Growth and Mastery Mindsets

Many students get stuck in a fixed mindset within our classrooms, meaning they think that their learning abilities are finite and there isn't room for growth. However, in a personalized learning setting, it is important that we as educators push a growth mindset for our students. According to the GAPSC Standards for Personalized Learning, a growth mindset is "a perspective or attitude toward learning that views it as an ongoing progression of continuous growth and improvement towards new understanding and mastery of interdependent competencies, and not an end point of either success or failure". Instead of thinking that their abilities are fixed on a certain level, our students should feel like they are always able to make improvements and see progress in their learning.

In her TedED video, Carol Dweck talks about the "power of yet". Some of our students have a hard time coping with failure, and they'll make comments such as, "I can't do this. I'm giving up." However, by using the "power of yet", we can respond with. "You can't do it YET, but..." which gives them a path to future success. By changing how we respond to our students, we can change their mindsets from one of hopelessness to growth. Just because a student can't do it today, that doesn't mean they can't do it tomorrow or the next day. We have to remind our students that it takes everyone different amounts of time, and progress is the most important thing.

Progress is the key to the growth and mastery mindset. In his article, Geoff Masters writes about three typical approaches to evaluating students and providing feedback: providing "success" experiences, judging performance against "standards", and assessing "growth" over time. As educators, we are supposed to be challenging or students and giving the experiences just outside of their comfort zone so that they are pushing themselves and learning. Giving students only assignments that guarantee success for all will make our students complacent and make them think in a fixed mindset that this is how they are always going to do on assignments. Similarly, if we are judging students based on each other's performance as well as "standards" for their grade level, students will end up in a fixed mindset because they will score consistently against the standards every time. Students may lump themselves into categories such as "C students" and "D students" because that is their usual judgment against the standards. In contrast with these systems, we should be continuously monitoring student progress over time. A student who is traditionally a "C student" could be making even more progress than someone who is considered an "A student", and that is what we need to highlight to our students. According to Masters, this system instills the idea that "all students are capable of good learning progress", so all students are motivated to improve their knowledge and skills.

Furthermore, in our education system, ability grouping is a popular practice. However, this kind of grouping can be detrimental to our students' learning and growth. When students are grouped by their abilities, you typically tend to see groups of "high", "middle", and "low" students. In her article, Jo Boaler discusses how she saw this in action and provides evidence from others as well. When students are placed into these homogeneous ability groups, the fixed mindset tends to prevail because your students who are not in the "smart" group tend to think they will always be stuck below the rest, and they don't have the drive to improve. On the other hand, when students went through programs that used heterogeneous grouping, student participation increased for all, there was higher equality in the classroom, and progress improved across the board. Students were able to learn from their own mistakes as well as others in order to all make good progress towards their own learning.

In order to provide a healthy environment in which students will operate with a growth mindset, we have to remove the barriers that have become the norm in our education system. Consistently comparing students to each other and to standards, ability grouping, and providing lessons only within our students' comfort zones will not allow them to grow. We also have to shape students' ways of thinking so that they are driven to make progress and learn from their mistakes rather than give up and get into a fixed rhythm of effort and success.

Research-Based Strategies

Changing Language

One strategy for implementing a growth and mastery mindset is changing the language we use. How we as educators speak to our students about their successes and failures makes a significant impact on how they see themselves and their progress. We can use Carol Dweck's idea of the "power of yet" and incorporate the word "yet" in our classroom. If a student says they "can't do it", we reframe it as they "can't do it yet" and work with the student on how they can make progress. We can also reframe other things our students say.

One example of this is a recent conversation I had with a student over a grammar topic. We were working on conjugating three new verbs (nolo, volo, and possum). One of my students started tearing up while completing an activity, so we spent a few minutes in the hallway. She was insistent that she could not learn this new topic, and she couldn't possibly do any better than she was currently doing. I reminded her that she had not mastered it yet, but she had made progress from the day before when it was introduced, and with more practice and perseverance she could improve and do well on the following assessment. After this conversation, she was more open to trying again, and we even had an after-school tutoring session which led to her earning a 100 on the assessment over the grammar topic. The change in language made her more comfortable with making mistakes and learning from them, and this led to her progressing with the content.

