Growth Mindset Plan

By: Erika Peña
in collaboration
with Veronica Balli and Ileana Reyna

Growth Mindset

The Importance of a Growth Mindset

According to Stanford University psychologist, Carol Dweck, there are two types of mindsets people can have, a growth mindset or a fixed mindset. A “growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts, your strategies, and help from others.” On the other hand, a fixed mindset is “believing that your qualities are carved in stone.” People who have a fixed mindset believe that you are either smart or not (Dweck, 2006).

Having a growth mindset is essential and vital for success, especially in a school setting. Students that have a growth mindset believe that they can develop their abilities through hard work and dedication. Having this type of mindset creates a desire to learn while embracing challenges and persevering when setbacks arise (Jeffrey, 2020). It is important that we as educators also believe and develop a growth mindset in order to teach and model to students that failures can be a gift.

Steps to a Growth Mindset:

Learn to hear your fixed mindset “voice”.
Recognize that you have a choice.
Talk back to it with a growth mindset voice.
Take the growth mindset action.

Incorporating the Four StepS

“The key to changing your mindset lies first and foremost in self-awareness” (Jeffrey, 2020). We as an organization, will individually identify and listen to our fixed mindset voice. This is the voice that holds us back. The voice that makes us fear a challenge and fear failure.

While listening to our fixed mindset voice, we will recognize that we have a choice in which direction to go when faced with challenges, setbacks, and criticism. Shifting from listening to the voice that underestimates us to the voice that empowers us, is key.

In addition, we will use our growth mindset voice, the voice that is ingrained in positivity and believes in developing new skills, to talk back to our fixed mindset voice in order to encourage challenges and reach higher levels of achievement.

Lastly, we will take growth mindset action by “learning from setbacks, persisting without exception, and adjusting [our] actions based on feedback” (Jeffrey, 2020). As we take growth mindset action and fail forward, we will embrace our failures as learning opportunities and gain confidence while overcoming obstacles.

By following these steps we are reminded that learning is a process of purposeful engagement and that challenges, setbacks, and criticism are opportunities for growth.

The message of YET

Yet is a small word, but it makes a huge impact in our learning mindset. The word “YET” can take a negative statement full of self-doubt into a positive outlook. When our students are struggling with something challenging

and they tell us they can’t do it or they don’t understand it, we will respond by adding the word “YET.” For example, “I don’t know this, YET.”

This reminds our students that learning is a process and it is okay to fail forward. The word “yet” is not only powerful for our students, but also for our staff. We, as adults, must also make sure we walk the walk by saying this to ourselves when feeling discouraged or incapable.

Resources:

Videos for Students:

Class Dojo Growth Mindset Series:

Videos for Teachers and Staff:

Developing a Growth Mindset by: Carol Dweck https://www.youtube.com/watchv=hiiEeMN7vbQ&t=2s&ab_channel=StanfordAlumni
The power of believing that you can improve by: Carol Dweckhttps://www.ted.com/talks/carol_dweck_the_power_of_believing_that_you_can_improve

Websites for Students:

Khan Academy - Growth Mindset Activities - https://www.khanacademy.org/college-careers-more/learnstorm-growth-mindset-activities-us/elementary-and-middle-school-activities

Websites for Teachers and Staff:

Mindset Kit - https://www.mindsetkit.org/
Mindset Works - https://www.mindsetworks.com/

Books for Students:

The Most Magnificent Thing by: Ashley Spires
Rosie Revere, Engineer by: Andrea Beaty
Aaron Slater, Illustrator by: Andrea Beaty
After the Fall: How Humpty Dumpty Got Back Up Again by: Dan Santat

Books for Teachers and Staff:

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success: by Carol Dweck
Mindsets in the Classroom: Building a Growth Mindset Learning Community: by Mary Cay Ricci
The Growth Mindset Coach: A Teacher's Month-by-Month Handbook for Empowering Students to Achieve Paperback by Annie Brock

Implementation and Promotion

Preparing ourselves:

Believe in and model the mindset we’d like our students to embody.
Practice growth mindset responses in all situations.
Allow students to see teachers making mistakes and failing forward.

