Josie Mani, MetLife Fellow
Josie Mani taught in the general education classroom for 11 years before becoming an advanced academic resource teacher in a public school system in northern Virginia, and has served in that position for the past five years.
She conducted research in the area of strategy development, particularly through the use of strategy games such as Rush Hour.
Josie presented at the Fairfax County Teacher Research Conference, the Virginia Association of the Gifted Conference (VAG), as well as the National Association of the Gifted Conference.
She and her colleague had their research published by VAG 2007.
Josie earned her Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Master of Education from the University of Virginia.
She was selected as the 2009 Region IV Outstanding Teacher of the Gifted by the Virginia Association for the Gifted.
Current Research Includes:
Research Title: Developing and Strengthening a Growth Mindset in Young Children Research Year: 2009 Research Classification: Student Support/Enrichment Research Summary: Based in part on the work of Stanford University professor Carol Dweck, this project developed a 2 to 4 week model which teaches elementary aged students how the brain works. In addition the students learn about several famous people who got where they were because of their “growth mindset.” The research investigated whether the model effectively instills and/or strengthens a growth mindset in students. The research also investigated if learning about this “growth” mindset impacts a student’s approach to learning in the classroom. I hope to complete the model next fall and start researching next winter.
Previous Research Includes:
Research Title: Strategies Lab Intensive – helping students develop perseverance and a healthy approach to problem-solving Research Year: 2008 Research Classification: Student Support/Enrichment Research Summary: We investigated the impact of the process we developed to use ThinkFun Games on second graders’ perseverance and approach to problem-solving. Our research showed that when given a challenging, open-ended math problem, after having gone through our eight-week “Strategies Lab Intensive”, second graders spent on average 10 minutes more attempting to solve the problem. They also increased in their use of strategies and ability to find the solution.
