1. Promoting Grit, Growth Mindset, and Metacognition in Our Students
Kentucky Exceptional Children’s Conference
Dr. Cindy Clemson
Murray State University
November 20, 2017

2. Questions to Think About:
What do you already know about:
Grit
Growth Mindset
Metacognition
Please share with your neighbor

3. Why Discuss These Three Together?
What do Metacognition, Growth Mindset
and Grit all have in common?
All can be taught
All correlate with academic success
Metacognition and Growth Mindset support Grit

4. Grit
“Perseverance to accomplish long-term or higher-order goals in the face of challenges and setbacks, engaging the student’s psychological resources, such as their academic mindsets, effortful control, and strategies and tactics.”
Angela Duckworth

5. Grit
Looking at all factors of success…social intelligence, physical health, IQ….it is grit that is a significant predictor of success (Duckworth, 2013).

6. Grit https://youtu.be/H14bBuluwB8 Angela Lee Duckworth’s work:
Grit is the power of passion
and perseverance

7. Angela Duckworth’s Grit Scale
How Gritty Are You?
Angela Duckworth’s Grit Scale

8. To Develop Grit – Teach a Growth Mindset
Fixed mindset - Students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits. They have a certain amount and that’s that.
Growth mindset - Students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching and persistence. They don’t necessarily think everyone’s the same or anyone can be Einstein, but they believe everyone can get smarter if they work at it.
Carol Dweck, Stanford University

9. Growth Mindset Carol Dweck: The Power of Yet!
“Test scores and measures of achievement tell you where a student is, but they don’t tell you
where a student could end up.”

10. Growth Mindset
Fixed – Students believe intelligence is fixed, you are born with a certain amount of intelligence.
Growth – Students believe intelligence is like a muscle and the more you challenge it and work it the more intelligence you will have
How a person attributes failure: those who attribute failure to their own inability-“I’m not Intelligent” become helpless because it is something they CAN’T control
Those who interpret failure as a result of insufficient effort or an ineffective strategy dig deeper and try different approaches. This is something the student CAN control

11. Developing a Growth Mindset
Teach about Failure – What did you learn? How can you improve?
5 Great Questions to Ask Yourself After a Failure
Examples of famous people who failed before they succeeded
to an external site.)Links to an external site.

12. Developing a Growth Mindset

13. To Develop Grit and Growth Mindset Teach Metacognition Strategies
Metacognition is a tool to support grit – perseverance to reach a goal.
i.e. assess the demands of the task, evaluate their own knowledge and skills, plan their approach, monitor their progress and adjust their strategies as needed
Having a growth mindset supports perseverance

14. Metacognition
Knowledge about one’s own knowledge, thinking about one’s own thinking, and learning about one’s own learning
Set of processes involved in monitoring and directing one’s own thinking
One’s ability to monitor, evaluate, and make plans for one’s learning…. effective learning involves planning and goal-setting, monitoring one's progress, and adapting as needed

15. Metacognition Students don’t know what they know or don’t know
Teach how to: Plan, monitor, and evaluate one’s learning

16. Metacognitive Strategies for Elementary Students

17. Metacognitive Strategies for Elementary Students
Begin with explicit lesson on metacognition: driving a brain car
Super Powers for Learning – Super3 teaches plan, do, and review. Turkey Trouble (Silvano, 2009)
To teach selective attention – Calm Cool, the Listening Rabbit.
To teach working memory – use Memory Pegs

18. Metacognitive Strategies for Middle and High School Students
Metacognitive Assignment Wrapper
Evidence based study strategies
Exam planning
Exam wrappers (reflection)
Metacognitive Reading
Modeling
Think like a _____ e.g. biologist
Reflection
Muddiest Point
2 minute paper

19. How Are You Teaching Metacognition
Currently doing? Any planning or reflective activities?
What might we create to support metacognition?

20. Takeaways
How might you leverage anything that we have discussed today?
Share with one other person.

21. References
Ambrose, S. A., Bridges, M. W., DiPietro, M., Lovett, M. C., & Norman M. K. (2010). How learning works: Seven research-based principles for smart teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Arthur, P. (2017). Enhancing metacognition, grit, and growth mindset for students. Atlanta: National First Year Experience conference
Bjork, R., Dunlosky, J., and Kornell, N. (2012). Self-regulated learning: Beliefs, techniques, and illusions. Annual Review of Psychology.

22. References (cont.)
Duckworth, A.L. (2016). Grit: The power of passion and persistence. New York: Scribner.
Dweck, C.S. (2007). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York: Random House.
Nilson, L. (2013). Creating self-regulated learners: Strategies to strengthen students’ self-awareness and learning skills. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.
Tanner, D. (2012). Promoting student metacognition. CBE Life Science Education, 11, 113–120
Wilson, D. & Conyers, C. (2016). Teaching students to drive their brains. ASCD. Alexandria, VA.