Preparation of our classrooms:

Teachers and staff will model how to create a personalized learning goal.
Students will create their own learning goals.
Students will create reference posters to display in the classroom to remind them to use their growth mindset voices.

Preparing our students:

Incorporate collaborative learning opportunities, videos, class discussions, and role-playing to practice and promote a growth mindset.

Teachers and staff will promote a growth mindset in the classroom and within the school community every moment of every day. We will encourage positive thinking and positive self-talk on a daily basis in order to cultivate a culture of growth.

Personal Impact

For many years now, I have taught and modeled growth mindset as an educator and parent. I have taught my students and my own children that challenges are opportunities to learn and grow. I have also instilled in them the power of the word “yet.” But when it came to me being a student again last semester, after more than ten years, I found myself having a very fixed mindset. I was anxious about the unknown and afraid of failing. I did not see the opportunity and growth that came with the challenges. As the semester progressed, I found myself reflecting more and more about the learning I was doing. Slowly but surely, my mindset began to shift. I began to embrace the feedforward, the challenges, and even the setbacks. Fast forward to this semester, and now I am enthralled with actively learning and embodying a growth mindset. I foresee that growth mindset will continue to greatly influence my life professionally and personally, especially as I continue my journey in the ADL program.

UPDate

After creating this Growth Mindset plan last semester, I read a meta-analysis titledTo What Extent and Under Which Circumstances are Growth Minds-sets Important to Academic Achievement that found that having a growth mindset alone will not significantly impact student achievement (Sisk, et. al., 2018). According to Harapnuik (2021), research has shown that simply adopting a new way of thinking, belief, attitude, or mindset without addressing other factors like changing the learning environments has no impact on improving learning or achievement (Sisk., Burgoyne, Sun, Butler, & Macnamara, 2018).

So how can we help students have a mindset that will help them grow academically and emotionally? According to Harapnuik (2021), if we implement a Learner's Mindset we can address some of the most significant limitations and criticism of the growth mindset. A learner's mindset is defined as a state of being where people act on their intrinsic capacity to learn and respond to their inquisitive nature that leads to viewing all interactions with the world as learning opportunities. This state enables one to interact with and influence the learning environment as a perpetual learner who has the capacity to use change and challenges as opportunities for growth (Harpnuik, 2021). In essence, a growth mindset is a part of the learner's mindset.

Implementing a Growth Mindset with our students is only the first step to a positive change. We must also incorporate a change in teaching and a change in learning environment to truly be successful in growing our students. By creating a significant blended learning environment that gives students choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities in conjunction with a learner's mindset, like we envision in our innovation project, Blended Learning: Personalizing the Future of Education, we can prepare our learners for the future.

References

Dweck, C. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success: How we can learn to fulfill our potential. Ballantine Books.

Harapnuik, D. (2021a, February 9). Learner’s mindset explained. It’s About Learning: Creating Significant Learning Environments. Retrieved April 16, 2022, from https://www.harapnuik.org/?p=8705

Jeffrey, S. (2020, June 23). Change your fixed mindset into a growth mindset [complete guide]. Scott Jeffrey. Retrieved February 12, 2022, from https://scottjeffrey.com/change-your-fixed-mindset/#A_4-Step_Process_to_Change_Your_Mindset

Sisk, V. F., Burgoyne, A. P., Sun, J., Butler, J. L., & Macnamara, B. N. (2018). To what extent and under which circumstances are growth Mind-Sets important to academic achievement? Two Meta-Analyses. Psychological Science, 29(4), 549–571. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797617739704

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Growth Mindset Plan

By: Erika Peña in collaboration with Veronica Balli and Ileana Reyna

Growth Mindset

By: Erika Peña
in collaboration
with Veronica Balli and Ileana Reyna