Based on Dweck’s work, 4 things that I think could be done to put the growth mindset into practice right away include:
1. Challenge students. Let students know you expect the best. Set high expectations. When introducing a difficult topic, tell students "this will seem tough, but you are going to learn it. Guaranteed. No exceptions. Don’t make me look bad (LOL).”
2. Make your classroom a safe place. Mistakes should be welcomed and encouraged. Give historical examples of people who failed but kept pushing on (i.e. Thomas Edison). Let students know effort is valued above perfection, and that the amount of progress they make individually is more important than how they compare to others.
3. Praise Effort. Avoid praising children for their "smartness," and instead help them understand the importance of their own actions in achieving success.
4. Use yourself as an example. Help to build relationships with students by sharing stories of your own growth experiences. Share anecdotes from your own life that show how you developed your own intelligence. We can help our students take a growth mindset sharing our own experiences, failures, vulnerabilities and growth.
You have a lot of good ideas, Mike. I love your thought on making the classroom a safe place. That sounds like a foundation if you are trying to create a growth mindset classroom. That would be the first thing I would put the most effort into when attempting to create a growth mindset classroom.
I also feel having a classroom environment where children feel safe about accepting challenges is needed first. If they feel this is the place where I am learning and being supported they will feel good about themselves and look forward to class everyday.
I agree with you Mike. I try and make my therapy room one in which all students feel comfortable to take a risk when answering questions. Mistakes are ok and we can learn from them.
A well organized presentation!! I enjoy the look on students' faces at the beginning of the year when I talk about how I welcome mistakes! When a child has an error (ie. we're correcting math) I ask the child to categorize the error, and then we can talk about if I need to reteach, or just recognizing the error can be enough!
I think teachers need to be good role models. Act they way you want your students to act~ determined, caring, forgiving, understanding, helpful etc. Encourage them to realize that they don't have limits on them. They can be good at anything, as long as they try their best. They can learn, not that everything will be easy, but it is possible. I feel a teacher's words and conversations with students can have a huge impact on student's mindset. Help them realize there are no limits. You may be better at some things than others, and that is normal and ok. Just because someone tells you you can't do something or aren't good at something, DOES NOT MAKE IT TRUE! Don't let anyone tell you what you can or can't do~ you decide that. Be the captain of your own ship! Who is driving your car? (That is for all my Choice Theory friends!)
As far as some things you could try in your classroom, I think a few ideas are critical: * Small wins repeated over time can lead to a growth mindset (and increased growth) *When students succeed, praise their efforts and strategies as opposed to their intelligence. *Help students focus on and value the process of learning. *Design classroom activities that involve cooperative--rather than competitive or individualistic--work.
These things are not easy to do right away~ it takes practice and thoughtful delivery and planning.
I agree with the idea of designing activities that foster cooperative work. I think this is a life skill students will need in order to be successful as the grow up. Also, I think working collaboratively and cooperatively will encourage a growth mindset.
I am currently taking another PD offering called Deciphering Complex Text. One chapter of the book focuses on collaboration and cooperation in the classroom. They offer a lot of ideas on ways to get students talking and collaborating in groups. It is definitely an important life skill.
I agree that we need to have students work cooperatively, and to collaborate in the classroom. This is a real life skill that will carry the students through high school and the work world. They need to understand in the real world, you can't always work with your best friend or work with someone you get along with or like. You can't choose your co-workers and you need to get along with them to get your job done.
I like you comment on small wins. I just think about all the math we have to cover and how being disciplined and organized pulls us through. The students are always a little bit amazed about the work they have completed every time we finish a module.
I definitely agree with what everyone has said so far. In order to promote a growth mindset in our classrooms we need to start with trust.
- We need to encourage creativity and promote individuality. -We need to encourage students to take risks and not be afraid to fail. We need to show them that failures can lead to success down the road. - We also need to be a role model and live the growth mindset ourselves.
