Growth Mindset

Growth Mindset is everywhere!  I see it all over my Twitter feed and Pinterest.  And I can't resist adding my own little blurb about how I use it in my first grade classroom.  It is such a powerful concept to teach students that truly has an impact on how they approach their learning every day.

Perhaps you are an expert and your students (and you of course) all have growth mindsets (if so, please share any ideas in the comments!!).   Or perhaps you too have seen and heard about it, but aren't really sure what all the hype is about.  I hope by sharing a few resources I use in my classroom that it will inspire you to start the conversation in your classroom.  I truly believe it is a gift to give your students.

So What is Growth Mindset?

Keep in my mind I am by no means an expert on the topic.  I'm just a classroom teacher that believes in the power behind students developing a growth mindset.  I'm still learning myself and continue to build my Pinterest board on the subject:)

In the most general terms, a growth mindset is an understanding that people develop and can grow their intelligence and abilities.  By embracing challenges, knowing that mistakes are part of learning,  and hard work, we can grow.  Dr. Carol Dweck of Standard University originated the terms growth mindset and fixed mindset.  Here are her words regarding what her research found:

More precisely, students who believed their intelligence could be developed (a growth mindset) outperformed those who believed their intelligence was fixed (a fixed mindset). And when students learned through a structured program that they could “grow their brains” and increase their intellectual abilities, they did better. Finally, we found that having children focus on the process that leads to learning (like hard work or trying new strategies) could foster a growth mindset and its benefits.


This excerpt is from an article published in September 2015 (you can read the full article here) where Dr. Dweck addresses some now very common misconceptions.  If you have ever thought to yourself that growth mindset is basically just kids putting forth their best effort and we just need to praise them for these efforts, this is a must read.


Here is a link to a TED talk that Dr. Dweck gives and it begins with my favorite concept...The Power of Yet.

Why Growth Mindset

It isn't too hard to be convinced that students having a growth mindset is beneficial, but I really think that before we even start shifting our students' mindsets, we should consider our own.  Do we really believe that our students' abilities are not set in stone?  And what about our own skills as teachers?  Do we believe we can grow our own abilities as professionals?

I think it is so worth my time to not only make sure my students develop a growth mindset, but that I too make sure that I maintain that same expectation of continuous growth for myself.  Professional development and collaboration with others is a passion of mine for sure.  My continuous growth is what keeps my love for teaching so strong!  Below is an expert from an article by David Hochheiser referring to Richard DuFour and Robert Eaker's work regarding professional learning communities:

If we really want to improve our schools, our work, and the education of our students, we can do so by adopting a new mindset -- for everyone -- that would include:

1. Being humble enough to accept that there are things about ourselves and our practices that can improve
2. Becoming part of professional teams that value constructive critique instead of criticism
3. Treating setbacks as formative struggles within the learning process instead of summative failures
4. Realizing the restrictive role that timelines can play in reaching high standards, and using foundational philosophies such as Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to map systems so that everyone's growth is supported
5. Create flexible grouping at all times so that nobody's trapped in any one course level or particular type of work.

Resources for Teaching Students to Develop a Growth Mindset

Books

I love using read alouds to teach the growth mindset principles.  Here are a few books that are great for teaching students to develop a growth mindset.

Visual Reminders

I don't want these important messages to be forgotten, so I made a few signs/posters to hang up in my classroom to give us all a visual reminder.  

Activities

You can type the title of any one of the books above into Pinterest and get inspired by many fantastic ideas.

 

I love to read Leo the Late Bloomer in the beginning of the year.  The kids really relate to the message and I can feel a sense of relief as we talk about how everyone learns in their own time and that we don't expect them to be perfect or all learn in the same way at the same time.  I have the students think of 3 things that they can do and 1 thing that they can't do...yet.  We refer to this lesson and book throughout the year.  All of the growth mindset books are great for introducing the skill of identifying theme (always have to get that common core in there:) 

I had students write the theme of the story after showing them a short tutorial on how to draw a tiger. They loved it!

You can grab this FREE "The Power of Yet" page here.  The set of Growth Mindset Signs (12 total) can be found here in my TPT store.

Videos

This summer, I was introduced to these Class Dojo videos to teach growth mindset and they are fabulous.

They really hold the kids' attention and make for great conversation starters.  If you haven't seen them yet, they are worth the time to check them out here.

Links to More Resources

And if you need a few more ideas, this article has lots of great resources/links to explore: 

Resources for Teaching Growth Mindset

I hope you are able to find something to inspire you to start developing growth mindsets in your classroom or add to what you are already doing! Let's make sure that every student we encounter believes in his/her own ability to grow!