New York, Random House, Inc.
Faber, A and Mazlish, K. (2003) How to Talk so Kids can Learn at Home and in School. New
York, Scribner
Howard T., Dresser, S. and Dunklee, D. (2009) Poverty is Not a Disability: Equalizing
Opportunities For Low SES Students. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press
Jensen, E. (2009) Teaching with Poverty in Mind. Alexandria, Va:
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development
Jensen, E. (2013) Engaging Students With Poverty in Mind. Alexandria, Va: Association for
Supervision and Curriculum Development
Templeton, B. (2011) Understanding Poverty in the Classroom: Changing Perceptions For
Student Success. Maryland: Roman & Littlefield Education