• From our life experiences, many of us have learned that taking “good” feedback and learning from it can help propel us forward toward our goals.
• From behavioral research, we know that visible feedback and reflection play an invaluable role in shaping learning and behavior by providing individuals with immediate and observable consequences, which can reinforce behavior or lead to change.
• For Teams, “feedback plays a pivotal role in driving continuous improvement. . . It catalyzes growth by highlighting strengths and areas for development,” to assure alignment and delivery of high-quality outcomes (premiereagile.com).

For students, effective and meaningful feedback and opportunities for guided reflection are gamechangers. As a key component of the Agile in Education Compass, “Visible Feedback and Reflection is goal-centered, purposeful, and relevant,[fostering] a connection and application for both educators and learners. Visible feedback can become a powerful opportunity for students to build metacognition, practice self-reflection, and exercise self-agency toward continuous improvement. When students and teachers realize that feedback is not an evaluation, the otucome can be increased self-confidence and trust in the iterative process”

Blueprint Education Eduvators, Agile in Education Compass Journey).

Blueprint's Agile in Education Compass Student Training Series is underway, and making an Impact…
For the trainers, it's beyond inspiring;
And for the students, it's life-changing.

Join us on the journey at https://www.blueprinteducation.org/agile/.
Follow the Blog at https://www.blueprinteducation.org/news/.

Author: Marina O’Connell, MAEd, CSM, CSPO, CAL K-12

One of the most important features of sports performance is maximal muscular power. Muscular power isn’t just bounding at maximum speed, or throwing something with maximum velocity. It also includes the strength to decelerate the body against gravity, or mass coming toward the body.

Injuries don’t happen from the pushing of something, but from the inability to stop something from pushing against you…

Falls break bones because people don’t have the strength to decelerate weight against the concrete…

Shoulders tear because they don’t have the strength to decelerate the speeding ball.

Without deceleration strength, the body cracks.

“If you want power, you must first develop strength.
The same is true for knowledge and learning“

Development Through Focus

This is why, if you want power, you must first develop strength. The same is true for knowledge and learning, especially at an online high school where you manage your own push of information and content in your online classes as well as the ability to stop information and content from coming back at you.

One of the most important features in creating a massive impact is maximum mental focus. Mental focus isn’t just about finding answers well and quickly. It’s also about having the strength to decelerate the things that could break you. When you clear your path and focus on your online classes, what is your game plan? Are you just looking to get to the answers quickly so you can move on to the next assignment or are you also anticipating what may lie ahead that could complicate your efforts?

Mental breakdowns don’t happen from the pushing of something, but from the inability to stop something from pushing against you. What are you doing to anticipate when you may be reaching a mental breakdown? How are you setting your online class work up to successfully manage all of the tasks at hand? What other offline activities are you engaged in to help create a balance with your online high school experience? 

Fallouts break people because they don’t have the strength to decelerate the world coming at them. What skills can help you decelerate the online high school world when it is coming at you harder than you anticipated?

Hearts tear because they don’t have the strength to decelerate toxic relationships. Hope High School Online can help support your online high school journey with a full team of teachers, academic coaches, and tutors all ready to be present on your path. Hope High School Online is a true living and breathing team of real people, not a computer standing by spitting out data. We do care about you and your online high school learning journey, not just to get your high school diploma but to set you up for designing a life beyond that piece of paper.

Without deceleration strength, focus cracks. Our team at Hope High School Online will make sure that you are prepared and have access to the resources you need so your focus is clear and strong.

Preparation and Teamwork

This is why, if you want to create impact, you must first develop strength. Develop your strength at Hope High School Online and we’ll support you for the impact you’ll make in this world.

At Hope High School Online, we are the better online high school in Arizona designed just for you. Powered by an incredible team that is truly available so you’re never alone or frustrated. This free online high school is specifically designed for individuals and is ranked the #4 best online high school in Arizona by Niche. Our curriculum uses an instructional model grounded in research and aligned with state standards. Enrolling is simple. Questions? Let us know; we’re here to help. The best part is you can start right away, no waiting! You will work on your classes when you want; not when the teacher is ready. It’s truly self-paced and works into your schedule. Come and experience why our online high school is unique! We are Hope High School Online!

“Look where you want to go, not where you don’t want to go.” It’s a lesson I learned the hard way on a mountain bike ride several years ago. Staunchly independent, raised with a zero-tolerance level for making mistakes, crashing into boulders and onto the ground rendered me completely incompetent, not just as a cyclist, but as a person. This internal working model told the story of my life.

Finally, one of my fellow riders, watching me wreck every five feet, enlightened me: “Andrea. Look where you want to go, not where you don’t want to go.” This is something worth taking to heart, especially being in an online high school in Arizona. It’s easy to be complacent while staring at a computer screen and not realize that you need to focus on where you want to go…instead of just existing in the present.

