Individual meetings a success (so far)

 Well, a few days into the semester and having these 20 minute meetings with students and it's going swimmingly -- except for the fact that I'm booked from 9-6 every day.  I did not anticipate that though given that I had a sign up sheet for those times, I completely should have.

As expected, talking to students now means we all have clean slates and everyone is hopeful.  The students have been very thoughtful in these discussions and seem to appreciate that I'm asking them what they want from the course (besides a good grade) and how we can work together to make that happen.  I'm also asking them to articulate what would be evidence of progress on the goal such that when we meet in a month what might they look for as a solid indication of forward movement.  They seem on board with the concept so that's exciting.

As I've asked each student what they've struggled with in past courses that we can work on this semester, a common response is a reluctance to participate in discussion.  When they say this, we are then able to get into a discussion about why they are reluctant and start to chip away at whatever it is that underpins this reluctance.  What many (though not all) have said is that they fear being wrong.  Of course, this isn't a surprise but hearing the first person say this triggered my recollection regarding cultivating creativity in a book by the folks who started IDEO.  The point they made (at least I think it was them) is that be creative involves becoming immune to failure.  As a way of making this point to students I ask about playing video games and if they avoid video games because it almost always involves losing.  And, of course, they say no -- if they avoid video games it's for other reasons.  I use this then to point out that in the domain of video games 'being wrong' isn't problematic and, in fact, helps them to get better at the game.  But there is a way in which they are immune to the failure in video games.  That helps to reframe things a bit but I'd like to work on how to help them not simply reframe failure intellectually but to actually develop an immunity to failure (an immunity I most assuredly don't have).

I haven't read much on the latest discussions of 'grit' (or as I'd call it 'resilience') but it occurs to me that I may be simply using a different term.  Or, it could be that I've found a better way to think about the idea.  I'll be exploring this.

That's it for now.