Growth Mindset - an introduction for parents Tessa Ford SIA

How many of these have you used or heard being used?

Carol Dweck and Mindsets Carol Dweck’s research has revealed that we all hold mindsets about our intelligence, ability, personality, etc. Roughly half of us hold fixed mindsets about our intelligence, thinking that our successes are due to innate, natural ability or talent and our failures are due to a lack of these qualities. Roughly half of us, on the other hand, hold a growth mindset about our intelligence, believing that our successes are caused by such factors as effort, application and good study skills, and believing that failure is remediable: we’ll need to work harder, apply better strategies, seek appropriate support and intervention, etc.

“Students who hold a growth mindset do better in school, teaching a growth mindset enhances their achievement. There may not be a correlation between the mindset one holds and one’s performance until students encounter difficulty. For many students the challenge-levels they experience in school can be perceived as low – they might not encounter many concepts which they regard as problematic, difficult and demanding. They may well be developing fixed mindsets, and differences arise once difficulties are encountered: individuals with fixed mindsets tend to show low levels of resilience, persistence and creative problem- solving, and therefore fail to make progress, whereas individuals with growth mindsets thrive on adversity, and grow new ways of coping and progressing”. CDCD

Implicit Theories Scale – (Adults) 1 Strongly agree 2 Agree 3 Mostly agree 4 Mostly disagree 5 Disagree 6 strongly disagree A.People have a certain amount of basic intelligence, and they can’t do a great deal to change it ___ B.People can change even their basic qualities ___ C.People can do things differently, but the important parts of who they are can’t really be changed ___ D.Intelligence is mostly a function of one’s genetic inheritance, and it doesn’t change much ___ E.No matter who you are, you can significantly change your intelligence level ___ F.No matter who somebody is and how they act, they can always change their ways ___ G.Someone’s personality is a part of them that they can’t change very much ___ H.People’s cognitive abilities are fluid and readily changeable ___

Totals ScoreMindset Extremely Fixed Strongly Fixed Mildly Fixed Balanced Mildly Growth Strongly Growth Extremely Growth

Why do Mindsets matter?

A passion for learning  Actively seek out new challenges  Welcome opportunities for intellectual development  Embrace problems and develop creative solutions  Welcome opportunities for collaborative learning

Challenge in the Learning Pit

Dangers of being ‘clever’

“As educators we have a huge responsibility to support our students in developing a growth mindset which engenders a lifelong love of learning, not a short-term obsession with performance” Carol Dweck GRITGRIT

Praise

“It has become common practice to praise students for their performance on easy tasks, to tell them they are smart when they do something quickly and perfectly. When we do this we are not teaching them to welcome challenge and learn from errors. We are teaching them that easy success means they are intelligent and, by implication, that errors and effort mean they are not.”

“ What should we do if students have had an easy success and come to us expecting praise?” “We should apologise for wasting their time and direct them to something more challenging. In this way we may begin to teach them that a meaningful success requires effort” (Dweck, Self Theories)

Establishing a Growth Ethos Stress that:  Intelligence and ability can be cultivated  Effort is required for learning  Effort grows connections in your brain which make you smarter  The brain is like a muscle which strengthens with exercise and you need to ‘work out’ to get bright.  Don’t attribute difficulty to fixed intelligence  Avoid defensive withdrawal of effort

YET!