Mindset

Day 1:

1. 1. PRE-ASSESSMENT/BRAIN HANDOUT:  Conduct a pre-assessment to see what students already know about their brain and how it works. Distribute the My Brain handout and direct students to draw a picture within the outline of the head, showing what they think their brains might look like. At the bottom of the page, students should write down all of the information that they already know about their brain.

   2. REVIEW RESPONSES:  Collect and review the student responses in order to give feedback the following day.

   3. AGREE/DISAGREE TO PHRASES:  Tell students that you are going to read three sentences (from a Carol Dweck workshop on www.mindsetworks.com), and they should show if they agree or disagree with each of them. Students can use agree and disagree cards, raise or lower hands, or signal thumbs-up or thumbs-down to show their responses. This provides the educator with additional information about the current beliefs of their students. 

      1. 1. 1. • 1. Everyone can learn new things. (Growth-mindset belief)

                 2. Some kids are born smarter than others. (Fixed-mindset belief)

                 3. We can change how smart we are. (Growth-mindset belief)

Day 2:

1. 1. FEEDBACK ON PRE-ASSESSMENT:  Give students feedback on the pre-assessments by sharing common themes that resulted.

   2. FIXED & GROWTH MINDSET:  Utilizing the research and work of Dweck (2006), introduce the concept of mindset and explain to students, with the following talking points, that there are two types of mindsets: fixed and growth.

      1. 1. • 1. A mindset is comprised of “beliefs about yourself and your most basic qualities.”

              2. “In a fixed mindset, people believe that their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them. They also believe that talent alone creates success—without effort.” Dweck’s research suggests that students who have adopted a fixed mindset have the belief that they are either “smart” or “dumb,” and there is no way to change this.

              3. “In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.” Dweck’s research suggests that students who embrace growth mindsets have the belief that they can learn more or become smarter if they work hard and persevere.

   3. MINDSET SCENARIOS HANDOUT:  Distribute the Mindset Scenarios handout and ask students to work in pairs to categorize the scenarios into either fixed- or growth-mindset thinking. Students may cut the scenarios apart and group them or write them in a two-column chart—use whatever process works best.

   4. DEBRIEF:  Debrief by having students share their justifications for how they grouped their words.

Day 3:

1. 1. SET UP:  Explain to students that in this classroom, they are going to work on developing growth mindsets.

   2. GROWTH MINDSET:  WHAT CAN I SAY TO MYSELF:  Distribute the Growth Mindset: What Can I Say to Myself? handout and explain that the sentences on the left are examples of things that a person with a fixed mindset might say.

   3. SHOW GROWTH MINDSET:  WHAT CAN I SAY TO MYSELF EXAMPLES: Utilizing the Growth Mindset: What Can I Say to Myself? Example resource, model with students how to change the first sentence on the left (the fixed-mindset thinking) into a sentence that shows growth-mindset thinking and write it on the right. Ask students to share other ways that they might change it and why their changes are examples of growth-mindset thinking. Explain that there are many ways—not just one right answer—to change the original thinking into a growth-mindset statement.

   4. PAIR UP AND WORK:  Direct students to pair up and work to complete the rest of the sentences together.

      1. 1. 1. • 1. Students may put more than one response in the right-hand column.

   5. QUAD UP AND SHARE:  After completing the right-hand column, have pairs group with another pair to form a quad. Within the quad, students should share their responses.

      1. 1. 1. • 1. Add student responses and the growth-mindset scenarios to a Growth Mindset Wall.

   6. CREATE A GROWTH MINDSET SPACE:  Creating a space that displays words, phrases, quotes, visuals, and scenarios that relate to growth-mindset thinking provides a visual reminder for both the students and educator to think with a growth mindset.

   7. KEEP HANDOUTS:  Have students keep their completed handouts in their notebooks as a reminder and reference for using growth-mindset thinking. 

   8. COMPLETE FRAYER MODEL:  As a summative activity, have students complete the Growth Mindset: Frayer Model handout by developing their own definition of growth mindset, creating a visual representation for growth mindset, and sharing examples and non-examples of growth-mindset actions or thinking.

To increase rigor, spend extended time teaching students about the brain and how it works. Advocates of fostering growth-mindset thinking, such as Carol Dweck, Zaretta Hammond, and Mary Cay Ricci, promote teaching students about the brain as a critical step in developing growth mindsets, as students must learn that their brain is malleable and can change and grow. The following resource list offers ideas to engage younger students in activities for learning about the brain:

• • • The Learning Brain [How Does My Brain Work? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgLYkV689s4 

    • The Learning Brain: Neuroscience [series of online videos about the brain http://www.bioedonline.org/lessons-and-more/resource-collections/the-learning-brain-neuroscience 

    • Neuroscience for Kids http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/interr.html 

    • Brain Jump http://www.kizoomlabs.com/products/brain-jump 

    • Your Fantastic Elastic Brain: Stretch It, Shape It, by JoAnn Deak,Ph.D. http://www.deakgroup.com/our-educators/joann-deak-phd/your-fantastic-elastic-brain 

Teach students about the power of Yet.  They don't know about the topic... yet.  Great resources and books exist to help teach students the power of Yet and how to be a Yeti.

