Developing Growth Mindsets

We discussed earlier the learning power of a growth mindset.

It can help students push through challenges, enhance their performance, and close stubborn achievement gaps.

Why might the growth mindset have such a large influence on us? Earlier, we introduced a model, illustrating how non-cognitive factors interact and influence one another.

That model suggests that mindsets affect range of other factors, including social skills, learning strategies, academic behaviors, and perseverance.

And if students can improve in these interconnected areas, they're highly likely to perform better.

Over time then, we can help students shift from a negative cycle to a more a virtuous one, with each small positive change increasing momentum for further positive ones.

So how can we do this? What follows are five strategies to encourage a growth mindset.

First, set high standards and expectations.

Students will tend to strive toward whatever bar we set.

If we keep it low, we're likely to suppress achievement.

If we set it too high, and don't provide proper support, students will give up and we'll just reinforce a fixed mindset.

Instead, set standards and expectations that are ambitious but attainable.

This requires really knowing your students and your material, but once you're confident you've set the right standards, then you can ask a lot from them.

For instance, the growth mindset framing tool, which can be found on the Mindset Works website, provides guidance on how to communicate learning goals.

It suggests telling students, this is going to be challenging to learn but all of you can reach that goal, stretch for it.

One of the great gifts of teaching is seeing students succeed when they didn't think they could.

Keep in mind, when you're truly challenging your students, to let them know that struggle is an integral part of the learning.

We all struggle and can get confused when we encounter new intellectual challenges.

It's normal so set high standards and expectations but also provide ongoing support.

Second, establish short-term, achievable goals.

Students may give up in the face of high standards, especially students who have a fixed mindset.

To help them, offer practical strategies that break down tasks into smaller steps they can reach.

Each small step they achieve leads to a small win.

Over time, those small wins reinforce their sense of self-efficacy and confidence in moving forward.

Third, give meaningful feedback.

Teachers who have mastered the pedagogy of growth mindset provide ongoing, constructive feedback.

They're careful not to correct mistakes that students can fix on their own but otherwise, they're continuously helping students to identify their own mistakes, explain them, and articulate what can be learned.

The more we help students become comfortable with honest mistakes, and use them to respond differently the next time, the more they'll come to believe in the process of learning itself.

Remember, not all feedback is constructive.

When I was a kid, I used to get essays back with just a grade.

It was a form of feedback, but it gave me no sense of how to get better.

What mattered, those teachers seemed to be telling me, was just that single grade, not producing better writing the next time.

Other times, teachers mark passages vague.

In junior high, when vague was written on my paper, I had no idea what my teacher didn't understand about what I had written.

I wish those teachers had offered comments instead.

For instance, this passage confuses me.

I think you're trying to say the following but right now, I'm not sure.

Then I would have understood what I needed to explain differently.

It would have given me enough support to know what I needed to do, but left the actual work of doing it to me.

Now, be careful when giving feedback about simply telling students to work harder.

If they don't know what to do because they don't have the necessary knowledge or skills or don't realize they do, you can easily push them toward a more fixed mindset.

But if they're capable, asking them to work harder can be a great thing, especially if you tell them you're expecting a lot because you believe they have the capacity to do well and just observe to make sure they do.

Next, be sure that students are able to use in meaningful ways the important feedback you give them.

As the educator Dylan Wiliam says, "the only thing that matters about feedback "is what students do with it." Finally, we need to provide the time for students to process the feedback we give them and then directly apply it to revise their work.

Useful feedback improves performance by developing more effective effort, something that students can see in a way that fuels the growth mindset.

Without the opportunity to improve the quality of their effort, students are unlikely to improve and this can cause them to revert to a fixed mindset.

I'm trying really hard, but it doesn't seem to work, so maybe I'm not so smart.

Meaningful feedback that students will use breaks this cycle.

Fourth, praise carefully.

Praise is essential but we must give it carefully.

Let's start with three common forms of praise to avoid.

First, avoid praising students for working hard alone or for a long time.

What matters is effective effort, not just trying an unworkable strategy over and over.

This means we need to help them discern productive effort from effort that doesn't really lead to improvement.

A later session of this course will describe how to help students develop effective learning strategies.

Second, avoid praising students for something that isn't worthy of praise and definitely avoid meaningless jargon, such as every mistake is a step forward.

Students can smell mindless praise from a mile away.

They tend not to hear what you've said, but rather, I don't know you, or I don't actually believe you can do this.

Finally, avoid praising students for personal traits.

Calling a child gifted or saying you're so smart can produce students who won't take risks for fear of confirming that they're not gifted or not smart if they don't succeed.

The best kind of praise then focuses on the process of learning.

It acknowledges what students did right, what effective steps they took, and what adjustments they made.

Dweck suggests saying something like, well done, you tried different strategies and you figured it out or, wow, you really practiced that the right way and look at how much you've improved.

Help students see how to try to hard and work effectively and you'll put them on the right path to learning.

Fifth, embrace the word "yet".

In a TED Talk, Carol Dweck notes, just the words yet or not yet give kids greater confidence because you convey your belief that they're capable of mastering the skill with effort.

Not yet encourages greater persistence.

Students need to feel that you believe in their capacity to do well through their own effective effort and hard work.

These five techniques we've described promote the growth mindset and bring a cascade of other self-reinforcing benefits.

In subsequent sessions, we'll discuss ways to help students translate a growth mindset into higher academic performance.

All this won't transform students overnight but over time, these methods can bring real and powerful results.