There are teachers who leave various MAV conferences ready to try tasks and ideas we have explored and find out how their students might respond and what they might learn. At the conference the following year, and perhaps for several years in a row, a teacher may stop to talk to me and state ‘I tried that task you showed us last year and it went really well until I got to ‘such and such’ part and then it all fell apart, I was wondering if you could give me some ideas of what I might try at that point?’ We would then discuss, and I would suggest, a few possibilities about why the process did not continue to work, and the teacher would go away ready to try different strategies in the light of our discussion. During that discussion there was sometimes mention of a lack of support for problem solving at their school and a willingness to persist in spite of this. The next year, they might approach me again, ‘Now I have the task working really well at that part where it was falling apart last year, but when we get further into the task ‘such and such’ starts to happen. Have you got any ideas about what might be happening and what strategies I could try?’ With some of these teachers, there comes a time when with excitement or intensity they share their progress: ‘I have become much better at working out what to do now’, ‘When I try a new task now’, ‘I can generally think on my feet about what to do’, ‘I have become much better at problem solving- at knowing how to proceed’. These teachers are displaying indicators of optimism: they see not knowing how to proceed as temporary and able to be overcome by looking into the situation to see what they could change to increase their likelihood of success (finding a way to proceed). They do not want to be told what to do, but rather be given some ideas of evidence-based ways to proceed so they can try them and reflect on what happens (to help them make decisions about what to explore next). In this way, they are seeing ‘not knowing how to proceed’ as specific to the situation at hand and able to be overcome through the personal effort of trying ideas that could increase their likelihood of finding a way to increase learning opportunities for their students. With the successes they achieve over time, like Lenny, they consider they will be able to find out what to do in other situations because they have developed problem solving capacity. Being able to find out has become permanent because they have taken on their successes as characteristics of self. Table 2. Seligman’s indicators of optimism as enacted by MAV conference participants Dimension of Optimism Temporary — Permanent External — Personal Specific — Pervasive
Failure: Not Yet Knowing How to Proceed
Success: Finding Out More
Not Knowing As Temporary ‘I was wondering if you could give me some ideas of what I might try at that point?’ Recognise External Impeding Factors Recognition of a lack of support for problem solving at their school and a willingness to persist in spite of this. Not Knowing Requires Specific Varying I was wondering if you could give me some ideas of what I might try at that point?
Being Able to Find Out More is Permanent ‘When I try a new task now, I can generally think on my feet about what to do’. Finding Out Requires Personal Effort I was wondering if you could give me some ideas of what I might try at that point? Taking On Successes As Part of Self: Pervasive ‘I have become much better at problem solving how to proceed’.
The single statement ‘I was wondering if you could give me some ideas of what I might try at that point?’ includes enactment of overcoming not yet knowing because it is temporary, and can be overcome through the personal effort of looking in to the situation to make decisions about what could be changed to increase the likelihood of finding out what could work. Not all teachers have these optimistic characteristics though.
Teachers Not Inclined to Explore If a person possesses any of the following non-optimistic characteristics, my research indicates they will not be inclined to explore new ideas. I have also shown that these non-optimistic characteristics can be changed to optimistic characteristics in students. For example, consider Lenny in Table 1 who became a better problem solver and developed optimistic indicators as a result of his problem solving
2016 MAV Annual Conference Proceedings
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