I have been reading Carol Dweck's "Mindset - the New Psychology of Success" and have been thinking about how it connects with my role as a tech coach. In various coaching workshops, two "models" have come up which classify my clientele (i.e. the faculty that I work with) into different groups - the Train Model and the Garden Model (as I call it, for lack of a better name).
In the Train Model, you can envision the faculty as being in one of three cars of the ed tech train, which is constantly in motion moving down the tracks. There could be spur-lines that branch off of the main tracks, but everyone is generally moving in the same direction. The first car contains the early adopters, the techies, and the gurus who are constantly exploring new ed tech tools and how they can be employed in their classrooms. The last/third car has the tech sceptics, the tech-phobics and those teachers who use the minimal amount of technology or no technology at all when it comes to conducting their lessons. In the middle car are most of your faculty, who use some technology in their classrooms and generally stick to what they know and have used before. In this model, the early adopters are leading the way, and the sceptics are trying to slow the whole train down. As a tech coach, we talk about focusing on the middle car to try and expose them to new ed tech tools, and to move them up into the lead car. By moving the middle group ahead, others in the middle group and hopefully some of the sceptics in the caboose will be drawn along with them.
In the Garden Model, you can envision two groups - the plants and the rocks. I know this may sound derogatory but I don't think it was ever meant to be. As a tech coach, I have been told that "you have to feed the hungry" which means nurturing and fertilising the plants in the group so that they thrive and grow. At the same time, I have also had conversations about "always remembering to water the rocks", meaning that I have to work with everyone on staff (which is very true) no matter where they are on the ed tech spectrum, or where they are in the garden. With this model, it focuses more on working with everyone, rather than spending most of your time working with the group in the middle (plants that need a little more nurturing and care ;-).
So which model is better? Which model better describes what we as coaches should be doing? Dweck's "Mindset" has given me a new perspective on these two models and how they can be blended together. When you apply mindsets to the Train Model, the first car is clearly the Growth Minded - always taking risks, trying new things out, constantly learning and reflecting. The last car is the Fixed Minded - wanting to keep things static and comfortable, not believing that they can learn new things, and simply feeling overwhelmed by all things technology (they feel that it is beyond their ability to learn these new tools). So what about the middle car? People here are in the middle of the mindsets spectrum, somewhere near the border between Growth and Fixed. Dweck talks about screening for mindset and working with those people to move them forward - this would mean looking for the people nearer to the front of the second car. Dweck also talks about putting people into a Growth Mindset simply by talking to them or putting them in a specific situation - this means finding the people in the middle of the second car and nudging them forward by connecting with them, exposing them to new tools, and putting ed tech into contexts that they can relate to (such as demonstrating a tool in a class which they can observe and see for themselves). Working with those people in the middle car does make sense, as you are trying to pull the trailing car along with the rest of the train.
Dweck's Mindsets can also be applied to the Garden Model in the same way. Plants = Growth and Rocks = Fixed (sorry, no pun intended ;-). The parallels are obvious here, I think. "Feeding the hungry" refers to working with the Growth Minded, which Dweck explains can achieve great results in a very short amount of time, reflect and move off in new directions, and create new innovations. "Watering the rocks" refers to creating opportunities and experiences which serve to shift people's mindset to Growth, even temporarily, so that they can learn and move forward . . . one small step at a time. When you apply mindsets to the Garden Model, coaches need to be working with everyone across the spectrum and differentiating how we work with people according to their mindset rather than their tech abilities and skill set. If you think ablaut it, this really makes sense as you can be far along the ed tech spectrum, but still have a Fixed Mindset - this is the teacher who is very comfortable with the ed tech that they employ in their class and good at it, but unwilling to consider new tools as they don't have the time.
So which model is best? Personally, the Mindsets Model really appeals to me and makes sense. The more that I think about it, the more instances come to mind which fit Dweck's model or are explained by Dweck's thinking. Moving forward myself, I will continue to write a few more posts about Mindsets and how it connects with my role as a tech coach and with my work in educational technology. If you haven't read "Mindset" yet, you really should - even if you are not a coach yourself . . . it has totally changed my thinking.
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