www.taolearn.

com
Learning Skill resources available ATL tab

For

the money?
the status?

the power?

the admin work?

the meetings?

To Teach?

- to make a difference?
- to open up young minds,

develop understanding,
impart wisdom and

knowledge
- to help children to succeed?

Teaching is the canny art of

intellectual temptation
- Jerome Bruner
Teaching involves putting children into
difficult situations out of which they can
only get by thinking
John Heron

Fixed

Growth

intelligence, personality

and abilities are fixed

and abilities are open to

development

effort makes the difference

failure is an opportunity to

intelligence, personality

the more effort you have to

put in the less your ability

failure is catastrophic

focus is on proving

learn

focus is on improving

you didnt try hard

enough

you werent paying

good at maths

attention when I
taught that

Feedback to boys

you never check your

work

(effort attribution)

youre just not very

youre just too thick

(ability attribution)

Feedback to girls

Im not very good at

word games

I wasnt paying
attention

I guess Im just not

I didnt try very hard

that bright

Who cares about your

stupid test anyway?

(ability attribution)
Feedback from girls

(effort attribution)
Feedback from boys

for effort

for ability

you are so hard working,

persistent, determined.

you are so smart, talented,

intelligent.

links approval to an
attribute of the child over
which they have control they can grow, develop and
improve

links approval to an
attribute of the child over
which they have no control
- they cant grow, develop
or improve

assessment becomes a
measure of progress, an
opportunity to learn

assessment becomes a
critical judgement, an
opportunity to fail

1) Get the words right

- change I cant I havent yet

(ability attribution) (effort attribution)

2) Get the pictures right

- imagine yourself doing it right
3) Get determined practise persistence
4) Celebrate every success

To what do you attribute success and failure

in your classroom?

Do you give effort grades?

Do you have any grade-less marking

formative only?

Focus any praise for achievement on observed

effort rather than ability for all students

Can they be learned?

How?

By exposure to adversity?

Does all adversity create resilience?

Resilient Students

Helpless Students

Goals

set learning goals

set performance goals
learn for understanding learn for grade

Tasks

to test themselves

to gain approval or avoid

disapproval

Challenge

seek out new

challenges

avoid new challenges

To achieve success

believe effort is more

important than ability

believe ability is more

important than effort

Reaction to failure

take responsibility,
learn from mistakes

take no responsibility,
repeat, give up

View of intelligence

is flexible, can be
developed and grown

is fixed, unalterable with

definite limit

Locus of Control

internal

external

Future expectations

optimistic

pessimistic

Locus of Control Rotter (1966)

Learned Helplessness Optimism/Pessimism

Seligman (1975)

Positive

Takes no
action
- External
LOC

Locus of

Thinking

Optimism and Pessimism

The
Gnostates

Negative
Thinking

Control

Takes
action
- Internal
LOC

Positive
Thinking

HOPEFUL

RESILIENT

Takes
no
action

Takes
action

VULNERABLE

STOIC

Negative
Thinking

Takes no
action
- External
LOC

Locus of Control

Takes
action
- Internal
LOC

External:

Internal:

Theres
nothing I can
do
Takes no
responsibility

Absolute need to
be in control
Uninterested in
others opinions

All success and

failure is due to
outside forces

LOCUS OF CONTROL
The belief
that you can
take action
to affect your
own life

Takes full
responsibility for
own success and
failure

Makes no
changes in
response to
failure

Makes changes in
response to
failure

More helpless

More resilient

Locus of Control
1) You are in a taxi in a big city when it stops in traffic and waits,
about 1/2 mile from your destination, 10 minutes pass with no
movement. Do you:
a) just wait patiently
b) ask the taxi driver to find another route
c) pay off the taxi, get out and walk
d) get out, walk to the front of the traffic jam, find out what
the problem is, fix it, get back in your taxi and carry on
Ext.
a
b
c
d Int.
LOC

LOC

2) You are on the footpath and someone is struggling to parallel

park their car . Do you:
a) keep on walking
b) ask them what their problem is
c) guide them in using hand signals
d) tell them to get out of the car so you can park it for them

3) You are in a project team at work. What is your normal role?

a) leave it up to everyone else to do all the work
b) focus on doing your own part only
c) help manage everyone elses tasks as well as your own
d) complete everyone elses tasks as well as your own
a
b
c
d Int.
Ext.
LOC

LOC

4) Your family is going to New Zealand for the next school holidays.
What is your normal role
a) let someone else organise everything
b) just look after yourself
c) organise the flights and accommodation and make sure
everyone in the family knows what they need to do to get ready
d) pack everyones bags for them, organise every minute of
the holiday, keep hold of everyones passport and tickets and herd
them all along like sheep

Take control of their lives where they can?

