Mindsets: Helping Our Children Reach Their Potential

Carol S. Dweck Self-Theories: Their Role in Motivation, Personality, and Development Other Work Mindset: The New Psychology of Success Brainology® Program (along with Lisa Sorich Blackwell, Ph.D)

“I don’t divide the world into the weak and the strong, or the successes and the failures… I divide the world into the learners and nonlearners.” - Benjamin Barber

Yet many of the things we do to help and to motivate our children make them into non-learners. Sometimes we put too much emphasis on Labels Test scores Getting into the right schools

Mindsets Fixed Mindset: Intelligence is a fixed trait Growth Mindset: Intelligence is a malleable quality; a potential that can be developed

How Do Mindsets Work? The Mindset Rules

Rule #1 Fixed Mindset: LOOK SMART OR TALENTED AT ALL COSTS Growth Mindset: LEARN, LEARN, LEARN

How Do Mindsets Work? Looking Smart is Most Important: “The main thing I want when I do my school work is to show how good I am at it.” Learning is Most Important: “It’s much more important for me to learn things in my classes than it is to get the best grades.”

Rule #2 Fixed: DON’T WORK TOO HARD “To tell the truth, when I work hard at my school work it makes me feel like I’m not very smart.” Growth: WORK HARD, EFFORT IS KEY “The harder you work at something, the better you’ll be at it.”

Do Geniuses Work Or Does it Just Come Naturally?

Rule #3 IN THE FACE OF SETBACKS… Fixed Mindset: CONCEAL MISTAKES OR DEFICIENCIES Growth Mindset: EMBRACE MISTAKES, CONFRONT DEFICIENCIES

How Do Mindsets Work? Strategies Helpless Response: “I would spend less time on this subject from now on.” “I would try not to take this subject ever again.” “I would try to cheat on the next test.” Mastery Oriented Response: “I would work harder in this class from now on.” “I would spend more time studying for the tests.”

Math Achievement in Junior High School growth fixed

“ The fixed mindset provides no good recipe for recovering from setbacks…” Carol Dweck

How are Mindsets Communicated? The Messages We Send

Praise Sends a Message Intelligence Praise: “Wow, that’s a really good score. You must be smart at this.” Effort (Process) Praise: “Wow, that’s a really good score. You must have tried really hard.” Control Group: “Wow, that’s a really good score.”

“Smart” Praise vs. Effort Praise MINDSETFIXEDGROWTH GOALLOOKING SMARTLEARNING AFTER DIFFICULT TRIAL CONFIDENCELOWHIGH MOTIVATIONLOWHIGH PERFORMANCEDECREASEDINCREASED

Number of problems solved on Trial 1 (before failure) and Trial 3 (after failure). Number of Problems Solved

Lying Students who misrepresented their scores Type of Praise Given percentagepercentage

Examples of Process Praise To Foster A Growth Mindset

Studying You really studied for your English test and your improvement shows it. You read the material over several times, you picked out the main points, and you tested yourself on them. It really worked!

Persistence It was a long and hard assignment, but you stuck to it until you got it done. That was really hard, but you never gave up! That’s impressive!

Trying Many Strategies I like the way you tried all kinds of strategies on that math problem until you finally got it. You thought of a lot of different ways to do this problem and found the one that worked! That didn’t work. Can you think of another way to do it? Great!

Praise for Challenge-Seeking I like that you took on that challenging project for your science class. Great choice. That project will take a lot of work—but you’re really going to learn a lot of wonderful things.

Compare: “You did that project beautifully. You see, you are smart. I’m proud of you” “You did that project beautifully. Your practice and hard work really paid off. Are you pleased?”

Low Effort Success You got an A without working. You must not be learning much. You did that so quickly and easily. I’m sorry I wasted your time. Let’s do something you can learn from.

Changing Mindsets Stress effort based learning Expect ALL students to learn - avoid rescue mode Be explicit with helpless vs. mastery responses Help students set learning goals Avoid making performance goals most important myth of praise

Types of Goals Performance Goals These goals are about winning positive judgments of your competence and avoiding negative ones – wanting to look smart and avoid looking dumb. They may be accomplished by playing it safe and completely avoiding mistakes or taking on a harder task that you’re pretty sure you’ll do well at. The best tasks for the purposes of looking smart are ones that are hard for others but not for you. Learning Goals These goals are about increasing your competence. It reflects a desire to learn new skills, master new tasks, or understand new things – a desire to get smarter.

Conclusion A growth mindset allows students to: Embrace learning and growth Understand the role of effort in creating talent Maintain confidence and effectiveness in the face challenges and setbacks

Conclusion A growth mindset allows students to: Embrace learning and growth Understand the role of effort in creating talent Maintain confidence and effectiveness in the face challenges and setbacks …and it can be taught.

EE Action Team Goals  Relentless commitment to effective teaching and the middle rings to reach educational equity.  Awareness and understanding of the barriers students experience that negatively impact student learning.  Develop effective relationship building strategies that connect parents and students to EVHS.

One Final Note A Growth Mindset for Educators Too As teachers and administrators, we must constantly be learning and improving—the world is changing, kids are changing, tools for acquiring knowledge are changing. If we don’t change too, how can we make sure our children fulfill their potential?

Thank you!