Get Your Students in the Right Mindset

What skills do your students need to be successful in the 21st Century?

How about persistence, a growth mindset, creativity, and hard-working? Those sound like skills that we want students to practice during Genius Hour! Oh wait, those are just a few of the fantastic examples that students came up with after reading Rosie Revere, Engineer.

Why this book?

This wonderful book written by Andrea Beaty chronicles young Rosie's attempts at making gadgets and gizmos to help her friends and family. She's worried about what people think about her ideas. She doesn't get it right the first time. Or the second. Or the third. She gets knocked down but gets right back up! Hey, that sounds a lot like she has a growth mindset! (Check out how we introduced growth mindset here!) 

Start by reading the book as a class and practicing some creativity.

We had students begin by being creative by imagining different uses for a towel, just like Rosie and engineers! We had some wacky ideas...some creative ones...and some plain ol' PUNNY ones (a decoration for a baby shower...see what he did there?!)!

Dig a little deeper.

What characteristics did Rosie have? Why are these important? How did she feel throughout the book? What do engineers do? How do they help people? Why is this important?

Not only did we learn about engineers, STEM, and reinforce the idea of a growth mindset, but we sparked a new interest for several students by exploring engineers!

Listen to the author and engineers!

Northern Illinois University has a great website (that they are keep adding to) that includes videos and activities for different books. If you haven't had a chance, check it out here! 

Act like an engineer!

The next step involves students collaborating, brainstorming, and problem-solving! (Hey-sounds like some more practice with 21st Century Skills!) Students worked in small groups to brainstorm problems they have noticed in the classroom, school, and community. After picking one of the problems to try to tackle, they brainstormed many different solutions and created a plan for it. 

Not only are they identifying problems, brainstorming solutions, but we had some friends who are considering this for GENIUS HOUR!  

 

Get the entire lesson here!