Here is a graphic indicating ways we can change our language:

Test Corrections

Test corrections are a way for students to learn from their mistakes. The point of test corrections is for students to look back through an assessment, see what they missed, and learn how they can fix their mistakes. For example, students may need to complete test corrections by writing what the correct response to the question is as well as why the correct answer is correct. Test corrections in which students just learn what the answer is are not as effective; if students have to figure out why the correct answer is correct and give an explanation for it, they are actively learning how they can fix it. This will lead to positive growth from the students as they are less likely to make those same mistakes after correcting them.

On the second test of the semester, one of my students missed an entire grammar section on Latin verb tenses and felt defeated. However, through the process of test corrections and working on the explanations with me, the student ended up mastering the content to the point that she is my "verb tense master" and always helps other students when they get stuck.

Daily Checkpoints / Tickets Out the Door

In order to help students monitor their own progress, we can utilize daily checkpoints either through classroom activities during the lesson or through a ticket out the door. We could do this by providing students with a checklist of the objectives for this unit, and on a daily basis they check off which objectives they have achieved. Over time during the unit, they will see their own progress, which will motivate them to continue to learn and grow as students. Furthermore, the self reflection gives us the opportunity to implement the "power of yet" and teach our students how to do it themselves. We can also implement a ticket out the door for students to monitor their progress. One idea is that students can be asked daily what they know, what they don't know yet, and what questions they have. Another idea is a rating system where students can rate how they feel about the content either on a numeric scale or a facial expression scale. They can watch their own progress as it gets better on their ticket out the door every day.

One particular chapter, we had a vocabulary list without any cognates (words that look and sound similar in Latin and English). Every day that week leading up to the vocabulary quiz, I had students rate themselves on how they felt about the vocabulary. As students were rating themselves 1 or 2, I would help them with English derivatives as well as using the vocabulary in context to help them understand. Two of my boys who usually struggle with vocabulary told me that the daily checkpoints pushed them to want to grow in their understanding so that they would be at a 5 going into the vocabulary quiz, and they both earned A's on the quiz.

Supporting Tools

Gamification

Brian Potash discusses how incorporating games in the classroom is a "natural way to engage [students]". Using games such as Blooket, Quizizz, and Gimkit can help our students develop a growth mindset. In these games, students are gaining awards, XP, and more, and these indicators of progress within the game can also show our students how they are progressing within their content knowledge and skills. Gamification can drive our students to want to learn more and further improve their progress.

One of the biggest problems I see every year is vocabulary retainment. Students tend to "cram and flush" the words so that don't remember them down the road when they need them again. Introducing my students to Blooket has changed that. I have the Class Pass so that my students can continue to gain XP and rewards. In my 2nd block class in particular, I have a small group of students who play vocabulary practice games outside of my class specifically to gain these progress indicators, so they are always wanting to improve upon their vocabulary mastery. I have now been making new chapters' Blooket games in advance so they can learn the new words ahead of time.

In the student data from Blooket that you see below, one of my students named Hunter played this Blooket every day of the week and named his attempts by the days so he could see how he progressed throughout the week. He was eager to play every day, and he would discuss his results with me and compare them, which really seemed to help him with content mastery.

Quizlet

Quizlet is a great tool for monitoring progress and creating a growth mindset within our students. The main feature of Quizlet is its flashcards. These flashcards can be a way for our students to complete a daily checkpoint for their learning. Going through these flashcards can also show students the progress they are making. For example, if there are 40 flashcards for the unit, a student may go through them and only know 6 on the first day, but then they go through them again and they know 14 on the second day. Many students also enjoy playing the matching game because it is timed, so their improved time drives them to want to master the content. These visual indicators of their progress that can help each student know what they need to work on and what their strengths are. Quizlet also incorporates gamification, which is a bonus.

