untitled The Learning Myth: Why I'll Never Tell My Son He's Smart By: Salman Khan Join the #YouCanLearnAnything movement My 5-year-old son has just started reading. Researchers have known for some time that the brain is like a muscle; that the more you use it, the more it grows. What this means is that our intelligence is not fixed, and the best way that we can grow our intelligence is to embrace tasks where we might struggle and fail. However, not everyone realizes this. The good news is that mindsets can be taught; they’re malleable. The Internet is a dream for someone with a growth mindset. And now here’s a surprise for you. — You can view the original op-ed in Huffington Post here.
Developing a growth mindset in the classroom | M J Bromley's Blog There’s a free info graphic version of this article. To download it, click here. As a kid I wanted to become a cliché when I grew up so I bought a guitar and grew my hair. What all these childhood endeavours had in common – apart from their mutual failure – was that I took it for granted that I’d have to work hard at them, I knew I’d have to practise endlessly and that I wouldn’t become expert overnight. I played that old six-string every night after school till my fingers bled, readily accepting that improvement would be incremental. Most of us feel this way about our interests. And yet when it comes to schooling – to mastering English or maths or science – we often forget the importance of hard work and practice. By creating a culture in which students believe that their abilities are preordained, and in which they are either good at a subject or not, we discourage them from taking risks, from making mistakes. Why should this be? Free info graphic version of this article: Like this:
Why the Growth Mindset is the Only Way to Learn “You’re too old to learn a foreign language.” “I couldn’t work on computers. I’m just not good with them.” “I’m not smart enough to run my own business.” Do you know what these statements have in common? When you have a fixed mindset, you believe that at a certain point, what you have is all you’re ever going to have: You’ll always have a set IQ. The problem is, this mindset will make you complacent, rob your self-esteem and bring meaningful education to a halt. In short, it’s an intellectual disease and patently untrue. The fixed mindset’s antithesis, the growth mindset, may be the cure. Dr. But before the good news, we have to address the bad. The Fixed Mindset in Action Do you find yourself trying to prove how smart you are? These are all symptoms of a fixed mindset. Within a fixed framework, progress is impossible. But where do these mindsets come from? According to Dweck, they’re formed very early in life – and it’s actually possible a mindset like this was useful. Find peers
untitled Becoming a growth mindset school The idea of becoming a growth mindset school has been over a year in the making. Our Headteacher bought each member of SLT a copy of Mindset for Christmas, and it was the main agenda item at our annual senior team conference. Today I launched the idea of becoming a growth mindset school to all staff at our INSET day. This is the basis of the presentation I did. Our INSET session was for all staff – teaching, support, administrative, catering, site, network, technicians – everyone! It was essential for us, if we’re going to begin the process of shifting the culture of the school, that all staff are working together as one coherent team. What is Growth Mindset? Professor Carol Dweck and “Mindset” Growth Mindset is the idea Professor Carol Dweck, the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. Dweck’s approach to mindset was sparked by her own experience of education. The Science behind Growth Mindset Establishing a growth mindset works in just the same way.
Developing a Growth Mindset in Teachers and Staff The New Psychology of Success (2000), Dweck developed a continuum upon which people can be placed, based upon their understandings about where ability comes from. For some people (at one end of said continuum), success (and failure) is based on innate ability (or the lack of it). Deck describes this as a fixed theory of intelligence, and argues that this gives rise to a ‘fixed mindset’. At the other end of the continuum are those people who believe success is based on a growth mindset. These individuals argue that success is based on learning, persistence and hard work. According to Dweck: In a fixed mindset students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits. The crucial point for individuals is that these mindsets have a large impact upon our understanding of success and failure. Needless to say, this idea of mindsets has significant implications for education. Crucially, Dweck’s research is applicable to all people, not just students.
