This week I have decided to dig deeper and investigate the growth mindset. Sure I've hear the term used before and I have a basic knowledge of what it means, but I want to know more. If I need to have a growth mindset and I should encourage a growth mindset with my students, I definitely need to know all that I can about the growth mindset.
The first place I turned to was the trusty ole Twitter. I did a search of Growth Mindset and a #growthmindset search. This was helpful but I wanted to dig deeper, so I did a Google search and found a lot of other useful articles to give me the big picture of growth mindset in education.
The Growth Mindset is about "teach[ing] students to love challenges, to enjoy effort, to be resilient, and to value their own improvement. In other words, we can design and present learning tasks in a way that helps students develop a growth mindset, which leads to not just short-term achievement but also long-term success." Students with a growth mindset value effort and see effort as a means of developing and sharpening abilities, while students with a fixed mindset do not like effort and see ability as something that you naturally have or do not have. Likewise, students with a growth mindset keep moving forward when faced with challenges and obstacles by trying to strategies and staying involved, while students with fixed mindsets tend to get frustrated by obstacles and get discouraged or defensive.
As teachers, we should strive to design challenging, meaningful learning tasks that can be used to demonstrate and encourage a growth mindset. In order too prepare students to benefit from meaningful work, teachers need to create a growth-mindset culture in the classroom. One way to create such a culture is by providing the right kinds of praise and encouragement. I found this to connect directly with NCTCS 1a "Teachers establish a safe, orderly environment, and create a culture that empowers students to collaborate and become lifelong learners."
As teachers, we can also emphasize that fast learning is not always the deepest and best way to learn material and that students who take longer are sometimes able to actually understand material better than those who "fast learn." This plays in to NCTCS 4a and knowing the ways in which students learn.
There are steps we can take to build a growth mindset within the classroom and school. Learning tasks should challenge all students. This is where differentiation becomes a key player. Even bright students at the top of the class need to be challenged. If these students are not challenged they may settle into a fixed mindset that you are smart if you can succeed without effort. So as we plan challenging, differentiated learning tasks for our students we need to be ready to present these tasks in ways that portray challenges as fun and exciting. Students will be excited about something if you, the teacher, are excited.
Twitter led to some great growth mindset images that I am going to share below:
I don't know about you, but I want to teach because I want to see students succeed and to become lifelong learners. I think the growth mindset and lifelong learning go hand in hand. It's time we embrace the growth mindset and begin adding it to our lesson planning.
Leslea,
ReplyDeleteI'm really glad you wrote on growth mindset this week because, in grade level today, we talked for quite some time about strategies we can use to close this achievement gap (canyon). Even though we can have some frustrating moments in the classroom, it's so important to remember why we're in the teaching profession. Yes, we want to grow as professional educators, but we also want to see growth in our students.
Such a great blog Leslea! Very well written and a great topic for sure! I have been learning about this a great deal over the last few years and participated in a break out session during an EdCamp I visited last year. Growth mindset is an excellent way to instruct and lead our students and as we all have probably experienced, many students do not have it. I know personally I have noticed all my students are concerned with is getting the correct answer. But they want me to tell them instead of investigating for themselves. Growth Mindset requires them to really learn by doing, by researching and by being ok with not being right the first time. I really like what you said: "As teachers, we should strive to design challenging, meaningful learning tasks that can be used to demonstrate and encourage a growth mindset" If we are not teaching meaningful content and in a way that students can absorb, we are merely teaching for them just to pass a test. Which they need to. BUT they also need to develop those critical problem solving skills for real world and College prep scenarios. I think all of us in this group understand this and hope to be teachers who help students think differently about learning!
ReplyDeleteLeslea,
ReplyDeleteThis is a great blog! If we teach with a growth mind set, then our students will also have this mindset in the classroom. We must always look for growth in our students. Even if the students grades are not the best, we scan still look for growth. I know that growth is something that my CE is very into, and so should every other teacher! I'm not a good test taker, but I know that if i have practice with something, you are bound to see growth! We should project this mindset into our classrooms. We are almost there! :)