Take action to achieve their own goals?

Take responsibility for their own successes and

failures?

1)

Creating goals

2)

Making plans

3)

Taking action

4)

Following through until the job is finished

5)

Taking responsibility for all outcomes

6)

Making changes in response to failure and trying again

7)

Building on any successful outcomes, learning from any

unsuccessful outcomes

Positive

Optimism and Pessimism

Thinking

Negative
Thinking

Optimistic:

Pessimistic:

I create my
own good luck,
any bad luck is
due to others

My bad luck is
my own fault,
any good luck is
due to others

Challenge
seeking, risk
taking
Bounces back in
response to
failure
More resilient

LEARNED
HELPLESSNESS
Your
beliefs
about the
origins of
good and
bad luck

Challenge
avoiding, risk
averse

Gives up in
response to
failure
More helpless

Optimistic and Pessimistic Thinking

1) You park in a car-park building and go shopping. When you return
you see that there is now a big crease all the way down one side
of your car where someone has crashed into you.
What do you say to yourself?
a) Some idiot has run into my car! Where is the carpark
attendant, he should have prevented this.
b) Bad stuff happens
c) This is all my fault, I knew I shouldnt park here
Opt

Pess

a
b
c
2) As you get closer to the car you notice that you have also got a flat
tyre and you know you dont have a spare.
What do you say to yourself now?
a) OK, thats enough bad luck, something good has to
happen now
b) Sometimes I have a bad day
c) Why does this always happen to me? Every time I go out
in the car something bad happens

3) You manage finally to wrench the drivers door open and as you do
something falls down from behind the dash onto the floor. You
pick it up and discover it is a piece of jewelry of great personal
value that you had thought was lost which because of the crash
has now been found.
What do you say to yourself?
a) Even my bad luck is good
b) Sometimes good things happen
c) Maybe I should find the culprit and thank him for crashing
into me
a
b
c

Opt.

Pess.

4) You settle into the car and notice a piece of paper on the
passenger seat. You read it and see it is from whoever crashed
into your car offering to pay to fix up your car and also to lend
you another car until yours is fixed.
What do you say to yourself now?
a) I knew it would all come out right in the end
b) Sometimes I have a good day
c) Something terrible is bound to happen now

OPTIMISTIC
THINKING

personal

pervasive

permanent

I caused it

Everything
will be like
this now

It will last
forever

Bad Luck

Nothing else
will be
affected

It is already
over

Good Luck

Good Luck

Bad Luck

Someone or
something
else caused
it

PESSIMISTIC
THINKING

Optimistic thinkers have:

better physical health
50% more antibodies in response to vaccine
reduced risk and less severe disease
less depression and mental illness
longer life
more happiness
more resilience after failure
Pessimistic thinkers are:
more accurate judges of their own abilities
less inclined to take risks
less likely to blame others for their mistakes
but they suffer from:
poorer health
more depression
more helplessness

Overcome their I cants?

Choose the most efficacious response in different

situations?
Optimistic responses are most useful in most

situations except in situations of:

Self-judgement of critical abilities

High risk
Making mistakes, admitting blame, taking
responsibility

1) remembering past successes

.(list them)...

2) looking for the positives in everyday life

.(list them)

3) taking chances, being more spontaneous

4) challenging myself
5) celebrating all my successes and any good luck
6) making positive future plans
7) encouraging others to be more positive

Optimistic

HOPEFUL

RESILIENT

External
LOC

Internal
LOC

VULNERABLE

STOIC

Pessimistic

Gnostates
HOPEFUL

RESILIENT

17%

33%

13%

37%

VULNERABLE

STOIC

Take the Gnostates test at:

www.taolearn.com/gnostates/index.htm

Practice optimistic thinking

HOPEFUL

RESILIENT

positive attitude
easy-going, relaxed
risk taker
procrastinator
prefers the easy
option
self-promoting

bounces back
takes control
always learning
leader
takes calculated
risks
self-motivated

accepting
passive
depressed
I cant
helpless
self-limiting

conservative
pessimistic
solid, reliable
frustrated
diligent, persistent
self-blaming