New Research: Students Benefit from Learning That Intelligence Is Not Fixed Arten Popov Teaching students that intelligence can grow and blossom with effort – rather than being a fixed trait they’re just born with – is gaining traction in progressive education circles. And new research from Stanford is helping to build the case that nurturing a “growth mindset” can help many kids understand their true potential. The new research involves larger, more rigorous field trials that provide some of the first evidence that the social psychology strategy can be effective when implemented in schools on a wide scale. Even a one-time, 30-minute online intervention can spur academic gains for many students, particularly those with poor grades. The premise is that these positive effects can stick over years, leading for example to higher graduation rates; but long-term data is still needed to confirm that. However, all the original intervention studies were small and left some educators and policymakers unconvinced. A Light Touch Leads to Meaningful Change
Creating a Growth Mindset in Your Students Belief that you can become smarter and more talented opens the doorways to success. That’s what twenty years of research has shown Carol Dweck of Stanford University. She has identified two opposing beliefs about intelligence and talent, beliefs that strongly impact our ability to learn. Though the fixed mindset has traditionally held sway, many recent studies show that the growth mindset better represents our abilities. In her book Mindset, Dweck outlines the dramatic effect that these opposing beliefs have on learners: As you can see from this chart, the fixed mindset leads to many of the learning and discipline problems in school, while the growth mindset leads to optimal learning. In one such study, urban Milwaukee students who were at risk for mental retardation were entered into an intensive education program prior to first grade. Alfred Binet created the IQ test for a very similar application—to raise the intelligence of Parisian schoolchildren. “Never!” 5 Steps to Growth
Ethical issues in teacher-led research | Evidence into practice At the last research leads event at Cambridge, I raised the issue of ethical considerations where teachers engage in research. Here are some thoughts: First of all, it’s important not to over-state the seriousness of ethical issues in teacher-led research within schools. The sorts of things that most teachers ‘investigate’ are close enough to the activities which take place as part of ordinary teaching in schools that ethical issues are not a major concern: Trying out a new writing frame, creating a formative assessment to identify misconceptions, developing questioning techniques, adapting materials to help EAL students access learning, implementing low-stakes quizzes to help consolidate previously taught topics, etc. Teachers already have a duty of care towards their students and should simply exercise professional judgement when planning innovations in their teaching. BPS: Code of Human Research Ethics (The British Psychological Society, 2010) Minimising Harm “Minimising Harm.
Teaching strategies to create 'growth' mindsets As a kid I wanted to become a cliché when I grew up so I bought a guitar and grew my hair. I successfully learnt all the chords but struggled to combine them in a meaningful way (perhaps I should’ve joined an experimental jazz band instead of churning out 1980s power ballads). When my dreams of rock stardom eventually withered on the vine, I turned my attention to mastering magic, then to conquering chess, and to all manner of other hobbies. What all these childhood endeavours had in common – apart from their mutual failure – was that I took it for granted that I’d have to work hard at them, I knew I’d have to practise endlessly and that I wouldn’t become expert overnight. I played that old six-string every night after school till my fingers bled, readily accepting that improvement would be incremental. Most of us feel this way about our interests. And yet when it comes to schooling – to mastering English or maths or science – we often forget the importance of hard work and practice.
Developing a growth mindset | Class Teaching I’ve decided to use the spring break as an opportunity to catch up on some long overdue reading – starting with ‘Mindset’ by Carol Dweck. The theory explored in this book is that there are two types of mindset – fixed and growth. The diagram below summarises the main qualities exhibited by each one: It’s obvious to see the relevance of this to us as teachers and Dweck presents a very compelling case for it. So what follows is an initial attempt to look at each of the qualities of the ‘growth mindset and some of the strategies and techniques we use as teachers to develop this in students. Links to other relevant posts and blogs have also been included, within this post. Embrace challenges Tell students that they will be doing challenging learning in lessons – and tell them why you think they will be able to do it. Persist in the face of setbacks Show students strategies they can use when they become stuck e.g. use the 5Bs: Think carefully about your questioning. Learn from criticism Like this: