Throughout the years, teachers have guided students to become their best by promoting a growth mindset. Recently, a study proved this effectiveness.
A recent study from California’s CORE School Districts found this paradigm helps students learn more and score higher on standardized tests.
That’s why more teachers may want to adopt this approach. Learn how to develop a growth mindset in students to help them get the most out of their education.
How to foster a growth mindset in students
The American University School of Education defines a growth mindset as the belief that one can “acquire abilities through effort and study.”
On the other hand, a fixed mindset represents the opposite, meaning a belief that abilities are innate and unchangeable.
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Stanford University professor and psychologist Carol Dweck popularized the concept. In 2006, her book, “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success,” promoted it.
SoE recommends the following strategies so that teachers can foster a growth mindset in the classroom:
- Normalize struggle by explaining to students that it’s part of the learning process. Consequently, they’ll react positively when they feel challenged.
- Encourage engagement with challenges by making them fun and exciting.
- Promote the word “yet.” For example, if a student says they’re “not a math person,” correct them by saying, “You’re not a math person yet.”
- Emphasize the value of hard tasks for the brain. Students must view them as ways for their brain “muscles” to develop.
- Demonstrate mistakes and celebrate corrections as learning opportunities.
- Set incremental, achievable goals for students to attain growth and progress.
- Host group projects to promote the importance of working together and requesting assistance in finding solutions.
- Avoid praising intelligence so that students won’t view it as a fixed trait. Otherwise, students who receive compliments may think they don’t need to improve further. Also, those who didn’t may give up.
- Don’t oversimplify by saying general encouragements like, “You can do anything!” If students continue to fail challenges, these positive phrases may seem useless. Consequently, students are less likely to believe their teachers.
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Does it work?
The recent growth mindset study came from California’s CORE School Districts. It used an ample sample size of over 200,000 students and underwent peer review, ensuring its credibility.
The participants rated their beliefs about intelligence and learning on a scale from 1 to 5. Then, the researchers compared these growth mindset ratings with their standardized test data.
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As a result, online educator community We Are Teachers reported students with a growth mindset outperformed those with a fixed one.
Specifically, they learned the equivalent of 33 extra days in English class and 31 extra days in Math.
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We Are Teachers admitted that the study shows the growth mindset’s flaws. Specifically, those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds tend to have lower growth mindset scores than their peers.
Nevertheless, the group encourages educators to promote this paradigm in students to boost their learning potential.