VULNERABLE

STOIC

Take
control
where you
can

Advantage effort over ability as the key to academic

success

Focus on learning for understanding rather than

learning for grades

Develop internal LOC and an optimistic outlook

Make resilience a high value attribute in the school

Celebrate the overcoming of adversity

Directly teach the process of failing well

Work in pairs.
Your goal is to solve the following puzzle:
You have 12 cannon balls, all the same weight
except one. You know one is a different weight
from the rest but you dont know if it is heavier
or lighter. You have a balance big enough to
hold all the cannon balls if necessary.
Your task is to find the odd-ball by using the
balance a maximum of 4 times.

You have 2 minutes.

I failed at .
How I am feeling now about that is
What I am going to do about that is ..

 nothing, ignore it
blame the presenter for an unfair test
blame the seminar/weather/my mood/my tiredness/Kiwis in
general, for setting me up
accept my failure as an expected result due to my own inherent
lack of ability in this area
forget about it, put it behind me, carry on regardless

weep, moan to my partner, feel useless, get depressed

make a commitment never to attend stupid sessions like this one

again
accept that failure is ubiquitous, universal and completely out of
my control . or something else??

Failure is - the state or condition of not meeting

a desired or intended objective
1)

Think of a failure in your life, one for which

you were responsible, when through your
own action or inaction you failed to achieve
your goal, your objective

2)

Then think of how you responded to that

failure, how did you process that failure
afterwards, what did you do subsequently?

One time when I made a mistake

or set a goal and didnt achieve it
was

What I did after that was

The most significant difference between the

high achievers and the underachievers was

that all the high achievers had

learned how to fail well
-

whereas all the underachievers were

failing badly

Failing Well

Acknowledge your failures

Failing Badly

Shift blame to others the

- take responsibility for your

school, the teachers, other

own actions

people

- work out what you did

Ignore or deny failure

wrong

Catastrophise add drama to

- make changes, and

- have another go

failure to avoid dealing with it

Avoid any activity that could

possibly result in failure

Universalise failure

1)

Managing the emotional response to the

idea, the concept and the word failure?

2)

Taking action to re-process failure to turn

any failure into a learning experience

What are some of the reactions to failure that you

observe in your classroom?

Are you comfortable with the word/concept of

failure?

How can you help your students to become more

comfortable with the word/concept of failure?

What could you do to make sure in your class that

every failure is reprocessed and learned from?

Failing Well

Failing Badly

Emotional reaction to failure is short lived Emotional reaction to failure is long

and fuel for improved performance
lasting and debilitating

Expecting to experience some failure in Denying failure exists or believing that

new learning situations
everything is failure
Using strategies to learn from failure

No strategies to learn from failure

Being adaptable and making changes Focusing on own shortcomings, believing

where necessary
it is impossible to change
Using perseverance, organisation and Eliminating any subject or task in which
effort to minimise the possibility of failure failure is experienced
Establishing complete control in some Avoiding situations where failure is
areas
possible

Viewing failure as temporary and specific Viewing failure as pervasive

eg. lack of effort
permanent eg. lack of intelligence

and

Taking responsibility for own actions in Being content with underachievement

failure situations

IF AT FIRST YOU DONT

SUCCEED,
MAKE SURE YOU
FAIL WELL

Encourage students to take on new challenges and to use

failure as feedback

Help students to see any academic failure as a failure of

process not of the individual and as an important step to
success process focused classroom

Teach the skill of failing well

Always allow for the reprocessing of failure

Celebrate learning from mistakes

How to fail well

describe what
happened
list the facts

take
action

DO

LOOK

make a
change and
have
another go

what will I do
differently next
time?

take
responsibility
for your own
actions

PLAN

THINK
what did I do that worked?
that didnt work?

Setting up experiences for students that bring about

the development or use of Affective Skills like selfmotivation, resilience, perseverance, leadership,

bouncing back after mistakes and failures

Outdoor Education taking students out of the

classroom can create opportunities for the
development of these skills eg. Al Jiggins

take on new challenges

test themselves against themselves

maximise their effort

overcome adversity

develop greater resilience and

learn how to fail well?

