I agree with Kirp's thesis in "Nudges That Help Struggling Students Succeed" that changing mind-sets before attending college is a huge part of the quality education students need. Kirp explains that even brief experiences of growth mind-set intervention equates to a powerful and long-lasting impact on students' academic futures. Examples include writing effective feedback with strategic constructive criticism to work towards higher expectations. Studies show black and Latino students benefitting from growth mind-set the most when thinking of how to close the achievement gap. By helping students realize their intelligence can grow through deliberate work, teachers are nudging their students towards a growth mind-set. Other strategies include asking students to find the value in their lives. This activity invites students to combat racial stereotypes and acknowledge their self-worth.
These strategies help students refocus on their positive aspects of their lives and their goals (immediate and future). Kirp expresses it the best. These strategies combat students' negative feelings. With these strategies, students learn to be resilient and prepares them for life struggles.
I use these strategies in my classroom because it's hard to convince a black inner-city student that they will be able to speak French for at least one minute within eight months. I don't have authentic resources of recognizable black Americans speaking French. Growth mind-set is built into my lessons through the objectives. I incorporate "can-do" statements and then revolve the lesson around that objective to help students realize that with hard work, they can meet this objective.
Here's the link to the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/30/opinion/nudges-that-help-struggling-students-succeed.html
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This would have been greatly helpful to me a few years ago. I had a similar problem teaching English overseas.
I taught in Rwanda for two years and arrived at a time when the entire school system was switching from a French-based system to an English-based system -- so teachers who didn't have a good understanding of English themselves were expected to teach their subjects in English. Many reverted to just teaching in their native tongue, and so the secondary students I taught had either a fairly good understanding of English, or really no understanding at all. I tried using Rwandan culture and different interests of the students to get them engaged with learning a foreign language that many would not use and structured lessons around certain topics each time. However, using these little nudges talked about in this article, I think would have been really successful to show students that even if English is not your top priority, or even your strongest class, you can still learn it.
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