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Dr. Carol Dweck defines "growth mindset" as a learning philosophy that is based on the ideas that intelligence, ability, and performance can all be improved. When confronted with challenging circumstances, students will either rise to the occasion or shut down completely. The Project for Education Research that Scales (PERTS) shares that "students are more likely to persist through challenges when they understand that intelligence is malleable, rather than a fixed trait." Our ability to learn and progress is heavily influenced by our mindsets. For growth to occur, it is necessary to view effort, challenges, mistakes, and feedback as a positive component to learning. Essentially, a growth mindset is defined by a willingness to face new challenges, a desire for learning, and a belief that failure is a springboard to success.
Revach, A. (Designer). (January 19) What you believe, according to your mindset [digital image]. Retrieved from https://aviranr.medium.com/?p=93a1b5f9b26a
Dweck shares that our mindset play a crucial role in our ability to succeed and our outlook on learning. According to Dweck's research and observations, there are two types of mindsets: fixed and growth mindsets.
Fixed Mindset: The assumption that everyone is born with a fixed amount of intelligence and skills. People with a fixed mindset are more likely to avoid challenges because they are fearful and hesitant to fail. With a fixed mindset, individuals believe that we are not in control of our own abilities.
Growth Mindset: The belief that with practice, perseverance, and effort, people have limitless potential to learn and grow. People operating in the growth mindset take on challenges with the understanding that making mistakes and failing are essential to growth (Dweck, 2006).
If educators aren't properly educated in appropriate and effective growth mindset strategies, they run the risk of developing  a "false growth mindset," which is counter-productive to their overall success. Praising students for their intelligence or simply their effort can undermine their motivation and performance. In Geoff Masters' essay Towards a Growth Mindset in Assessment, he advises teachers not to provide students with "success experiences." This means that educators are lowering their standards or expectations in order to provide students with experiences that "give students success experiences, boost their self-esteem, and raise their achievement." In doing this, we prevent our students from gaining challenging experiences that stretch their thinking. With this, students will build a connection that success can be "achieved with minimal effort."
The Mastery Philosophy of Teaching is an idea that transforms the learning process by providing flexibility for diverse students to grow confidently in their knowledge and skills. This philosophy ensures that students are given ample opportunity and adequate time to master challenging concepts before advancing to the next idea (Wolf, 2010). The key elements of mastery learning are to identify specific learning goals, address how learning will be measured, provide opportunities for student to learn at their own pace, assess progress frequently, provide effective timely feedback, and evaluate student learning (Culatta, 2018). The mastery mindset encourages students to monitor their own progress and persevere in their pursuit of mastery by viewing mistakes as opportunities to learn.
One of the most important elements of the philosophy is to clearly define mastery. It is important to provide consistent and measurable assessment tools to evaluate student growth, such as rubrics (Schaef, 2016). This also allows students to clearly understand the expectations for them to fully comprehend master the concept. This transformative approach allows learning to be student centered and focuses on empowering students to gain valuable knowledge based on their different learning styles, diverse backgrounds, and various learning needs. The implementation of mastery learning can positively support students to learn better, reach higher levels of achievement, and develop greater confidence in their ability to learn and in themselves as learners (Guskey, 2016).
Explore Research-Based Strategies and Tools to Support Growth and Mastery Mindsets
A growth mindset is defined by a willingness to face new challenges, a desire for learning, and a belief that failure is a springboard to success. There are several strategies that can prepare learners to cultivate a growth and mastery mindset in the classroom. Teachers can normalize and encourage productive struggle. To do this, teachers should build learning experiences to be meaningful and challenging. Another strategy would be to use specific language to praise the process of learning. This provides students with feedback to reflect on learning and grow from their mistakes. Lastly, teachers can promote a growth mindset through personal experiences of growth, sharing enriching read alouds, and engaging in open discussions with students.
In the next three sections, I will share strategies to support growth and mastery mindsets. Along with this information, you will find adaptive tools, strategies, and/or learning experiences to support growth towards mastery for all learners.
Encourage Productive Struggle
How does it Support a Growth and Mastery Mindset?
Productive struggle is the process of effortful learning that develops grit and creative problem solving. Productive struggle is a state of engagement in which students are able to work through progressively difficult challenges as well as new problems they have never encountered before (MIND Research Institute, 2021).
A growth mindset is centered around the idea that mistakes are opportunities for us to learn and grow. Dweck explains how making mistakes in math can lead to formation of new synapses in the brain. There is value in making and reflecting on mistakes. We can shift from viewing them as learning failures to viewing them as learning opportunities.
When we provide adequate space and time for students to struggle productively, we allow them to face challenges and grow from their mistakes. In order for this to exist, we must find engaging and relevant tasks for students to participate in. Through the engaging tasks, students will ask questions, persevere through challenges, and collaborate with one another to determine possible solutions.
