The Underachieving Gifted Child-Chapters 8 and 9

Chapter 8:  Self-Efficacy
Ahh-the story of The Little Engine That Could!  What a classic and a good practical meaning to self-efficacy!  A student's ability to see the "I can" or "I can't" in all things they do!
In the book I made sure to double highlight the sentence that shared that building self-efficacy should begin as early as possible.  I tend to read books about students who are gifted and I find myself saying, "oh my first graders can't do that or that doesn't apply to 6 and 7 year olds", but what I know for a fact is that building a child (any child's) self-efficacy early is crucial to success later!
In my first grade classroom I have struggled to find a workable balance of feedback and the appropriateness of it in class.  This year I used a system that really seemed to work and I saw great results from it.  I used it mostly during Writer's Workshop sharing during our closing.  I picked 3-4 names per day and those students would share.  We, as a class, would share out 2 "glow's" and 1 grow.  To combat the glows being more about the person than their work, we made sure to start it by saying things like I noticed you did... or I liked the way you...  Our grow feedback would then include something the student could work on next time or could return and add later.  I would then add my own feedback mainly using comments the students had used.  The class learned first how to be accountable for their work, it became great peer modeling, and they loved hearing from others.  I felt like this year my students felt their work was valued and I cared about what they did during their independent work times.
As far as portfolios are concerned first grade at my school uses SeeSaw.  Although I know at some point we will need to move to Google, we have loved using SeeSaw as an e-portfolio.  It is so simple for students to upload work, create videos about what they have done, and parents love the online features.  It is very user friendly!!


Chapter 9:  Goal Valuation (Meaningfulness)
This is where I think we are missing the mark with students.  I have taught for 15 years and I have seen such a shift in this time with meaningfulness.  I remember spending a majority of the beginning of my year getting to know my class.  Really learning what makes them "tick" and learning their interests.  Fast forward and I feel like the beginning of the year is full of assessments and assessments and more assessments.  It's embarrassing to think that in October when parent conferences come around I can tell parents all about student data, but I sometimes don't even know the child's middle name, if they have pets, or what they like to do on the weekends. Don't get me wrong, but slowing down and being able to spend time knowing children could potentially help develop ideas like curriculum compacting.  I believe this could be a crazy valuable tool, but given the stress and pressure we are all in this would not be able to be effectively done or be seen in a positive light by teachers who are already overloaded in their classroom.