We can promote growth mindset in our classrooms by changing our words.....we need to be in a growth mindset as well. As I said before I have been reading about growth mindset since July. On pinterest one of my favorite growth mindset phrase is: Mistakes are: Expected Respected Inspected Corrected. I believe that and if we model that in our classrooms I think students will look at mistakes differently. I also like the 10 questions that you can ask students to help them with a growth mindset: 1. What did you do today that made you think harder? 2. What happened to you today that made you keep going? 3. What can you learn from this? 4. What mistake did you make that taught you something today? 5. What did you try hard at today? 6. What strategy are you going to try now? 7. What will you do to challenge yourself? 8. What will you do to improve your work? 9. What will you do to improve your talent? 10.You really tried hard on that, how do you feel?
Thank you to Kelly and Janelle for the opportunity to take this class. I will be using a lot of the suggestions in my classroom to promote a growth mindset!
I think I will put the Mistakes Are... on a bulletin board in my OT room. Love it. I have a BE PROUD bulletin board in the IEC. To get a star on the board you have to show effort and perseverance, ie. worked hard to learn to tie shoes. Stars are not easy to earn and once on the board the students always go back and read their stars.
I agree about the Mistakes are... idea. I definitely want to post that in the classroom and refer to it often. We have some students who have tantrums getting themselves all upset about making a mistake. I think using this language will be helpful. I think several messages from this book could be posted strategically around the classroom to get students to think.
I won't repeat what has already been said. I plan on making changes in my therapy sessions by spending time at the end to talk with students about the session in a growth mindset way. Tell me one thing you learned that was new? What did your hard work help you accomplish today? As I've said in previous posts I am rethinking praise although praising for effort and product is something we do regularly because therapy is about completely tasks and progressing.
I agree! Even knowing most of this and having a growth mindset I learned a lot and it was very helpful. I think this is things most of us know, we just forget about it over time. It has made me more conscious of how I do things in my classroom.
After reading chapter 8, there are a lot of changes that can be made in a classroom to promote a growth mindset:
-Take on challenges: We should encourage our children to challenge themselves and not give up because something is too hard. Also, we shouldn’t just give them the answer right away if they are struggling. We need to let them think for themselves and productively struggle. -Push through setbacks: Teach students to keep trying and not shut down just because they didn’t do so well. Help them set goals for how they can improve next time. -Encourage effort: We need to teach students that if they put forth effort, they will see positive outcomes. Even if they make small changes to do better, this is effort. We should praise them for making changes and taking ownership to improve next time.
Promoting a growth mindset in your classroom is something that takes creative planning, love, trust, and a safe environment where children know that mistakes are something that happens often. There are many days that that during a math lesson I purposely calculate wrong so the students can see that I am not perfect. There are other days they catch me not on purpose as well. This all falls under Nobody is Perfect and we learn from these mistakes, we fix these mistakes and we move forward from these mistakes. I try to challenge my students everyday to work hard, try hard and set goals to get there. Thank you girls for sharing this read. Ideas well worth it!
I think we need to help the students feel safe about making mistakes. We need to praise and encourage effort and perseverance. I mentioned in my last blog that in third grade, some of us use a method of "2 stars and a wish" (Laree taught me this). This shows that everyone has done some hard work to be proud of, but everyone also has room to grow.
Thanks Kelly and Janelle. This was a great book and very insightful as well as reinforcing for some of the things I am already doing in my classroom. I will continue to create an environment where students feel comfortable making mistakes and taking risks. We will continue to discuss mistake and what we have learned from them. I will praise effort, perseverance and my students' best efforts. With a growth mindset our potentials are endless! Thanks for such a great book study.
I agree with everything everyone has said...It truly begins with how the teacher sets up the norms for their classroom.... praise thinking/process, not answers...create an environment where students feel safe and take chances...create goals...allow time to explore mistakes and model desired behaviors which will promote a growth mindset for your students to follow.
Josh, I agree we somehow have to find time for our students to explore mistakes.I know sometimes I am so focused on getting a task done I forget to allow time for a true resolution/plan for mistakes.
In the video the Power of Yet, Carol Dweck talked about transforming the meaning of effort and difficulty. This really had an impact on me. I have a couple of students who see everything at school as difficult. Their fixed mindset doesn't allow them to give true effort. I think most of my students feel safe in the therapy room but for these students I will have to find ways to make it even safer. I will have to notice any effort and try to encourage a little more each time until they can do it on their own.
