CENTER FOR RESEARCH ON GIRLS
BEING EXPECTED TO STEER HER OWN LEARNING
WORKING AT THE EDGE OF HER CURRENT ABILITIES
WORKING COLLABORATIVELY
WORKING INDEPENDENTLY
CHALLENGES
UPPER SCHOOL OWNERSHIP OF LEARNING: CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS WHAT SHE MIGHT SAY
WHAT SHE CAN DO
HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT HER
KEY PHRASES
• Feeling isolated • Difficulty sustaining attention/ staying on task • Difficulty sustaining motivation
• ”I miss my friends.” • ”This is easier to do in class.” • ”It’s hard to focus at home.” • ”I don’t feel like doing this.” • ”The best part about school is my friends.”
• Use digital tech to study with friends and check in with teachers. • Work in 25-minute cycles, followed by active 5-minute breaks. • Set mini-goals and have small rewards for meeting them.
• If you can, offer to sit near her and do your own work while she is working. • Offer yourself as a sounding board to help her make a plan. • Provide or help her invent small rewards to enjoy as she meets mini-goals (chocolate, hugs, a walk around the block).
• ”Would it help if I did my work nearby?” • ”Do you want me to listen as you spit-ball a plan for getting it done?” • ”What treat would get you through this?”
• Difficulty communicating with group members • Not being sure who’s responsible for what • Disliking group members • Feeling that not everyone is pulling their weight
• ”Nobody’s getting back to me.” • ”It only gets done if I do it myself.” • ”I can’t stand her.” • ”I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing.” • ”My group won’t listen to my ideas.”
• Be tactical in her approach: decide which conflicts are worth her time. • For conflicts that are worth it, practice assertion skills: standing up for herself while being respectful of others. • Seek coaching from teacher.
• Give her a place to vent (as adults sometimes do about their own co-workers). • Help her focus on the endgame: learning the material and getting the work done. • Invite her to practice assertive or humorous phrases that she might use to give feedback to groupmates.
• ”Do you want my help of do you just need to vent?” • ”What is your aim here? Keeping score with your classmates or getting it done?” • ”Try out on me what you might say to the girls in your group.”
• Feeling frustrated • Finding the work stressful • Loss of confidence • Losing motivation
• ”This is stupid.” • ”This is too stressful.” • ”I’m so confused.” • ”I can’t do this.”
• Remember that school is supposed to be stressful, just as weight-lifting is supposed to be stressful. There’s no growth without stress. • Appreciate that she’s only learning when uncomfortable. • Get the rest she needs to build her frustration tolerance.
• Let her grapple with the work it’s the only way students gain knowledge. • Don’t rescue her. Instead, remind her of a time when she powered through something difficult to get to a valuable outcome. • Encourage her to take a short break.
• ”It’s not you. It’s hard because it’s hard.” • ”Do you remember how frustrated you felt when learning [fill in blank]? Now it’s easy for you. You’ll get there with this new material, too.” • ”This is hard work. A short break will help.”
• Feeling unsure of where to start • Wanting to be told what needs to be done • Underestimating the value of learning by doing
• ”I don’t know what I’m doing.” • ”I want my teacher to tell me what to do next.” • ”I learn more when the teacher just explains it.”
• Break the work down into steps. If unsure, figure out the first step. • Appreciate that while it is easier to listen to a lecture, more learning happens when students grapple with material on their own.
• Encourage her to take it just one step at a time. • If she’s stuck, encourage her to circle back to the original assignment • Empathize that it is, indeed, easier to memorize than apply. • Ask her if she wants to talk through the problem with you.
• ”You don’t need to know how to do the whole thing—you just need an idea for where to start.” • ”You seem stuck. Would it help to look at the assignment again or work on something else and come back to this?” • “You’re right—regurgitating is easier. But the things you figure out on your own will stay with you.” • “Do you want me to just listen while you talk through the assignment?”
/CRGLaurelSchool
@CRGLaurelSchool
Laurel School One Lyman Circle, Shaker Heights, Ohio 44122 216.455.3061 • LaurelSchool.org/LCRG
Copyright © 2020 Laurel’s Center for Research on Girls, LaurelSchool.org/LCRG. Please do not duplicate. If you wish to adapt for your own purposes, Laurel’s Center for Research on Girls must be credited and include the website link.