Persistence
"Stick to it! Persevering in a task through completion; remaining focused; looking for ways to reach your goal when yo're stuck; not giving up" (Costa, A.L and Kallick, B., 2000, ix).
Introduction
As a teacher to young scholars, I felt a sense of urgency in teaching my students about persistence. As of right now, my “students often give up in despair when the answer to a problem is not immediately known…If their strategy doesn’t work, they give up because they have no alternatives” (Costa, A.L and Kallick, B., 2000, p.2). My goal is to increase students’ persistence so that they will begin to build an understanding that there are alternatives to solving problems, there is not just one “right” way to think about an issue.
Teaching my young scholars about persistence is important because it “is a matter of teaching strategy. Persistence does not just mean working to get it right. Persistence means knowing that getting stuck is a cue to ‘try something else’” (Costa, A.L and Kallick, B., 20009a, 39). Having persistence will impact students’ achievement and my goal and mission of developing a growth mindset because “obstacles – external setbacks – [will] not discourage [them]. [Their] self-image is not tied to [their] success and how [they] will look to others; failure is an opportunity to learn, and so whatever happens [they] win” (Richard, M. G., 2007). Through explicit teaching and reinforcing activities, students in my class can persist when presented with difficult tasks.
Explicit Teaching
To introduce my students to the habits of mind, persistence, it was important that I created a lesson plan that explicity focused on teaching them the meaning. In the lesson, I create opportunities for them to develop an understanding of; when they can use persistence; what it takes to persist; and how and when they can use it in their lives.
Prior to the lesson, I casually talked with students to see if they knew the word, persistence. The majority of them did not and were uninterested in learning about the meaning. With this in mind, I intentionally integrated grade-level appropriate videos in my lesson to engage my students. Videos were an integral part of my lesson because my young scholars are constantly entertained by screens. Thus, using videos is a way to engage them and also make the content relevant to their lives.
I began the lesson by showing them a Sesame Street video that featured David Beckham. In the video, Beckham explains what persistence is and what it looks like in soccer. Throughout the video, Elmo is continuously asking Beckham to play with him, thus, Elmo provides my five- and six-years-old students a relevant example of what persistence looks like. After we watched the video, we talked about what persistence means and began to fill out a K-W-L chart. KWL stands for What we KNOW, What we WANT to know, and What we LEARNED. Through our whole group discussion students were able to fill out the K and W. We completed the L, What we LEARNED, at the end of the lesson.
After our KWL chart, I again used videos to engage students in the content. I showed my students a Class Dojo video on persistence, or as Class Dojo calls it, perseverance. My students are familiar with the main character Mojo because we regularly watch Class Dojo growth mindset videos. Students were thrilled to see Mojo take on a new challenge and watched curiously as he experienced "The Dip." According to Mojo, "The Dip" is something everyone goes through when they try something new. Going through "The Dip" is challenging but if you keep trying, persisting, you will be able to move out of it.
We continued to watch the other videos in the persistence series. At the end of the videos, we had a whole group discussion of what we learned about persistence, "The Dip," and how to get out of it. Students shared their thoughts with the whole group and with partners. To assess students understanding, students were tasked with completing a worksheet I created. To ensure my worksheet was inclusive to all learners in the classroom, students were prompted to draw a picture showing a time they were in "The Dip" and what they did to get out of it. Students were also encouraged to write about their picture.
After they finished, my class came back as a whole group and we talked about what we learned about persistence. Students had the opportunity to share with a partner and then with the class. Then, we completed the KWL chart by adding to the What we LEARNED column. Below are the materials and photos from the lesson.
Pictured Above: Lesson plan on persistence. The lesson uses resources like Class Dojo.
Pictured Above: Students watching the Sesame Street video on Persistence.
Video Above: Class Dojo video on Persistence, or perseverance. There are three videos that teach students about persistence. The video above is the first one in the series.
Pictured Above: Students watching the Class Dojo video on Persistence.
Pictured Above: Student completing "The Dip" worksheet I created.
Pictured Above: Completed "The Dip" worksheets.
Students were prompted to draw a time when they persisted and got out of "The Dip." They were asked to respond to the following questions: What were you doing? How did you feel (when you got out of the Dip)? What did you do (to get out of The Dip)?
The student on the left wrote, "I was doing basketball. I felt happy (when I got out of The Dip). I tried and I thought about my mistakes."
The student on the right wrote, "I try to ride two wheels. I got out of the dip by trying. I felt happy because I did it!"
Activities that Reinforce Persistence
On a regular basis, we discuss what persistence looks like in the classroom. We often refer to the Class Dojo videos we watched and what we learned about persistence. A phrase we came up with based on our discussion is "Stick to it!" And we clap our hands together to symbolize the phrase. The clapping motion incorporates kinesthetic learning and makes the phrase fun for my five- and six-year-olds to say. From our discussions, we created a chart (similar to the one below) of sayings that did and did not support a persistent mindset.
Pictured Above: Sayings that do and do not support persistence in the classroom.
To reiterate the value of a persistent mindset, I will positively reinforce students that demonstrate a persistent mindset or use one of our sayings that we came up with. With students who do not demonstrate a persistent mindset, I use those moments as teachable moments and have side conversations and discuss ways they can persist, or keep trying.
I created a poster for persistence. The poster is displayed it in my classroom. In Costa and Kallick's research, they gave an example of a teacher, Georgette, who effectively used the Habits of Mind poster to “[provide] her students with a colorful visual reference to the Habits of Mind and laying the foundation for later activation of episodic memory. Wherever they are in the future, students may recall the habits by thinking of the posters” (Costa, A.L and Kallick, B., 2009a). The persisting poster I created has the word, a visual that shows "The Dip" and our catch phrase, "Stick to it!"
Pictured Above: Persistence poster template I created based on the explicit lesson.
Pictured Above: The two habits of mind posters, persistence and managing impulsivity, on our class poster wall. The two posters were created based on the explicit lessons from both lessons.
REFERENCES
Costa, A. L., & Kallick, B. (Eds.). (2009a). Habits of Mind across the curriculum: Practical and creative strategies for teachers. Alexandria, VA: ASC.
​
Richard, M. G. (2007, April 15). Fixed mindset vs. growth mindset: Which one are you? [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://michaelgr.com/2007/04/15/fixed-mindset-vs-growth-mindset-which-one-are-you/
​
​
​