6 billion mobile devices in the world in 2014 will

exceed human population
95% of new phones are internet capable
41 billion OTT + 20 billion SMS messages/day
183 billion emails per day (2013) of which 70% were
spam
In next 5 years 77% increase in data traffic expected in
the Middle East and Africa, 76% in Asia/Pacific region
and 67% in Latin America
Mobile video data is 50% of all data transmitted

every piece of subject matter was available to

your students on the internet, and

they all had access to internet linked tablets,

and

they all had access to high speed broadband

all day....

What could teaching look like then?

Sugata Mitra

curious
interested
adventurous
courageous
resilient
good learners with
good skills of
effective learning?

Are they:

self-motivated
self-managed

self-directed
self-regulated

autonomous
independent

lifelong learners?

Why do you think it is that the longer children

stay in school

- the less curious they become?

- the less questions they ask?

..... is always self-regulated

SRL self-regulated learning

A focus on the teaching of learning skills in the national

curricula of 12 countries and across the IB world

The proliferation of high quality school subject based

websites

The ubiquity of internet accessible devices

The availability of high speed broadband

The high level of comfort your students all have with the
digital world

Process Oriented Skills Based Guided Inquiry

Learning

To teach the skills of effective learning, practice

inquiry and develop self-regulated learners

Focus on developing the skills of effective learning needed to learn

the subject matter effectively

Pose questions, outline problems, give clear measurable learning

objectives and time frames

Allow students to work collaboratively in small groups

Assign roles researcher, questioner, recorder, director

Enable students to connect to the best subject based internet

(and other) resources

Facilitate their journey

taolearn.com/students.php
- the Art of Learning website with links to many
free sites to help you design lessons and to help
your students with their study including:

marktreadwell.com/Digital_Resources

marktreadwell.com/Image_Libraries
- huge libraries of digital resources for teachers

topmarks.co.uk
- search engine for many great school subject
websites

1)

Work with the person next to you groups of 2-3 people with one
internet connected device per group

2)

Connect to www.topmarks.co.uk

3)

Select common interest subject and level click go

Early Years
Key Stage 1
Key Stage 2
Key Stage 3
Key Stage 4
Advanced
Higher Ed

=
=
=
=
=
=
=

< 5 yrs old

57
7 11
11 14
14 16
16 18
> 18

4)

Find as many useful websites in your subject area as you can

5)

Analyse them using the table in your booklet

khanacademy.org
- really clear clips explaining every part of most subjects

brightstorm.com
- great videos and much more in Maths, Science and English (American English anyway)

getrevising.co.uk/resources
- all subjects at all levels, great new shared resources arriving from other students daily contribute
your own

studyblue.com/notes/high-schools/
- make and share online flashcards, quizzes and notes, study on-line and on your phone, you need to
join up first but its free

johndclare.net and spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk

- good sites for history, all countries, all ages

s-cool.co.uk and bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/

- good resources for all subjects for GCSE or MYP

mrbartonmaths.com/goodsites.htm
- a collection of free maths sites for GCSE or MYP

rod.beavon.clara.net/chemistry_contents.htm#Physical
- great site for Chemistry at all levels

quizlet.com and easynotecards.com/index

- flash card makers for most subjects

Take an existing lesson and turn it into a series of

questions, the answers to which will lead the
student to the conclusions you are after.

Find the web pages you would need to link up to

design an internet based inquiry learning
exercise to enable your students to find the
answers to the questions you propose.

Question: what is the essence of inquiry learning?

Research the following 5 topics 1 or 2 persons per topic:

Open badges
Digital literacy

The autotelic classroom

Search limiters
Boolean operators

Discuss all your results

Find a common theme that links all 5 topics and answers the

question

Technological limitations number of internet devices,

broadband & wifi availability and reliability?

Financial limitations cost of connectivity?

Lack of good subject based websites in the language of

instruction?

Security, difficulty in isolating sites for students to use?

Focus, concentration issues with students on-line?

Lack of awareness in teachers of what is available on-line in their

subjects

Fear of trying something new?

Teach them the right skills

Give them lots of opportunities to practice

resilient, self-regulated learning in the
classroom

Build in systems of reward for resilience and for

self-regulation

Make sure students reflect on the development

of their own proficiency

Do not then train youths to learning by force

and harshness, but direct them to it by what
amuses their minds so that you may be better

able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent

of the genius of each
Plato - 427 347 BC

BLOOMS REVISED TAXONOMY