Student Beliefs

Definition
One of the shared characteristics of students who attain academic achievement and demonstrate appropriate academic behavior is the presence of a growth mindset; student held beliefs that they can learn, grow, change, and achieve.

Contributing factors to SWD performance gaps
Students with disabilities and students from other sub-groups often do not have a growth mindset and instead may have problems with poor self-efficacy, feelings of hopelessness, and may engage in behaviors that sabotage their efforts to succeed.

Why is this important

Students' analysis of their academic achievement has one of the highest effect scores: 1.44
Effective analysis of academic achievement centers on the student's self-efficacy: the confidence that they can learn.

Student Characteristics - Positive

• Formulate plans for learning
• Devise effective strategies and tactics to optimize learning
• Organize resources and tools to facilitate learning
• Monitor their progress
• Recognize their own strengths and weaknesses as learners
• Abandon plans and strategies that are ineffective
• Recognize the tools and resources that would help them find, structure, and remember new information
• Know how to set challenging learning goals for themselves
• Know how to sustain the effort and resilience that reaching those goals will require
• Monitor and regulate emotional reactions that would be impediments or distractions to their successful learning

Student Characteristics - Negative

• Self-efficacy - the confidence that we can learn
• Self-handicapping - choosing obstacles to avoid failure
• Self-motivation - ration of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation
• Self-goals - master, performance, and social goals
• Self-dependence - being dependent on adults for directions, goals, help, etc.
• Self-discounting - believing positive feedback is invalid
• Hopelessness - feeling like there is no point in trying, that failure is inevitable
• Social comparison - self-image is based on a comparison with others

Resources
Glossary of Hattie's influences on student achievement - https://visible-learning.org/glossary/

• Top areas of influence on student achievement.
  • Includes student self-reporting of grades (self-analysis or expectation)
  • Includes teacher credibility

New evidence that students' beliefs about their brains drive learning - https://www.brookings.edu/research/new-evidence-that-students-beliefs-about-their-brains-drive-learning/

• A growth mindset is the belief that one's capabilities can change and grow.
• Students with a growth mindset learn more in a year than students without a growth mindset.

Student beliefs that can change everything - https://www.teachthought.com/learning/2-student-beliefs-can-change-everything/

• Students who believe these two statements are 30 times more likely to be emotionally engaged in school.
  • My school is committed to building the strengths of each student.
  • I have at least one teacher who makes me excited about the future.

Indicators of expert learning in a UDL environment - http://www.udlcenter.org/aboutudl/expertlearners

• Expert learners are:
  • Resourceful and knowledgeable
  • Strategic and goal-directed
  • Purposeful and motivated

Handouts
High School Survey of Student Engagement - http://www.tlc-mtss.com/assets/hssse_forresearch.pdf
Measuring Student Engagement in Upper Elementary and High School: A Review of 21 Instruments - http://www.tlc-mtss.com/assets/engagement-scales-review.pdf
Personalization versus Differentiation versus Individualization - http://www.personalizelearning.com/2013/03/new-personalization-vs-differentiation.html
personalizationHandout.pdf

Example action steps

• Collecting Data - Student surveys can be used to help understand the feelings of students toward schools and classrooms. Doing student engagement and efficacy surveys can provide information for driving school-based and classroom-based changes. Yearly surveys can be used to track any changes in beliefs over time.
• Follow-up - Create a schedule where teachers can work with students on a weekly or bi-weekly basis to analyze work and problem solve solutions to academic and behavioral barriers.
• Follow-up - Develop classroom procedures that support peer learning where students strive to find answers to problems independently and with other students. One example is the "3 Before Me" rule, where students must try to find an answer three different ways (online, texting, emails, other students, etc.) before going to the teacher for help.