Growth Mindset An introduction to Teaching and Learning at Hatfield Peverel Infant School

This presentation is based on the work of Carol Dweck who has greatly influenced the work of our school and helped raise achievement. It is all about MINDSET.

What is Mindset?

Born SMART….? Am I smart? What do you think? Let’s find out!

There are two beliefs about intelligence

Believes:  Intelligence is CARVED IN STONE  Scores in a test MEASURE POTENTIAL  Intelligent people shouldn’t have to WORK HARD  Failure reflects a LACK of INTELLIGENCE Fixed Mindset

Growth Mindset Believes:  Intelligence is MALLEABLE  Learning requires HARD WORK and EFFORT  ALL individuals CAN LEARN and improve  We CANNOT MEASURE a person’s POTENTIAL

Research questions asked in a primary school – fixed mindset answers:  What is learning? ‘SATs’, ‘Getting it right’ (being better than others)  When do you do your best learning? ‘When we’re doing things I’m good at’ (wants to be seen as being clever)  What do we do in school that does not help you? ‘Gives me things which are too hard’ (defeated by challenge)  What does your teacher do to help you learn? ‘Tells me what to think when I’m stuck’ (helplessness ) Is this what we want our children to believe?

“Intelligence is not a fixed quality, determined at birth by one's genes. Rather, it is a variable that can be developed at every stage of life.” (Reuven Feuerstein) At HPIS we believe…

 As Carol Dweck says “successful individuals love learning, value effort and persist in the face of obstacles”.  “Changing mind-sets is not like surgery,” she says. “You can’t simply remove the fixed mind-set and replace it with the growth mind-set.”

So how can we help increase motivation and ultimately achievement too?

Increasing motivation and achievement Reaching for success is HARD WORK; you need lots of EFFORT, useful FEEDBACK and PRAISE to get there!

Increasing motivation and achievement So what do we need to focus on to maximise impact in the classroom and make a difference for all learners?  Praising effort  Thinking skills  Opportunities for building independence  Questioning, dialogue and talk: communication  Feedback – the steps to making progress  Practical strategies in the classroom: reflection, discussion, questioning, sharing, risking, fun, teamwork!

Some of these things will sound familiar as we have been promoting them through our E.R.I.C. Project! Praising EFFORT Thinking skills Questioning, dialogue & talk: COMMUNICATION Feedback – the steps to making progress Practical strategies in the classroom: reflection, discussion, questioning, sharing, risking, fun, teamwork! Opportunities for building INDEPENDENCE Mindsets to learning

From a set of 6 studies of children…. Praised for effort Praised for ability goals90% of the group created learning goals 66% of the group created performance goals enjoymentcontinueddecreased persistencecontinueddecreased performanceimproveddeclined lied about scores one individual40%

The effects of praise Swimming: “You do your best swimming when you concentrate and try your best to do what Chris is asking you to do” “You’re the best swimmer in the world!” What do you think the effect of these kinds of praise is?

Praise that gets in the way of learning:

What to praise?  Effort, motivation, struggle and persistence despite set backs  Strategies and choices  Choosing difficult and challenging tasks  Learning, improving It makes a real difference!

How to praise I liked the way you tried different strategies on that problem I enjoy watching you stretch yourself and trying to learn more challenging things You put so much thought into this story, I really could see all the settings and characters clearly That picture has so many beautiful colours in it. Tell me about them.

What if the child didn’t do well? I like the effort you put in, but lets work together on the bits you didn’t understand Everyone learns things at a different rate but if you keep trying like this you will get there Everyone learns in a different way let’s keep trying to find the one that works for you

“What the research shows consistently is that if you face children with intellectual challenges and then help them talk through the problems towards a solution, then you almost literally stretch their minds. They become cleverer, not only in the particular topic, but across the curriculum.” Prof. Philip Adey, 2008

“Some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing as something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all-in which case you fail by default”. JK Rowling

“My secret is to practice. I have always believed that if you want to achieve anything special in life you have to work, work and then work some more”. David Beckham

Q “Do you ever fall in?” A “About 20 times a day.” Lewis Cranthern“

“Since starting skating, I must have fallen and hit the ice over 20,000 times” Shizuka Arakawa Olympic Gold Medal Winning Skater

“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed” Michael Jordan

We’re good learners, when we’re stuck we….