Persistence

Students reference their teacher’s guidance in organization, study habits, character traits and values (like persistence, striving for accuracy, etc.). They have internalized these traits beyond just talking about them which has led to personal growth on the part of the student.

Introduction

In order for my students to achieve mastery on challenging scientific objectives as well as to reach their own long-term goals, it is important to teach them about persistence. According to researchers Costa and Kallick, persistence is key to students' academic success and long-term learning; "students exhibiting persistence are less likely to stray off task, and they are less likely to interrupt the learning environment for others" (Costa & Kallick, 2000, p. 78). Although my students are intelligent and capable learners, they often shut down when faced with challenge. If a task is challenging and requires students to think in new ways or try novel things, then they need to learn how to work through these difficulties in order to succeed. I felt that it was important to explicitly teach students how to persist through challenge in laboratory work.

Explicit Teaching: Persistence in Laboratory Work

When I began to teach my students about persistence, I wanted students to have something tangible with which they could apply their understandings of persistence. As such, I created the following challenging lesson, which required students to learn about scientists that persisted through challenge and then work to persist through their own difficult pendulum simulation with associated challenging questions. Students had opportunities to comprehend the meaning of persistence and its relevance to their own lives through multiple instructional strategies including a turn and talk, direct instruction, a self reflection, a challenging lab with associated questions, and an exit ticket. This lesson was taught during our physics unit, Why do some things stop while others keep going?, while students learned about energy conversion of gravitational and kinetic energy.

Lesson Plan

Persistence Lesson.docx

PowerPoint

Persistence Presentation

Through this lesson, students had opportunities to learn about scientists who looked like them that, despite difficulties, were able to persist and succeed. This pre-lab lecture on scientists persisting through challenge was meant to inspire students and help motivate them to push and challenge themselves both academically and personally in terms of achieving their long-term goals. Following, students were able to apply their new understandings of persistence in an online simulation lab about pendulums to test their understanding of the concepts of kinetic and gravitational energy. Students were given challenging questions on the associated scaffolded worksheet and had to persist to answer all questions. Students had multiple opportunities during the lesson to reflect on their current patterns of persistence as well as to devise ways to continue challenging themselves in the future.

Student Reactions

Students were extremely self-reflective following the initial PHET pendulum and persistence lab. During the lab, students worked diligently on the challenge questions and supported one another in pushing their comprehension. I circulated to provide support and answer questions, but students required minimal prompting and probing. Following the lab, students shared that they recognized the importance of working through challenge in order to meet their goals on the lab as well as to meet their year-long goals for themselves. Students clearly internalized the learning of persisting through challenge because more than 80% of students began the challenge questions on the lab without prompting or asking me, "do we have to do the challenge?" as they have done in the past. In subsequent labs, students continued this trend of completing challenge questions and persisting through difficult content and questions. I am hopeful that the reinforcements put in place will help students to continue to internalize the learnings of persistence and challenge themselves to grow academically.

This pendulum lab challenges students to apply their learnings about kinetic and gravitational energy to a real world scenario.

Student Work Pendulum Lab

This pendulum lab in particular was extremely challenging in that it required students to make and record detailed observations about the phenomena they observed, manipulate parts of the simulation, and then utilize this data to answer associated difficult questions. Students had to use their tactile laboratory skills in order to manipulate the simulation and had to be able to connect this learning to class content.

Persisting through Challenge Pendulum Lab

All questions on this challenging lab were based off of students' own observations and student-led inquiry. As I circulated to support students, I used probing questions such as, What do you notice here? why do you think this happens? where is the evidence for your answer? I did this so that students could feel supported in gaining the intended learning, but through their own insights, rather than me giving them answers.

Student Exit Ticket Reflections

In exit ticket data, students were tasked with reflecting on the importance of persistence and how they might remind themselves to persist in the future. Many students, such as this one, shared that their families' hard work and scientists before them would serve as inspiration to continue to persist through challenge.

In addition to sharing how they will continue to persist in the future, students also shared why they think it is important to keep persisting and making scientific discoveries. This student shared that challenging yourself and continuing to make discoveries moves us forward towards the future of science.

Some students spoke of scientists before them as the inspiration to keep them motivated - striving for excellence and persisting.

Other students spoke of themselves as the driving force that will help keep them motivated and continuing to persist through challenge.

Persistence Reinforcement: SMART Goals and Weekly Reflections

To support my learners in understanding how to persist through difficulty, I decided to teach them about goal-setting. If you have a goal in mind, then you are more likely to work diligently and overcome any challenges that you may face. As such, students created SMART goals for their unit-long and year-long goals. Students are continuously reminded of these goals and have many chances to review these goals. Then, during class time, students are commended on their abilities to persist and I remind them of the reason why they persist - reaching their long-term goals.

Continuously reflecting on academic growth and movement towards personal goals is a critical way to reinforce the concept of persistence. As Angela Duckworth notes, grit - the ability to stick with something despite challenge or difficulty - is a major predictor of long-term success. Thus, allowing my students to create long-term goals, (through SMART goals,) and reflect in the shorter term on those goals, (through weekly Do Now reflections,) helps keep them motivated, focused, and able to continue to persist. Through these routines, students internalize the importance of persisting through challenge in order to meet their personal goals.

SMART Goal Year-Long Example

This is an example of a student's SMART goal created at the beginning of the year that he is tracking over the course of the full year. I support students in engaging in their own growth through both short-term and long-term goals (such as this example). In order to persist through challenges, students must comprehend the reasoning behind their behavior. If students have a goal they are working towards, they are more likely to persist on a day to day basis.

SMART Goal Unit-Specific Example

This is an example of a student's SMART goal for one specific science unit. Students not only create long-term SMART goals (as highlighted on the left,) but they also create unit-long SMART goals. These goals all require students to face their own unique challenges, persist through these difficulties and achieve their goal. For this student, he wanted to exceed mastery on at least one assessment by the end of the unit. Given that my assessments are challenging and rigorous, and this student had not performed well on them in the past, this was a great SMART goal that he could persist with.

End of Week Reflection Example (Week 1)

Students fill out these weekly reflections at the end of their Do Now templates each week. This reflection allows students the opportunity to actively analyze their own behavior and ability to reach the SMART goals that they have set for themselves for the unit and year. This student, for example, wants to persist in terms of participation in science class.

End of Week Reflection Example (Week 2)

Reflections are individual to students and thus they may not always use the words of "persistence." However, the idea of persisting through difficulty remains because they understand what they did well in terms of challenging themselves to succeed and they can further determine how they must continue pushing forward to improve.

Persistence Reinforcement: Persistence Poster and "Shout Outs"

One important part of students maintaining their motivation to continue to persist despite difficulties, is for me to recognize their efforts. If I am able to demonstrate to students that I notice their efforts and commend them on working through challenge, then they are more likely to internalize this learning and make persisting a pattern, both academically and personally. Significant data points to the fact that positive reinforcement, particularly from teachers to their students, aids students in forming positive patterns of behavior and academic excellence.

Thus, in order to recognize students for their abilities to persist despite challenges, I created weekly Persistence "shout outs" shared through my PowerPoint to every one of my 7th graders. At the end of every week, I picked one student from each class who showed their ability and willingness to persist through challenge; I nominate students based on their grit, perserverence, and ability to persist without prompting from me. This helps maintain student motivation and allows me to praise students that are working through challenge without my prompting and meeting their goals. All students hear the reason for each of my "shout out" choices and thus learn what they too must do in order to be recognized for their persistence.

In addition to "shout outs," I created a catchy poster near the door to assist students in remembering how to work through challenges. Students see this poster every day when they enter and exit the class and I refer back to it during lessons as well. My students love the Rick Astley song, "Never Gonna Give You Up," so I thought that it worked perfectly for remembering the core tenets of persistence. Anecdotal data from class shows that students are reading and referring back to this poster, even singing it to one another, to remind each other to continue persisting through challenges.

Persistence Poster

Persistence "Shout Outs"

In order for my students to internalize the learning and have significant practice using and understanding the vocabulary of persistence, I have multiple ways to reinforce this habit. Next to the classroom door is a persistence poster, set to the tune of one of my students' favorite songs, that I refer back to during work time when students are frustrated or being challenged. In addition, every week I have persistence "shout outs" to highlight students that continuously demonstrate this habit by working through challenge and pushing themselves.

Persistence Reinforcement: Do Now and Lab Challenge Questions

Persistence is important for students to constantly engage with in science class - especially as the rigor of our content increases and students need to think deeper and pull from various background understandings in order to comprehend new learnings. As such, to reinforce persisting through challenges on a daily basis, students have the option to engage with challenge questions on Do Nows and labs. Though these challenge questions are not required for students to complete, I motivate my students to push themselves and their thinking and to try and tackle these questions on a regular basis. I continuously build students up and highlight their intelligence and ability to use their skills, knowledge, and understandings to answer these challenge questions.

Following my explicit teaching of the habit of persistence, I have observed that the majority of students now do choose to challenge themselves on Do Nows and labs. Students receive specific verbal praise when they do so. Even if students end up getting the question wrong, I remind students that they should remain proud of their work and the fact that they chose to persist through difficulty. Continuously incorporating challenge questions into my routines and class activities, helps provide a plethora of ways for students to internalize the learnings of persistence and apply these concepts in our science context.

Do Now Challenge Question Examples

challenge persistence

Here are multiple examples of challenge questions students were asked from both the beginning and the end of our physics unit, Why do some things stop while others keep going? These challenge questions were completed in students' weekly Do Now templates after students completed their Do Now question. These challenge questions require students to persist because students must apply their learning in novel ways, where science concepts are more abstract. Challenge questions require students to think beyond recall and tap into higher levels of thinking on Bloom's taxonomy.

Lab Challenge Example

Students are now routinely asked challenge questions on their laboratory assignments. These questions require persistence in that students have to extend their thinking beyond that of the class content. For example, in this CK 12 oven simulation, students were learning about thermal energy and the movement of particles in an oven. In their challenge questions, students were tasked with applying this knowledge to determine where the thermal energy came from to fuel the oven and how this concept might apply to a different scenario. Students' true comprehension of the material was tested in this way and students were forced to persist through difficulty. I will continue to include challenge questions in order to extend student thinking and provide them with the opportunity to push through challenge and apply their learning in novel ways.

Lab Challenge Question Examples

On this oven lab's challenge questions, students had to apply their understandings that energy cannot be created or destroyed in order to determine where the oven's energy comes from. In addition, students had to connect the ideas of molecular movement and thermal energy in a real world example.

Both of these examples demonstrate student mastery and show the students' willingness to persist through these challenging questions. To support students in answering these challenge questions I reminded them of what they did know and encouraged them to make their best prediction in their answers.

Students Incorporating Persistence into their Daily Lives

Although it was exciting to see students routinely reinforcing the habit of mind of persistence in the classroom, it has been even more rewarding to seeing students reinforce this habit in their daily lives. Due to the impacts of COVID 19, we have had to move to distance learning with our students. As a way to keep students engaged and to check in with students, I created a daily quiz check-in form for students. This form asks them how they are doing and if they need any help with the science content. In addition, this form contains one challenging question a day that requires students to think and apply science to their current lives. For example, I shared with students that, even though COVID 19 is a health pandemic, because of staying inside there has been significantly reduced air pollution. I asked students what they thought about this and if they have any suggestions for how to keep the environment healthy once the spread of COVID 19 ends. Students persisted through this challenging question and shared some very thoughtful insights. I look forward to continue to reading their answers to these daily challenging questions.

Students also messaged me through our distance learning platform about ways that they are persisting in this challenging time. Students shared that they are creating schedules for themselves to stay organized, messaging teachers with specific questions, navigating the distance learning website to upload and complete assignments, and continuing to answer all challenge questions. Even with, what I can only imagine, are difficult home situations for many during this pandemic, students are demonstrating resilience, persisting through challenges, completing school work, and keeping their goals in mind. This internalization of the habit of mind is inspiring for me as an educator and pushes me to persist through this difficult time as well.

Here are two examples of students responses to one of the distance learning challenge questions regarding the environmental impact of COVID 19.

Students demonstrated thoughtful answers and solutions to this challenging question and continue to persist to think of solutions regarding this pandemic.

References

Costa, A. L., & Kallick, B. (2000). Describing 16 Habits of Mind. Retrieved from http://www.habitsofmind.org/sites/default/files/16HOM2.pdf

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