This graphic shares student and teacher actions to support productive struggle in learning mathematics. This supports a growth and mastery mindset because students monitor their growth in learning and persevere in their pursuit of mastery by viewing mistakes as opportunities to learn.
Tools for Educators to Encourage Productive Struggles
These tools below provide teachers with valuable tips, graphics, and knowledge to encourage and normalize a productive struggle in mathematics. Although the three resources are related to math, it can be adapted to support any content areas. The tools all highlight three major ideas:
Students should be encouraged to learn from their mistakes.
Students should be challenged to come up with different solutions to a problem.
Students should apply what they've learned to new situations.
Redesigned Curriculum and Implementation
This is a three act math task that I utilized with my fourth grade students. This task encourages a productive struggle because students are viewing a video of a candy bowl and determining their main question to investigate. This is relevant to students because of Halloween and students determine what information is currently presented and what is needed to solve the problem. At the end of the lesson, students reflect on their learning process and this allows students to learn from one another. Mistakes are welcomed and multiple solutions are shared.
3 Act Math Tip Sheet.pdfThree Act Tasks are tasks centered around math standards and skills. There are three parts. In Act One, students engage in a real life problem and ask questions to promote curiosity. In Act Two, students seek information and gather data to determine possible solutions. Lastly, in Act Three, students discuss, share, and extend their thinking with a whole group discussion of the solutions. This task supports productive struggles because students are work through difficult challenges and applying their skills to master the standards.
Praise the Progress
How does it Support a Growth and Mastery Mindset?
Language matters. In order for teachers to support student growth and mastery of learning, it is crucial for students to receive effective feedback. In Christine Gross-Loh's How Praise Became a Consolation Prize, she interviews Carol Dweck and shares her thoughts on how empty praise can lead to a false growth mindset. The whole idea of growth-mindset praise is to focus on the learning process. Educators must demonstrate how effort resulted in learning growth or success. Dweck also shares with audiences that it is critical for teachers to "focus on the learning process and show how hard work, good strategies, and good use of resources lead to better learning.”
Our specific feedback and language have the ability to shift mindsets in the classroom. Effort praise is given to students when they persevere and work hard to accomplish a task.
Our natural instinct is to compliment students on their intelligence. This sends students with a conflicting message. If students face challenges or setbacks, they correlate this with their fixed amount of intelligence and skills. In order to combat this and cultivate a growth mindset, it is important for teachers to focus on the process to aid students in noticing how their efforts lead them to their success. The graphic above shares how teachers can pivot their language to focus on the process and not merely the person.
Dan Trommater shares how there are three distinct forms of praise that we can offer to others.
Person praise is directed at who the person is and their inherent abilities. This supports a fixed mindset because it sends the message that you are either both with the skills or you are not born with them.
Outcome praise is directed at the results of the person’s inherent abilities. This is detrimental because there is no emphasis on growth or improvement and supports a fixed mindset.
Process praise is all about how the person dealt with a challenge. This type of praise teaches that ability comes from effort and it is possible to improve. That naturally fosters a growth mindset where the person believes that they are not limited in their abilities (Trommater, 2021).
Tools to Help Educators Praise the Process
The tools listed below provide teachers with valuable framing tools, lessons, and knowledge to praise the process of learning with effort praise. The resources all highlight three major ideas:
Our language and praise can affect student achievement by cultivating continuous improvement.
We need to provide a safe and positive environment for students to make mistakes and focus on their growth through the process.
We can praise students on effort, strategies, perseverance, and progress to support growth towards mastery.
Growth Mindset Framing Tool.pdfGrowth Mindset Framing Tool
Redesigned Curriculum and Implementation
One way to provide consistent opportunities for students to monitor their own pace and progress towards mastery is with D.I.R.T or Dedicated Improvement and Reflection Time. This work is student centered and supports growth and mastery mindsets because students actively identify challenges, set goals, and determine strategies to meet those goals.
I started to implement Dedicated Improvement and Reflection Time in my classroom and here are my takeaways.
It provides time for me to talk to students and give feedback and effort/process praise.
I can explain the high expectations and students reflect and set goals to meet the standards.
Students have time to improvement and work towards mastery.
This work has provided me with the space to encourage students to embrace mistakes and use feedback to drive improvements.
The Power of Yet
How does it Support a Growth and Mastery Mindset?
The word "yet" is small, but mighty. It has the ability to shift our mindsets by reframing our thoughts to help us move towards meeting our goals. To me, the Power of Yet symbolizes that we are developing and building the best versions of ourselves because we have the ability and power to improve. By simply adding "yet" to our phrases, we make the choice to continue to learn, grow, and face challenges. The Power of Yet allows students to believe that the impossible can be possible. This word provides students with hope and motivation. According to Dweck, this "creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment."