I really wish I was the type of person who heard what he was saying way back then. It was sage advice for a life well-lived. Unfortunately, the core belief that my character was somehow flawed because I made a mistake; I shattered a glass; stained my shirt; failed a test, or careened into cacti on a bike ride, blocked a mindset change. Is there something right now that is blocking a mindset change for you? Are you a new student to online high school learning in Arizona or have you been learning at an online high school in Arizona for a while now? Either way, it may be time to do a reset for yourself.

We steer ourselves past obstacles, and into a life by design, by looking where we want to go, not where we don’t want to go.

I just wanted things to be done right, I’d tell myself. Yet despite things being meticulously organized just so, things would not happen right, confirming my belief that I’m not right.

If brains are continually on the quest for answers (and they are), I must always focus on where I want to go with visions and words that bid questions of growth and achievement. What answers do you look for as an online high school student in Arizona? Are the questions you seek answers for helping you to grow and achieve or are they just keeping you in the present?

Designing our lives is a daily intentional process that requires mindful attention to thoughts going into and out of our heads at every moment. If we’re not looking where we want to go,- literally!- with what we read, what we watch, who we pay attention to, what we intentionally do when working on an online high school class, what our mind remembers, or what our memories rehearse, then we are looking where we don’t want to go.

We steer ourselves past obstacles, and into life by design, by looking where we want to go, not where we don’t want to go.

Of course, designing the life you want takes thoughtful practice. At Hope High School Online, we are the better online high school in Arizona designed just for you. Powered by an incredible team that is truly available so you’re never alone or frustrated. This free online high school is specifically designed for individuals and ranked the #4 best online high school in Arizona by Niche. Our curriculum uses an instructional model grounded in research and aligned to state standards. Enrolling is simple. Questions? Let us know; we’re here to help. The best part, you can start right away, no waiting! You will work on your classes when you want; not when the teacher is ready. It’s truly self-paced and works into your schedule. Come and experience why our online high school is unique! We are Hope High School Online!

“Set a Goal so high you can’t achieve it until you become the person who can.”

If you have ever set a goal so high you can’t achieve it, and then worked for it day after day, day after day, day after day, you know it’s not about the Goal. It may seem monotonous and you feel like you aren’t going anywhere especially if you are working on your online high school classes with regular cadence. It seems endless. You learn, you study, you do assignments, you take exams, then you do that all over again. Day after day, month after month, year after year. Don’t get frustrated and give up…Instead, say to yourself, it’s about the journey, not about the Goal.

It’s about the journey, not about the Goal.

Yes, the destination is important. Graduating is important. In fact it’s crucial. That online high school diploma tells others and yourself that you’ve done all of this work and you’ve completed your required online classes and assessments and you’re ready to be promoted. You don’t have a Journey without a destination. You don’t have your struggles and accomplishments and small wins without the goal of getting your online high school diploma. On the other hand, the Journey can’t be the Goal. I’m sure you’re well aware that your daily tasks and accomplishments cannot be the end point. A Goal-less Journey is like your skeleton with no muscles. It just flops around.

The Goal is the change agent.

The Goal is the change agent. The Journey does the changing. Your online high school diploma is your license to change your life. The daily tasks and accomplishments that you do now in your online high school is what changes your thoughts, ideas, perceptions, and intellect.

It’s not the sails that move the boat, it’s the wind.  

It’s not the brakes that stop the car, it’s the friction.

It’s not the smile that elicits joy, it’s the meaning behind it.

It’s not accomplishing a goal that makes you a better person, it’s becoming a person who can accomplish a Goal that makes you a better person.

Asking questions. It’s my new obsession.

Asking questions. It’s my new obsession. Every day I crave its rhetorical fix. When I ask a question, answers start to seep through my head, causing a steady dopamine drip. Some people say dopamine (the reward hormone) is literally like a drug, so I guess I’m like a question addict.

When we pose a question, our brains trigger a reflex called Instinctive Elaboration, hijacking our thoughts to seek solutions fast. If I bought into this 30 years ago, I’d be a very different person now.

When you’re designing your life to create a massive impact, learning to ask the right questions becomes the most important foundational habit and that can start now while you are an online high school student.

Skillfully designing questions to completely unlock creativity takes some practice. For example, the answer can’t be in the question. Great inventors didn’t ask how they could build a better buggy model, they asked for faster ways to get from here to there; they didn’t ask for a stronger dish soap, they asked for a completely different method to washing dishes. If you want to build a better box, the question has to be more than “how can I build a better box?” You must decide what problem does the box solve that you would like to improve upon. So try this out…think about a problem that you would like to solve or something that exists that you would like to improve upon and come up with that question? Maybe it has to do with taking online high school classes. Maybe it touches upon how or even what online high school students have to learn or how to make education more relevant to our unpredictable environment.

Because so many of us try to unearth our best potential with murky internal working models, our questions need to be diligently examined. Instinctive elaboration doesn’t discriminate between negative questions and positive ones. Such as: Why am I such a loser? Vs. How can I do this better next time?

There’s this phenomenon you might have heard of where when you want something, instead of asking for it, you flip it around, and you give something to someone else, and by some strange miracle you end up being the beneficiary. People call it God’s Reverse Economy or some form of Karma.

