The Pygmalion Effect: students’ intellectual development is largely a response to what teachers expect and how those expectations are communicated. Positive, high expectations correspond to higher student achievement, higher levels of self-efficacy and leadership.
Planning – Indigenous people are/were not poor planners. How is your curriculum guided by thorough and effective planning?
Rigorous & Supportive Instruction – Is every student working at a level of difficulty that is both supportive and maintains very high expectations for student achievement? Is learning accessible to all students?
Leadership Opportunities – Do students have the opportunity for leadership and/or ownership in your class? What constitutes leadership?
Authentic & Applied Learning – Are students taking action through learning? Is the curriculum and instruction meaningful to students? Are they gaining real-life skills?
- Is what my students are learning based on a ‘big idea’ that goes beyond my classroom?
- How am I connecting what students are learning to something larger than either my content area or just the confines of the classroom?
- How do I ‘give up my authority’ while maintaining high expectations?
- Is the ‘stuff’ that students come to school with viewed as an asset and not a deficit?
- How can I help them to do their best in my classroom, in school more broadly, and beyond?
- How do I communicate the purpose of high expectations and how students can hold themselves to doing
- their best?
- Do I differentiate lessons? Do I intentionally work to build both collective and individual understanding of a lesson/unit/idea?
- Is my classroom an environment where all of my students can succeed?
Education – How are you currently performing in your classes/school? (academic performance, current learning, knowledge, skills, GPA, Honor
Roll, Attendance)
Sustainability – Do you know how to sustain your learning over your life span and beyond high school?
Career Development – Do you have an idea of what it is you want your career to be? Do you know possible places to study? Do you know of others you can learn from in that profession or field? Have your researched that profession/career?