After reading the book, I think it is imperative to change the words we use in our classroom. Just by changing the way we say things, we can go from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. It is like teaching them to look at the glass half full instead of half empty. For example: "This it too difficult." to "This may take some time and effort." "I give up." to "I think I will use some other strategies to help me." "I'm not good at Math." to "I am going to train my brain in Math." "I made a mistake." to "Mistakes help me to learn/improve." "Plan A didn't work." to "I will try Plan B."
Also, I like the ideas of using feedback both from the students and teachers when a student is working on their improvement. I think if students write a message on their papers such as, "I worked through this, and I tried my best. I know I still need to improve. Could you offer some feedback?" Then, the teacher could write something back. Or, they could meet about it and discuss. But, using the language and having students actually take the time to think about what they are doing and taking ownership of their learning is important. If students felt like we were trying to help guide them through the process and we were in this together, it may help boost that growth mindset.
I really enjoyed this book and the conversation. I will definitely be utilizing the ideas in my classroom, as well as my own life. Thank you for the opportunity.
How can we as educators promote a growth mindset in the classroom? What are some ideas or activities you could try with your students?
I have already enjoyed sharing the video and having classroom conversations about growth mindset, and the Power of Yet. I stopped the video after each set of clues and let the students guess who. They were so excited to guess some of them. I loved hearing some of the ideas they shouted out before the reveal. We discussed the power of yet after I returned a set of scores. The students had created a poster project. The students self assessed their work, as well as had a peer assess it. I gave the final assessment and we talked about the results. We talked about the power of yet, and referred to it a number of times that day. I try to bring up that three letter word often as a part of our regular dialogue. We also made a tower of The Power of Yet in our classroom (a pillar of YET cards, illustrated and designed by the students) and they like the play in the language a bit. I will continue to look for ways to reinforce these concepts, but the tower is there for the year! :-)
At the beginning of each year, I have a chat about mistakes, and how analyzing our errors helps us learn. In math, I have the students examine their errors and categorize them. I did this informally in the past. This year, I found an analysis form to use for the same purpose, but it is more structured and concrete.
I think so many of the students today have already developed a fixed-mindset. But there were a lot of ideas in the book, I will use to try and make small changes in my instruction to help foster the growth-mindset in my students. The one that really stuck with me was about asking questions without thinking through the directions: "Before the students ask a question, they are to think the question through for 2 minutes, reread the directions, and then ask if they still have a question. Students are so quick to ask questions about instruction or directions without thinking through the process and then rereading the directions first. They want immediate assistance. This idea will helps them to help themselves. I have already used the idea of success sometimes happens once someone learns from their mistakes or failures. Students need to realize no one is perfect and that people they idolize usually have achieve various accomplishments through hard work and practice. Most people are not naturally talented or intelligent, but have achieved certain skills through perseverance and not giving up on their goals.
How can we as educators promote a growth mindset in the classroom? What are some ideas or activities you could try with your students?
*I feel that it is important to create a safe environment where students feel safe to take risks. *I believe it is important to stress that mistakes are part of learning. *I think that students should be given time to self- evaluate and to reflect. *I believe that it is important to celebrate each students individuality and to praise effort.
I also liked the 10 questions to ask your students and I plan to used them in my class..
I love all of the ideas presented here. Carol, Sue and I have the privilege of sharing space in our buildings. As Sue mentioned we have a great board in the IEC where we recognize accomplishments for students. The PEC is where we build the foundation but I think we can come up with a more specific approach to help children see that they can be vested in what and how they learn. It is funny, the 3 of us each have very different ways with our children but I can see how this new thought process has brought us together toward a common theme of encouraging a growth mindset. Thank you!
This has been a great book experience. I know the next steps for me will be changing the language I use in the classroom. I like all the ideas that have been shared and will continue to seek out a "Mindset" focused language for my students.
