At the beginning of my journey in the Digital Learning and Leading program, I learned about Carol Dweck's idea of the growth mindset and created a growth mindset plan to implement with myself and my students. In this plan, I created the following goals:
Help students identify their mindset.
Teach students how to change their mindset.
Model a growth mindset as a teacher and as a student in the DLL program.
I believe I have done well with two of the three goals so far. At the beginning of the year, we spent an entire day learning about what a growth mindset was, took a survey to determine our mindset, and created a growth mindset fortune teller to use when we find ourselves in a fixed mindset. I've also implemented an ePortfolio in my classes for the first time which has been a learning experience for myself which has allowed my to model a growth mindset as a teacher to my students.
What I have not done well with is helping my students to change their mindset. I discussed it at the beginning of the year; however, I should be consistently referring my students to the growth mindset on a daily basis when I find them discouraged or apathetic. When you have so many TEKS that have to be taught in a short amount of time and teach a subject that is abstract and very challenging, students constantly need your attention. I'm always on the move in my classroom moving from one group to the next answering questions and reteaching where needed that I'm not good at slowing down and talking to my students about their mindset. I also have a poster in my room that I could use as a resource, but it kind of just hangs there on the wall with no real purpose. This is how growth mindset gets improperly implemented. You can't just introduce it and never speak of it again. My goal this next semester is to discuss it daily and work on reframing my students questions when they seem to be in a fixed mindset in order to better model to them how to change their mindset.
Eventually I want my students to just care about the learning rather than the grades. This is extremely challenging when our entire education system is based on grades and that is what has been engrained in them their entire academic career. Whether they are a student just trying to get by so they can be eligible to play a sport or they're an honors students trying to become valedictorian to get the best scholarships, most students just want the grade. The same goes for the parents as well. Until our educational system changes, this will be a challenge. In the meantime, I plan on focusing on my students' progress. Anytime I notice progress (even if that progress means they only failed a test by a few points rather than a lot of points), I make it a point to celebrate the student and to email parents to brag about their student's progress. My hope is that including both students and parents in this celebration will get everyone on board with celebrating learning and progress over grades.
References:
Dweck, C. S. (2016). Mindset: the new psychology of success. New York: Ballantine Books.