National Math Advisory Panel's Report

I found some fascinating reading for you all over the holidays that comes from the National Math Advisory Panel, a group established by the Bush Administration in 2006 to pull together all the research that has been done in the field of teaching mathematics. This was in response to a study that showed that American students performed significantly below world-wide standards in math. The final report of this group was published in March of this year. You can find the report in its entirety at http://www.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/mathpanel/report/final-report.pdf To get to the nuts and bolts of the report, scroll to page xvi. There's lots of fodder for blogging if you need ideas! If you'd rather watch video, there are some overviews at
http://dww.ed.gov/topic/topic_landing.cfm?PA_ID=8&T_ID=20
I was especially interested in item 14 : "Experimental studies have demonstrated that changing children's beliefs from a focus on ability to a focus on effort increases their engagement in mathematics learning, which in turn improves mathematics outcomes: When children believe their efforts to learn make them "smarter," they show greater persistence in mathematics learning....This is a critical point because much of the public's self-evident resignation about mathematics education...seems rooted in the erroneous idea that success is largely a matter of inherent talent or ability, not effort."
We've talked about the importance of having a positive attitude, but this goes a step beyond that. I think looking at a student's efforts sometimes happens in my own teaching, but not in a thoughtful, conscious way. That's something I can start to do right away.