I think one of the best ways to promote a growth mindset in the classroom is to expose students to the characteristics of each mindset. I like the diagram on page 245 in the book. I was trying to figure out a way to use that comments listed under each mindset to introduce both mindsets to third graders. As an easy activity, a teacher could place each comment on a separate card and mix them up. As each card is read, students would need to categories and look for similarities and differences among the comments. Eventually, a teacher could have students narrow the categories down to 2 large ones, finally creating a title for each (fixed and growth). Students could analyze and discuss how each label fits the characteristics underneath. Once students become familiar with each mindset, we could use characters from some of the stories we read to have discussions about what type of mindset the character might have during a given situation. Another activity I think would be helpful to help promote a growth mindset in the classroom would be to have students to fill out a reflection after taking a test….say a math test. They would be asked to looked through their graded test and tell about something new they learned or have gotten better at doing over the last few weeks. They could also tell about a skill or problem that continues to be challenging and design an actual plan on how to improve and get better. Finally, as the teacher, I want to work on using more growth mindset comments and conversations with my students, while encouraging them to make mistakes to improve their learning.
Thanks Janelle and Kelly for offering this book talk and for being flexible with the end time. Not only this the "mindset" topic beneficial for school related interactions in the professional arena, it is helpful in personal interactions as well. I appreciate you offering this online course to your coworkers. Nice job ladies :)
Based on Dweck’s work, 4 things that I think could be done to put the growth mindset into practice right away include:
ReplyDelete1. Challenge students. Let students know you expect the best. Set high expectations. When introducing a difficult topic, tell students "this will seem tough, but you are going to learn it. Guaranteed. No exceptions. Don’t make me look bad (LOL).”
2. Make your classroom a safe place. Mistakes should be welcomed and encouraged. Give historical examples of people who failed but kept pushing on (i.e. Thomas Edison). Let students know effort is valued above perfection, and that the amount of progress they make individually is more important than how they compare to others.
3. Praise Effort. Avoid praising children for their "smartness," and instead help them understand the importance of their own actions in achieving success.
4. Use yourself as an example. Help to build relationships with students by sharing stories of your own growth experiences. Share anecdotes from your own life that show how you developed your own intelligence. We can help our students take a growth mindset sharing our own experiences, failures, vulnerabilities and growth.
You have a lot of good ideas, Mike. I love your thought on making the classroom a safe place. That sounds like a foundation if you are trying to create a growth mindset classroom. That would be the first thing I would put the most effort into when attempting to create a growth mindset classroom.
DeleteI like the idea of providing historical examples of people who failed but didn't give up.
DeleteI also feel having a classroom environment where children feel safe about accepting challenges is needed first. If they feel this is the place where I am learning and being supported they will feel good about themselves and look forward to class everyday.
DeleteI agree with you Mike. I try and make my therapy room one in which all students feel comfortable to take a risk when answering questions. Mistakes are ok and we can learn from them.
DeleteI think you hit the nail right on the head! Great job Mike!
DeleteA well organized presentation!! I enjoy the look on students' faces at the beginning of the year when I talk about how I welcome mistakes! When a child has an error (ie. we're correcting math) I ask the child to categorize the error, and then we can talk about if I need to reteach, or just recognizing the error can be enough!
DeleteGood point. Showing students that failure happens to everyone including the adults around them has a big impact on students.
Delete
ReplyDeleteI think teachers need to be good role models. Act they way you want your students to act~ determined, caring, forgiving, understanding, helpful etc. Encourage them to realize that they don't have limits on them. They can be good at anything, as long as they try their best. They can learn, not that everything will be easy, but it is possible. I feel a teacher's words and conversations with students can have a huge impact on student's mindset. Help them realize there are no limits. You may be better at some things than others, and that is normal and ok. Just because someone tells you you can't do something or aren't good at something, DOES NOT MAKE IT TRUE! Don't let anyone tell you what you can or can't do~ you decide that. Be the captain of your own ship! Who is driving your car? (That is for all my Choice Theory friends!)
As far as some things you could try in your classroom, I think a few ideas are critical:
* Small wins repeated over time can lead to a growth mindset (and increased growth)
*When students succeed, praise their efforts and strategies as opposed to their intelligence.
*Help students focus on and value the process of learning.