I have a pair of boys in my 3rd block who spend any free time quizzing each other on grammar. On a recent chapter, I made a grammar Quizlet that had a lot of information. Every day the boys would separately go through the flashcards and update each other (and myself) on their progress. Seeing how they were improving drove them to review until they both knew 100% of the flashcards two days in a row.

I have also used my FlatPanel in my room to have students come up and complete the Matching game in front of the class. I have them say their thought process out loud so that other students know why they are selecting that. It becomes kind of like a game, and I have students begging to come up to the board so that they can a) beat their friends' times, and b) beat their old time, which shows progress.

Glows & Grows

Implementing effective feedback is necessary for our students to incorporate a growth mindset within their learning. One way we can provide this feedback is through glows and grows. When you are evaluating a student work sample, you can share glows, which are things that the student has done well, and grows, which are areas for improvement. For example, if a student wrote a fantastic introduction and body for their essay, that can be a glow. However, if their conclusion could use work, that can be a grow. All of the grows and glows should use process-driven language and how the student is progressing on the content and skills.

One of my students struggles with verb tenses in Latin. She can tell you who the subject of the verb is and the base word meaning, but verb tenses slip her mind. Over the past two months I have returned her translations with grows and glows, and we have gotten to the point where her glows are verb endings, vocabulary, present tense, and imperfect tense, and her only grow is getting from 75% on the perfect tense verbs to 100% correct.

On the assessment below, this student had greatly improved on her noun cases and endings in Latin, and her verb growth with subject-verb agreement was outstanding! Her one glow was that she was not paying attention to the indicators of different verb tenses, which led to her missing a lot of the perfect tense verbs, and we are currently working on that together.

Implementation

Test Corrections

In my classroom this semester, I have been implementing test corrections after every single test. Students are able to ask me questions, ask their peers questions, and consult their notes in order to complete them. I give them a form, and they have to fill out the correct answer and an explanation for each of their corrections. I have found that these days are crucial for the progress of my students, because this is always the day that my students have those lightbulb moments and they do progress on their understanding. Making them write down their reasoning helps them self-reflect and correct any misunderstandings that they have. For example, I had a student who was struggling with Latin verb endings on our last test. She and I had a discussion and I retaught her during the test correction process, and she was clearly understanding it better than before. On the next day that we read a story in Latin, she was teaching her peers about the verb endings, and she clearly made progress by going back and correcting her own mistakes on the previous assessment.

Changing Language

Learning the different grammatical structures in Latin can be very frustrating for students. On the first day of a new chapter, I go through the grammar with guided notes, I provide examples of it in action, and then my students complete examples with me as a facilitator. I always make sure to remind them that I do NOT expect perfection since it is a new concept. As we go through the chapter, I always have students who want to give up, but I have changed how I speak to them by telling them they just don't know how to do it YET, but they will get there. I also circulate around the classroom when my students are working on individual or small group assignments, and whenever students are stuck I try to guide them through the thinking process by asking questions that will get them there. When they make a mistake, they'll often say, "I'm so dumb! How did I forget that?" I always tell my students that they aren't dumb, they just haven't gotten the hang of it yet, but I can see the progress they have made. By implementing more growth mindset language, I have noticed an increase in progress but also in positivity about the learning process. Over time, my students have gotten less bogged down by mistakes, and they are a lot more open to asking questions and fixing the gaps in their knowledge.

References

Boaler, J. (2013). Ability and mathematics: The mindset revolution that is reshaping education. FORUM.
https://www.youcubed.org/wp-content/uploads/14_Boaler_FORUM_55_1_web.pdf

Dweck, C. (2014, October 9). Growth mindset: Developing a growth mindset with Carol Dweck. [Video]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiiEeMN7vbQ

Georgia Professional Standards Commission. (2019, January 15). GAPSC standards for personalized learning.

https://www.gapsc.com/Rules/Current/EducatorPreparation/505-3-.108.pdf?dt=%3C%25

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

Potash, B. (2019, September 5). 6 assistive technologies that can help students reach their full potential. EdTech. https://edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2019/09/6-assistive-technologies-can-help-students-reach-their-full-potential

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