One of our school’s themes, which we began last year and continued this year at BIS, is “effective effort.” Students are instructed by their teachers about working hard and using certain strategies that will make their efforts effective. Based on the work of researcher Carol Dweck, author of Mindset, students who use these strategies in their work are more successful than students who do not. As you may remember from an earlier BIS Principal Newsletter (also on our website), as the result of our students’ MCAS improvement last year, our school was recognized by the DESE for a positive change in our school Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) status. Our staff believes that the intentional teaching of effective effort and our students’ application of the strategies contributed to our improvement in student achievement. Our message to our students is that improvement is not dependent on how smart you are, but how hard you work using the “effective strategies” of time, focus, get feedback, commitment, be persistent, and resourcefulness. Learn more about effective effort by visiting our website or Barnstable Public School’s b2b22 ED TV where you can visit the blog spot and click under 2010 June, Effective Effort at BIS. Or, better yet, ask your BIS student about effective effort…