*Design classroom activities that involve cooperative--rather than competitive or individualistic--work.
These things are not easy to do right away~ it takes practice and thoughtful delivery and planning.
I agree with the idea of designing activities that foster cooperative work. I think this is a life skill students will need in order to be successful as the grow up. Also, I think working collaboratively and cooperatively will encourage a growth mindset.
DeleteI am currently taking another PD offering called Deciphering Complex Text. One chapter of the book focuses on collaboration and cooperation in the classroom. They offer a lot of ideas on ways to get students talking and collaborating in groups. It is definitely an important life skill.
DeleteI agree that we need to have students work cooperatively, and to collaborate in the classroom. This is a real life skill that will carry the students through high school and the work world. They need to understand in the real world, you can't always work with your best friend or work with someone you get along with or like. You can't choose your co-workers and you need to get along with them to get your job done.
DeleteI like you comment on small wins. I just think about all the math we have to cover and how being disciplined and organized pulls us through. The students are always a little bit amazed about the work they have completed every time we finish a module.
DeleteAs educators, we can promote a growth mindset in the classroom in a number of ways.
ReplyDelete-Praise process, strategies, and effort rather than intelligence.
-Provide feedback along with opportunities for students to revise and improve their work.
-Encourage students to set smaller, more manageable goals. This will be less daunting for them.
-Prioritize the value of education and learning.
-Create a safe environment that encourages risk-taking and emphasizes the fact that mistakes are to be expected.
-Have high expectations for students and let them know that they are capable of reaching your expectations. Challenge them!
-Be a good role model and use yourself as an example by sharing your own experiences with students.
As Audrey stated, this takes practice and planning.
Great ideas
DeleteI definitely agree with what everyone has said so far. In order to promote a growth mindset in our classrooms we need to start with trust.
ReplyDelete- We need to encourage creativity and promote individuality.
-We need to encourage students to take risks and not be afraid to fail. We need to show them that failures can lead to success down the road.
- We also need to be a role model and live the growth mindset ourselves.
Trust is big. I don't think that there is anything more important, that we can do as teachers, than building relationships.
DeleteWe can promote growth mindset in our classrooms by changing our words.....we need to be in a growth mindset as well. As I said before I have been reading about growth mindset since July. On pinterest one of my favorite growth mindset phrase is:
ReplyDeleteMistakes are:
Expected
Respected
Inspected
Corrected.
I believe that and if we model that in our classrooms I think students will look at mistakes differently. I also like the 10 questions that you can ask students to help them with a growth mindset:
1. What did you do today that made you think harder?
2. What happened to you today that made you keep going?
3. What can you learn from this?
4. What mistake did you make that taught you something today?
5. What did you try hard at today?
6. What strategy are you going to try now?
7. What will you do to challenge yourself?
8. What will you do to improve your work?
9. What will you do to improve your talent?
10.You really tried hard on that, how do you feel?
Thank you to Kelly and Janelle for the opportunity to take this class. I will be using a lot of the suggestions in my classroom to promote a growth mindset!
Great ideas Sue! These are all very important to implement in a classroom.
Deletelove that mindset phrase!
DeleteI think I will put the Mistakes Are... on a bulletin board in my OT room. Love it. I have a BE PROUD bulletin board in the IEC. To get a star on the board you have to show effort and perseverance, ie. worked hard to learn to tie shoes. Stars are not easy to earn and once on the board the students always go back and read their stars.
DeleteI agree about the Mistakes are... idea. I definitely want to post that in the classroom and refer to it often. We have some students who have tantrums getting themselves all upset about making a mistake. I think using this language will be helpful. I think several messages from this book could be posted strategically around the classroom to get students to think.
DeleteI won't repeat what has already been said. I plan on making changes in my therapy sessions by spending time at the end to talk with students about the session in a growth mindset way. Tell me one thing you learned that was new? What did your hard work help you accomplish today? As I've said in previous posts I am rethinking praise although praising for effort and product is something we do regularly because therapy is about completely tasks and progressing.
ReplyDeleteI found this book study to be very thought provoking. A lot of self examination happened throughout the reading. Thank you for this opportunity.
