DIRECT APPROACH AND MENTORING
The Direct Approach focusing on the SE The Inner Setting.
Fortunately for Aurelio, he was introduced to number of the most sophisticated and successful “interventions in education,” especially those that are the product of an influential group of researchers primarily based out of the Psychology Department at Stanford University.
Growth mindsets, values affirmation and stereotype threat. In middle and high school he developed a certain degree of “metacognition” through exposure to Carol Dweck’s groundbreaking work on fixed and growth mindsets. That’s a major, internal, or construal channel. He got in touch with this deepest and most authentic values through Geoff Cohen’s exercises in “values affirmation.” That’s another important inner channel. In his advisory group in high school, he learned of Claude Steele’s work on “stereotype threat.”
In middle school: I’m valued! Use Cohen’s values affirmation intervention — strengthening sense of self at the threat appraisal stage lessening the impact of threats to identity by increasing individual’s “psychological resources.” Self-affirmations (values) — reduces stress arising from evaluative performance settings.
In high school. I can do it! In high school he developed a certain degree of “metacognition” through exposure to Carol Dweck’s groundbreaking work on fixed and growth mindsets. In his advisory group in high school, he learned of Claude Steele’s work on “stereotype threat.” These are major, internal, or construal channels. He also was able to build upon the values interventions he was first introduced to in middle school, and thus was able to get further in touch with this deepest and most authentic values through Geoff Cohen’s exercises in “values affirmation.” That’s another important inner channel.
Stereotype Threat and Identity Formation. Such an environment can place a heavy burden for all students to be sure, but for those like Aurelio—of African American and Latino descent—school can be a place for what Claude Steele calls “stereotype threat.” That is, when faced with a stressful situation like a test or exam, a cultural stereotype is activated (e.g., African Americans don’t do well on academic tests) triggering the kind of performance anxiety that becomes a self-fulfilled prophecy. Think about a student who experiences stereotype threat on a day-to-day basis, week after week, month after month, year after year. That’s a very heavy lift.
Values Affirmation.
In college. I belong! In college he didn’t feel he belonged and attributed his initial academic stumbles to himself rather than a set of temporary environmental influences. He participated in a “belonging intervention” that brought it all together. (Greg Walton and Geoff Cohen’s Social-Belonging Intervention (2007, 2011). A case study: the intervention that brings it all together: Greg Walton and Geoff Cohen’s Social-Belonging Intervention (2007, 2011).
<He learned to take the “blame” off himself and respect that the situation (frosh year) is difficult for everyone, irrespective of race/culture and normalize
Here is the ingenious design of the intervention. One-hundred first year college students were evenly divided into four cohorts in the spring of their freshman year at a selective university. An African American student treatment cohort, and an African American student control cohort; a White student treatment cohort and a White student control cohort.
The two control cohorts were just given information about campus life. The two treatment cohorts read the results for a survey on the topic, “many students feel they do not belong in college but that such worries dissipate” over time. Then they wrote an essay capturing the essence of the survey results. And finally, they gave a video speech to be shown to next year’s freshmen.
The results are noteworthy, even “too good to be true.” The African American student treatment cohort earned higher GPA’s (.24 grade points) in the three years before graduation. The racial “achievement gap” narrowed by 52%. All other cohorts were unchanged!
The key to this intervention? It normalized the anxieties nearly all students have in the first year of college, what psychologists call “belonging uncertainty,” which social psychologists have addressed in recounting the story of Michelle Robinson’s (Michelle Obama) experience at Princeton in the 1980’s. Social psychologists claim that the power of this intervention is in what they call “attributional retraining.” In plain English it is about helping students to see the cause of their underperformance more due to a temporary environmental set of conditions rather than any internal and permanent personality flaws.
HOW AFFECTED HIS IDENTITY
And like its predecessor intervention conducted a generation earlier (Wilson and Linville, 1982, 85), it shifted the negative “self-attributions” of college freshmen into the environment itself, what social psychologists call “attributional retraining.”
