Flexible Thinking- This portion of cognitive flexibility is correlated with the ability of an individual to shift their attention between tasks. Flexible thinking often requires an individual to be able to deal with change and be able to transition based on sudden change. In an educational context this will appear as students who have difficulty shifting between subjects, dealing with emergency situations (i.e. fire drills), and become frustrated if something does not go as planned on the first attempt. This process correlates with the ability to bounce back if something fails.
Encourage Risk Taking
The connotation of risk taking may be negative, but in an education context it does not need to be. The teacher can better prepare students for 'failing forward' with the language they use around the term failing. The concept of failing forward means to learn from the mistakes made and use them as positive learning opportunities. Using such phrases as " I don't expect you to get this, the first time, I expect you to fail and then we can learn from what went wrong"- Mitchell VaDyke Dorothy Dalgliesh Elementary. When a teacher can place a more positive connotation around the term of failing, this will better prepare the student for different facets of school and life as they begin to regulate their often stressful demeanour around the subject. These skills of embracing failure will build more resilient and prepared individuals for the different problems they will face in their life.
How did these strategies work for you? Was there a better way of implementation or any information that we forgot? Please use the comment section below to provide us and our users with more information about this toolbox.