ReplyDeleteI agree! Even knowing most of this and having a growth mindset I learned a lot and it was very helpful. I think this is things most of us know, we just forget about it over time. It has made me more conscious of how I do things in my classroom.
DeleteAfter reading chapter 8, there are a lot of changes that can be made in a classroom to promote a growth mindset:
ReplyDelete-Take on challenges: We should encourage our children to challenge themselves and not give up because something is too hard. Also, we shouldn’t just give them the answer right away if they are struggling. We need to let them think for themselves and productively struggle.
-Push through setbacks: Teach students to keep trying and not shut down just because they didn’t do so well. Help them set goals for how they can improve next time.
-Encourage effort: We need to teach students that if they put forth effort, they will see positive outcomes. Even if they make small changes to do better, this is effort. We should praise them for making changes and taking ownership to improve next time.
Promoting a growth mindset in your classroom is something that takes creative planning, love, trust, and a safe environment where children know that mistakes are something that happens often. There are many days that that during a math lesson I purposely calculate wrong so the students can see that I am not perfect. There are other days they catch me not on purpose as well. This all falls under Nobody is Perfect and we learn from these mistakes, we fix these mistakes and we move forward from these mistakes. I try to challenge my students everyday to work hard, try hard and set goals to get there. Thank you girls for sharing this read. Ideas well worth it!
ReplyDeleteI think we need to help the students feel safe about making mistakes. We need to praise and encourage effort and perseverance. I mentioned in my last blog that in third grade, some of us use a method of "2 stars and a wish" (Laree taught me this). This shows that everyone has done some hard work to be proud of, but everyone also has room to grow.
ReplyDeleteI don't know where I got the idea from; however, it does make it easier for students to evaluate their learning or a peer's learning.
DeleteThanks Kelly and Janelle. This was a great book and very insightful as well as reinforcing for some of the things I am already doing in my classroom. I will continue to create an environment where students feel comfortable making mistakes and taking risks. We will continue to discuss mistake and what we have learned from them. I will praise effort, perseverance and my students' best efforts. With a growth mindset our potentials are endless! Thanks for such a great book study.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everything everyone has said...It truly begins with how the teacher sets up the norms for their classroom.... praise thinking/process, not answers...create an environment where students feel safe and take chances...create goals...allow time to explore mistakes and model desired behaviors which will promote a growth mindset for your students to follow.
ReplyDeleteJosh, I agree we somehow have to find time for our students to explore mistakes.I know sometimes I am so focused on getting a task done I forget to allow time for a true resolution/plan for mistakes.
DeleteIn the video the Power of Yet, Carol Dweck talked about transforming the meaning of effort and difficulty. This really had an impact on me. I have a couple of students who see everything at school as difficult. Their fixed mindset doesn't allow them to give true effort. I think most of my students feel safe in the therapy room but for these students I will have to find ways to make it even safer. I will have to notice any effort and try to encourage a little more each time until they can do it on their own.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the book, I think it is imperative to change the words we use in our classroom. Just by changing the way we say things, we can go from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. It is like teaching them to look at the glass half full instead of half empty.
ReplyDeleteFor example:
"This it too difficult." to "This may take some time and effort."
"I give up." to "I think I will use some other strategies to help me."
"I'm not good at Math." to "I am going to train my brain in Math."
"I made a mistake." to "Mistakes help me to learn/improve."
"Plan A didn't work." to "I will try Plan B."
Also, I like the ideas of using feedback both from the students and teachers when a student is working on their improvement. I think if students write a message on their papers such as, "I worked through this, and I tried my best. I know I still need to improve. Could you offer some feedback?" Then, the teacher could write something back. Or, they could meet about it and discuss. But, using the language and having students actually take the time to think about what they are doing and taking ownership of their learning is important. If students felt like we were trying to help guide them through the process and we were in this together, it may help boost that growth mindset.
I really enjoyed this book and the conversation. I will definitely be utilizing the ideas in my classroom, as well as my own life. Thank you for the opportunity.
How can we as educators promote a growth mindset in the classroom? What are some ideas or activities you could try with your students?
