Ways to challenge and inspire your students - example activities

This Learning Gain Survey manual was produced by the team who worked on the Office for Students Changing Mindsets project for Portsmouth Personal Tutors to use with their tutees.

Although scores fall on a continuum, individuals can be categorised as either:

• Entity theorists (often referred to as having a ‘fixed mindset’). These individuals tend to believe intelligence is a fixed trait that remains relatively stable throughout a lifetime.

• Incremental theorists (often referred to as having a ‘growth mindset’). These individuals tend to believe intelligence is malleable and can be developed through learning and effort.

The survey can be used in its entirety or a section can be adapted as reflective prompts for students as part of tutorial discussions or seminars. For example, the statements/scales can be phrased as questions that form the base of short written, reflective exercises or group discussion.

Example

Hallmark: Be intellectually curious, embrace challenges and seize opportunities for development.

This is a pre-existing scale (Dweck, 2000), designed to measure Implicit Theories of Intelligence.

Do you agree or disagree with the following statements:

1. You have a certain amount of intelligence, and you really can’t do much to change it.

2. Your intelligence is something about you that you can’t change very much.

3. You can learn new things, but you can’t really change your basic intelligence.

4. To be honest, you can’t really change how intelligent you are.

The scales are mapped to the Hallmarks of a Portsmouth Graduate. At the outset, there is an outline for the theoretical underpinning for each of these scales, which will enable you to interpret the scores.

The Learning Well framework (currently on the student wellbeing page) offers advice and ready-made learning resources and activities that can be incorporated into active/blended learning courses in order to: foster student wellbeing, belonging and learning mindsets, build mutually supportive and inclusive learning communities, and promote opportunities for dialogue, partnership and co-construction.

Encourage your students to check out the wellbeing for learning animation.