Super Mind-Sets Chapter Preview What Are Mind-Sets?
Why Mind-Sets Are Key
Mental Models of Success for Teachers
WHAT ARE MIND-SETS? If you ask individual teachers to describe values, beliefs, and attitudes, you could link them to their results in the classroom. The teachers with better classroom results have a certain set of attitudes about themselves, learning, and their students. Those mind-sets lead them to make different choices. And those choices produce stronger performances from their students.
Super teachers consistently make different work choices than struggling teachers. Naturally, the actions that follow those choices are different from those of the typical teacher. So what is the source of the choices? There is a belief or a mind-set that precedes a choice. These mind-sets, known as mental models, are a huge part of the secret to successful teaching. Yes, all teachers need information. And yes, all teachers need strategies. But ultimately, teachers make decisions all day long. Frameworks, belief systems, thought patterns, paradigms, and sets operating principles are the basis of our modes.
We all have mental models even if we aren't conscious of it. A mental model that inspires a teacher to make smart decisions most of the time, build or preserve student dignity, and spark motivation in a way that appears to be almost magical is the mark of an excellent teacher. In a hard-nosed practical way, mind-sets are the sequences of cognitive steps taken as you go from the start of a thought to the conclusion. They are how you work through things. This chapter illuminates the "right stuff --the 12 key factors that successful teachers possess.