Are your wants getting in the way of your happiness?

It’s been on my mind lately because I feel like the stuff that’s going on in the world has made me so focused on my wants, and I think it’s making me miserable. Think about your wants as an online high school student? Are your wants getting in the way of your happiness? Are you too focused on yourself to allow giving to others to be part of your overall plan?

In writing, they say you can’t plan your character’s direction. They say you can start writing about your heroin and attempt to put her in a sequence of scenes, but—even as her creator—you don’t have control over what she does; she will determine the direction as the writing progresses. I know it sounds ludicrous! But that’s what they say. And that’s been my experience as a writer. I can have a plan for how I expect things to transpire, but the dénouement is almost always anywhere from 5 degrees to 180 degrees off my target. When you became an online high school student, did your initial direction change in terms of your goals, strategy, measurements, and how much did that direction change?

In a way, this is like life—of course, we want to have some kind of trajectory, so we plan our lives, but unanticipated circumstances can take us in a very different direction. The centrifugal force of a surprise event whirls us off into some unknown territory that we are now tasked with figuring out. It sounds backward for me to say, but in a way, if you designed your life just right, you’d be prepared for that too. How flexible are you to your overall goals and objectives and are you able to take new data and pivot or do you have a difficult time with adaptability and change? You may be enrolled in an online high school simply because of this year’s unanticipated circumstance with COVID-19. 

I think it’s akin to this Reverse Economy thing.

I think it’s akin to this Reverse Economy thing. You might think you’re doing something for someone else, but that service to others ends up being exactly what you needed to be happy, and you’re like, “What just happened?” You didn’t set out to be the receiver of the blessing, but you ended up that way, and now your life made a significant shift. A shift that is positive, welcoming, and a result of a good thing that you did for another person. Maybe this online high school thing helped you in doing that. Maybe it gave you more flexibility with your time, maybe it awakened you to something new, an opportunity that wasn’t there before.

So, you’re in, let’s say chapter 10 or 11, and your heroin is going about her well-planned life making things happen, and she meets this person, maybe it’s a picture of a child with no shoes, or a video of a teen rescued from slavery, or puppy in a cage, and her heart is pulled… “What is happening to me?” she wonders, and if she thinks about it, everything she’s ever done prepared her for this chance moment. What do you think is the next chapter for her? What does she do now? What would you do now?

I also learned the more you know, the more you can know. Nerve cells in the brain seem to be very social; they like to mingle. And, if you really give them a chance to get to know each other, they procreate (loosely speaking). So, the more you learn, the more you get a smarter, bigger brain that has more capacity to learn!

Practice what you don’t already know

The trick, however, is to practice what you don’t already know. Just like that sweet old lady you see at the gym looking exactly the same as last year, lifting the same 5-pound dumbbell, your brain will look exactly the same as last year if you are mentally lifting the same algorithm or cadenza with your free online high school classes.

Until recently, I believed my ability to learn was finite. If I did not understand how to find the area of a rectangle, there was no use trying to figure it out. Hey online high school students, does that sound familiar to you? No matter what I did, from keyboarding words to memorizing lines, my brain capacity was fixed, and I must accept that I will never be smart or talented.

This is a common mindset. And it is the wrong one. Physiologically, literally, scientifically-proven-ly: Wrong. All brains can exponentially learn. Yes, even your brain that is right now perplexed, while you are sitting down at your computer, working on your online high school class, trying to solve that math problem.

Have you ever been around people with an accent or a tone of voice or a way of speaking, and suddenly you find yourself with the same accent or tone or voice? This is also common – it’s the mirror neurons in your brain mimicking the other person.

Imperative to Choose Your Surroundings

This is why it’s imperative to choose our surroundings wisely, especially if you are doing your online high school classes at home, in your room. Humans will mirror the people they hang out with, listen to, seek advice from. They can’t help it.

Why you need to know this is because it was someone else’s mirror neurons that caused a shift in my thinking. I decided to honor and value something in someone else that caused me to want to hang out with them; learn from them; grow in their way. That they were willing to share their energy in such a way to teach me a limitless mindset could very well be a lesson that changes the world.

Maybe your brain is ready to grow. Maybe you’re ready to help someone else’s brain grow. There’s a lot that you can do to help yourself while you get through your online high school classes and Hope High School Online can definitely support you. Not only will your brain grow but you’ll also build a relationship with your Academic Coach or Teacher and in turn, their brain will grow. It’s like a two for one deal.

At Hope High School Online, we are the better online high school in Arizona designed just for you. Powered by an incredible team that is truly available so you’re never alone or frustrated. This free online high school is specifically designed for individuals and ranked the #3 best online high school in Arizona by Niche. Our curriculum uses an instructional model grounded in research and aligned to state standards. Enrolling is simple. Questions? Let us know; we’re here to help. The best part, you can start right away, no waiting! You will work on your classes when you want; not when the teacher is ready. It’s truly self-paced and works into your schedule. Come and experience why our online high school is unique! We are Hope High School Online!