ReplyDeleteI have already enjoyed sharing the video and having classroom conversations about growth mindset, and the Power of Yet. I stopped the video after each set of clues and let the students guess who. They were so excited to guess some of them. I loved hearing some of the ideas they shouted out before the reveal. We discussed the power of yet after I returned a set of scores. The students had created a poster project. The students self assessed their work, as well as had a peer assess it. I gave the final assessment and we talked about the results. We talked about the power of yet, and referred to it a number of times that day. I try to bring up that three letter word often as a part of our regular dialogue. We also made a tower of The Power of Yet in our classroom (a pillar of YET cards, illustrated and designed by the students) and they like the play in the language a bit.
I will continue to look for ways to reinforce these concepts, but the tower is there for the year! :-)
At the beginning of each year, I have a chat about mistakes, and how analyzing our errors helps us learn. In math, I have the students examine their errors and categorize them. I did this informally in the past. This year, I found an analysis form to use for the same purpose, but it is more structured and concrete.
I think so many of the students today have already developed a fixed-mindset. But there were a lot of ideas in the book, I will use to try and make small changes in my instruction to help foster the growth-mindset in my students. The one that really stuck with me was about asking questions without thinking through the directions:
ReplyDelete"Before the students ask a question, they are to think the question through for 2 minutes, reread the directions, and then ask if they still have a question. Students are so quick to ask questions about instruction or directions without thinking through the process and then rereading the directions first. They want immediate assistance. This idea will helps them to help themselves.
I have already used the idea of success sometimes happens once someone learns from their mistakes or failures. Students need to realize no one is perfect and that people they idolize usually have achieve various accomplishments through hard work and practice. Most people are not naturally talented or intelligent, but have achieved certain skills through perseverance and not giving up on their goals.
How can we as educators promote a growth mindset in the classroom? What are some ideas or activities you could try with your students?
ReplyDelete*I feel that it is important to create a safe environment where students feel safe to take risks.
*I believe it is important to stress that mistakes are part of learning.
*I think that students should be given time to self- evaluate and to reflect.
*I believe that it is important to celebrate each students individuality and to praise effort.
I also liked the 10 questions to ask your students and I plan to used them in my class..
I love all of the ideas presented here. Carol, Sue and I have the privilege of sharing space in our buildings. As Sue mentioned we have a great board in the IEC where we recognize accomplishments for students. The PEC is where we build the foundation but I think we can come up with a more specific approach to help children see that they can be vested in what and how they learn. It is funny, the 3 of us each have very different ways with our children but I can see how this new thought process has brought us together toward a common theme of encouraging a growth mindset. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteThis has been a great book experience. I know the next steps for me will be changing the language I use in the classroom. I like all the ideas that have been shared and will continue to seek out a "Mindset" focused language for my students.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the best ways to promote a growth mindset in the classroom is to expose students to the characteristics of each mindset. I like the diagram on page 245 in the book. I was trying to figure out a way to use that comments listed under each mindset to introduce both mindsets to third graders. As an easy activity, a teacher could place each comment on a separate card and mix them up. As each card is read, students would need to categories and look for similarities and differences among the comments. Eventually, a teacher could have students narrow the categories down to 2 large ones, finally creating a title for each (fixed and growth). Students could analyze and discuss how each label fits the characteristics underneath. Once students become familiar with each mindset, we could use characters from some of the stories we read to have discussions about what type of mindset the character might have during a given situation.
ReplyDeleteAnother activity I think would be helpful to help promote a growth mindset in the classroom would be to have students to fill out a reflection after taking a test….say a math test. They would be asked to looked through their graded test and tell about something new they learned or have gotten better at doing over the last few weeks. They could also tell about a skill or problem that continues to be challenging and design an actual plan on how to improve and get better.
Finally, as the teacher, I want to work on using more growth mindset comments and conversations with my students, while encouraging them to make mistakes to improve their learning.
Thanks Janelle and Kelly for offering this book talk and for being flexible with the end time. Not only this the "mindset" topic beneficial for school related interactions in the professional arena, it is helpful in personal interactions as well. I appreciate you offering this online course to your coworkers. Nice job ladies :)
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