To cultivate this in the classroom, teachers can discuss their experiences and share about their journey as well. This helps students see that learning is a life-long journey. I always tell my students, "I don't need you to be THE best, just YOUR best. I expected nothing less than your personal best." This means that we are still growing, and if we can't do it today, we have the opportunity in the future to reach our highest potential. Another way is to incorporate growth mindset read alouds to promote conversations about how other characters tackle problems and develop strategies. The Power of Yet allows students to continue to believe in themselves and be open to making mistakes and growing.
Tools to Help Educators Embrace the Power of Yet
The tools listed below provide teachers with valuable information, resources, and videos to embrace the Power of Yet in the classroom.
Redesigned Curriculum and Implementation
In my fourth grade classroom, there are several ways that I encourage the power of yet in the classroom. The first way that I support a growth mindset is by having open and honest conversations about my own experiences. I share experiences where I made mistakes, realized that I may not be at my goal yet, but determined next steps to reach my goals. One of the resources that I love to use is the "Growth Mindset Action Plan" paired with the "When I Make a Mistake" poster. This encourages students to develop a growth mindset because we are continuously growing and developing. The action plan has questions that allows students to take steps toward reaching goals. This supports the Power of Yet because it empowers students to continuously improve. Next, I use read alouds in the classroom to show how characters tackle their problems. Many of the books include conflicts where a character cannot accomplish a specific goal... yet. This shared experience of reading allows students and teachers to discuss how we can apply this lesson to our own lives. Lastly, I display growth mindset posters of influential heroes to expose students to quotes to inspire them to hope and motivation to always aim to improve oneself.
WhenIMakeAMistakeFreeSocialEmotionalLearningGrowthMindsetPoster-1.pdf
GrowthMindsetMotivationalPosters-1.pdfStudent Instances
Student #1 - "Mistake Moments"
A student in my mathematics class struggles to embrace making mistakes as a opportunity to grow. She shares with me that she feels like fractions to be incredibly complicated and challenging. She displays a fixed mindset at times because she states that she is just "not smart enough" to apply the math strategies. She shows signs of frustration during the math block. We had a conversation about her underlying worries and how we can work together to support her growth. During our goal setting time, she shares that academics and grades are important to her family. She doesn't want to make any mistakes because she is worried about letting down her parents. The cause of her learning struggle is that she views mistakes as a negative outcome of learning. I shared with this student that she is not the only one who fears mistakes by sharing a personal story. From this moment, a few students joined into the conversation. I decided to implement "mistake moments" at the end of our lessons. This is a space for us to share mistakes in the classroom and tell how it can be positive. Our goal is to share mistakes as a class so that we can learn from one another. By celebrating mistakes, we are reframing mistakes and shifting our mindset. To the right, I included the slide that I display to support this work.
Student #2 - "The Learning Pit"
I have a student in my class that has difficulty brainstorming solutions to problems and relies on me to help him initiate tasks. When I approached the student to discuss this situation, the student shared that he doesn't know what to do to solve the problem. He was not able to struggle on his own with the task. This student relies heavily on peers and teacher support to begin tasks. I shared with the student about the purpose of productively struggling through tasks. The point of investigating challenging tasks is to promote creative thinking and get into the trenches of learning. I had to take a moment to think about how I set up the learning space for this student. I realized that it is important for me to set up students for this learning by informing students that I want them to productively struggle through this task today. I shared "The Learning Pit" with students to show how productively struggling leads to opportunities for us to make mistakes, learn, and grow.
References
Culatta, R. (2018, November 30). Mastery. Instructional Design.org. http://www.instructionaldesign.org/concepts/mastery/
Dweck, C. (2014, October 9). Growth mindset: Developing a growth mindset with Carol Dweck [Video] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiiEeMN7vbQ
Gross-Loh, C. (2021, August 2). Don't let praise become a consolation prize. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/12/how-praise-became-a-consolation-prize/510845/
Guskey, T.R. (2015). Mastery learning. In: James D. Wright (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (2nd ed., Vol. 14, pp. 752-759). Elsevier. https://tguskey.com/wp-content/uploads/Mastery-Learning-1-Mastery-Learning.pdf
Masters, G. N. (2013, October). Towards a growth mindset in assessment. Australian Council for Educational Research. https://research.acer.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1017&context=ar_misc
Schaef, S. (2016, March 5). Five key lessons for mastery learning startup. https://aurora-institute.org/cw_post/five-key-lessons-for-mastery-learning-startup/
Wolf, M. (2010, November). Innovate to educate: system [re]design for personalized learning; A report from the 2010 symposium. https://library.educause.edu/-/media/files/library/2010/1/csd6181-pdf.pdf
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