Mindsets Defined

At the heart of learning—and even more importantly, how individuals approach learning—is the concept of where the development of skills and knowledge originate. A fairly popular and long-standing belief is that the majority of our future success or failure is determined before we are even born, and that future is written in our very genetic make-up. In fact Francis Galton (1895), the modern founder of eugenics and half-cousin of Charles Darwin, was one of the first psychologists to examine the influence of heredity and environment on social advancement. This debate about whether our genetic make-up or the shaping of our societal interactions plays a larger role in determining our future was popularized into the phrase “nature versus nurture.”

The interesting aspect of this debate is not whether a person believes genetics or society has a greater impact on personal successes, but rather, the impact that their beliefs have on the long-term likelihood of success. Dr. Carol Dweck, renowned psychologist from Stanford University, is a pioneer in examining these beliefs and their impact on long-term success. She classified these belief systems into two categories: fixed mindsets and growth mindsets. 

People with a fixed mindset are characterized by their belief that success comes from natural talent and inherent ability. At the core of this mindset is a belief that achievement stems from almost a binary approach to talent and intelligence. They believe that qualities are carved in stone, and every individual either has that quality or not—smart, fast, and artistic would all be things that a person either naturally possesses or doesn’t. Perhaps most importantly, the fixed mindset person believes that talent alone is linked to success, and effort plays an insignificant role, or no role at all, in leading to that success. 

On the other hand, a person with a growth mindset believes that success is a product of hard work. Although a person with a growth mindset acknowledges that intelligence, talent, and even genetics play a role in achievement, they also believe that those factors are only a starting point on the road to success and that the finish line only comes when the hard work ends. In contrast to a fixed mindset that focuses on getting to solutions quickly and easily, a growth mindset sees the challenge and overcoming of struggles as opportunities to learn. 

Why Mindsets Matter

It is interesting to note that Alfred Binet, inventor of the first practical intelligence test, did not create the intelligence test to categorize or group students into various levels of intelligence. In fact, Binet designed the test as a means to identify learners who took longer amounts of time to grasp a new concept or lesson in order to be able to provide more support for those students in greater need. However, eight years later, Lewis Terman created a modified IQ scale called the Binet-Stanford scale and used it to identify “highly intelligent” students at a very young age. Terman then tracked these “highly intelligent” students through their lives and measured their achievements against a group of “average intelligence,” as measured by the IQ test. The results showed little distinction in life-long achievement between the two groups. Ultimately, Terman concluded the non-cognitive factors of “perseverance, self-confidence and integration toward goals” to be a better measure of success (Terman & Oden, 1947, p. 351).

More recent research demonstrates that perseverance and the ability to overcome challenges is a much better indicator of success (Duckworth & Peterson, 2007). This demonstrates a need to foster a growth mindset within our students and reinforce the concept that success is the result of hard work and taking on challenges, not unalterable qualities like talent or intelligence. Equal to the importance of establishing a growth mindset is the need to help students acknowledge, persist, and eventually overcome challenges. In order to build students’ confidence to move past failures, those failures must be viewed as opportunities to learn and grow, not as a reflection of inherited deficiency, such as lack of talent or intelligence.

Consider what you praise.

Nearly every person, and especially young students, seeks and appreciates the praise of others. In addition, students are very adept at picking up on patterns. Therefore, if students begin noticing their teacher praising “fixed traits,” like being smart or talented, they are more likely to adapt behaviors where they can highlight being smart or talented. The problem is that in an effort to look “smart” or “talented,” they will often avoid taking on more challenging tasks. In fact, Dweck asserts, “After seven experiments with hundreds of children, we had some of the clearest findings I’ve ever seen: Praising children’s intelligence harms their motivation and it harms their performance (Dweck, 2006, p. 175).”

Consider how you treat and message failure.

Thomas Edison once said, “I didn’t fail ten thousand times. I successfully eliminated, ten thousand times, materials, and combinations which wouldn’t work.” It is important to message to students that failure is not a stopping place, but an opportunity to learn and grow. When failures are acknowledged, and even celebrated, students become more willing to take on more difficult challenges. 

Consider the messages that you communicate with the class. 

There are a tremendous number of wonderful mindset decorations that teachers post on their walls, such as how to turn fixed-mindset thoughts and phrases into growth-mindset ones. These are fantastic sayings to showcase, especially to young students. However, remember that no person is either completely fixed or growth in terms or their mindset. In fact, a person may believe that musical or artistic abilities are fixed, but intelligence can be developed. With this in mind, it is important to be cognizant of our own verbalization of talent and skills. Saying to a group of students, “I’m not good at math,” “I’m not artistic,” or “I’m not good at singing” might inadvertently convey thoughts that some skills are fixed in nature, which might ultimately allow students to believe that they don’t have to be good at math because they weren’t born with that talent. The power of one simple word—“yet!”—can turn a fixed mindset comment into one that represents growth (e.g., “I’m not good at math yet,” “I’m not artistic yet,” “I’m not good at singing, yet”).