The length this one powerful intervention: one session of one hour. An important aside: Aurelio, and few students remembered the initial intervention three years later when asked
Fortunately for Aurelio, he was introduced to number of the most sophisticated and successful “interventions in education,” especially those that are the product of an influential group of researchers primarily based out of the Psychology Department at Stanford University.
Growth mindsets, values affirmation and stereotype threat. In middle and high school he developed a certain degree of “metacognition” through exposure to Carol Dweck’s groundbreaking work on fixed and growth mindsets. That’s a major, internal, or construal channel. He got in touch with this deepest and most authentic values through Geoff Cohen’s exercises in “values affirmation.” That’s another important inner channel. In his advisory group in high school, he learned of Claude Steele’s work on “stereotype threat.”
In middle school: I’m valued! Use Cohen’s values affirmation intervention — strengthening sense of self at the threat appraisal stage lessening the impact of threats to identity by increasing individual’s “psychological resources.” Self-affirmations (values) — reduces stress arising from evaluative performance settings.
In high school. I can do it! In high school he developed a certain degree of “metacognition” through exposure to Carol Dweck’s groundbreaking work on fixed and growth mindsets. In his advisory group in high school, he learned of Claude Steele’s work on “stereotype threat.” These are major, internal, or construal channels. He also was able to build upon the values interventions he was first introduced to in middle school, and thus was able to get further in touch with this deepest and most authentic values through Geoff Cohen’s exercises in “values affirmation.” That’s another important inner channel.
Stereotype Threat and Identity Formation. Such an environment can place a heavy burden for all students to be sure, but for those like Aurelio—of African American and Latino descent—school can be a place for what Claude Steele calls “stereotype threat.” That is, when faced with a stressful situation like a test or exam, a cultural stereotype is activated (e.g., African Americans don’t do well on academic tests) triggering the kind of performance anxiety that becomes a self-fulfilled prophecy. Think about a student who experiences stereotype threat on a day-to-day basis, week after week, month after month, year after year. That’s a very heavy lift.
Values Affirmation.
In college. I belong! In college he didn’t feel he belonged and attributed his initial academic stumbles to himself rather than a set of temporary environmental influences. He participated in a “belonging intervention” that brought it all together. (Greg Walton and Geoff Cohen’s Social-Belonging Intervention (2007, 2011). A case study: the intervention that brings it all together: Greg Walton and Geoff Cohen’s Social-Belonging Intervention (2007, 2011).
<He learned to take the “blame” off himself and respect that the situation (frosh year) is difficult for everyone, irrespective of race/culture and normalize
Here is the ingenious design of the intervention. One-hundred first year college students were evenly divided into four cohorts in the spring of their freshman year at a selective university. An African American student treatment cohort, and an African American student control cohort; a White student treatment cohort and a White student control cohort.
The two control cohorts were just given information about campus life. The two treatment cohorts read the results for a survey on the topic, “many students feel they do not belong in college but that such worries dissipate” over time. Then they wrote an essay capturing the essence of the survey results. And finally, they gave a video speech to be shown to next year’s freshmen.
The results are noteworthy, even “too good to be true.” The African American student treatment cohort earned higher GPA’s (.24 grade points) in the three years before graduation. The racial “achievement gap” narrowed by 52%. All other cohorts were unchanged!
The key to this intervention? It normalized the anxieties nearly all students have in the first year of college, what psychologists call “belonging uncertainty,” which social psychologists have addressed in recounting the story of Michelle Robinson’s (Michelle Obama) experience at Princeton in the 1980’s. Social psychologists claim that the power of this intervention is in what they call “attributional retraining.” In plain English it is about helping students to see the cause of their underperformance more due to a temporary environmental set of conditions rather than any internal and permanent personality flaws.
HOW AFFECTED HIS IDENTITY
And like its predecessor intervention conducted a generation earlier (Wilson and Linville, 1982, 85), it shifted the negative “self-attributions” of college freshmen into the environment itself, what social psychologists call “attributional retraining.”
The length this one powerful intervention: one session of one hour. An important aside: Aurelio, and few students remembered the initial intervention three years later when asked