Transcript What is Growth Mindset?

Growth Mindset
Elgin Academy
What is Growth Mindset?
• "In a fixed mindset students believe their basic
abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just
fixed traits. They have a certain amount and
that's that, and then their goal becomes to look
smart all the time and never look dumb.
• In a 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, Mindset
Growth Vs Fixed
Fixed Vs Growth
• Ability cannot change.
• Look smart and talented at all
costs.
• New challenges may make
you look thick if you are not
good automatically so stay
clear of them.
• “The main thing I want when I
do my school work is to show
how good I am at it.”
• Mistakes = lack of ability. So,
don’t be seen making
mistakes.
• Ability can change and grow.
• Learn, learn, learn.
• Take on new challenges to let
your ability grow.
• “It’s much more important for
me to learn things in my
classes than it is to get the
best grades. The grades will
come as a result”.
• Mistakes = a chance to learn
how to get better next time.
• Feedback helps me grow
• Grow from within; “I can do
that”. Rather than needing
the teacher telling pupils,
“you can do that”
Why a Growth Mindset?
• From a practical point of view, staff would
recognise pupils with a fixed mindset who are
scared to contribute to class discussion for fear
of looking stupid; who take one bad test result of
a sign that they cannot do the subject, are going
to fail and therefore give up; who will not try
anything new for fear of getting it wrong; who will
persevere with the same approach to their
learning even when it is not working rather than
being creative and finding a different solution.
Why a Growth Mindset?
• In Scotland, we have a considerable dropout rate from
Further Education and in 2010 the figure reached a
staggering 28%.
• A recurring theme for youngsters who leave school
having only known success in exams is they suddenly
find University a challenge and begin to fail for the first
time in their academic career – “Sir” or “Miss” are not
there to help them pass the exam.
• Many fixed mindset students give up and believe they
are incapable of turning things around. For many
Growth mindset youngsters there will still be challenges
and some will also drop out but the mindset to grow and
learn from the hard times statistically helps them pull
through.
Why a Growth Mindset?
• “Teachers and schools spend an ever
increasing amount of effort trying to
directly motivate students from the
outside. A more effective approach is to
motivate from the inside by using students'
positive states to draw them into learning.”
Alan McLean, The Motivated School
How to create a Growth
Mindset?
• The school will be taking the following approaches to develop a
Growth Mindset with youngsters:
• Being very open and frank about the approach. i.e. making
everyone aware of what they can achieve by adopting such a
mindset.
• Using feedback and praise designed to promote and highlight
Growth mindset.
– Praising effort, commitment and learning from mistakes to reach goals rather
than short term praise for doing well.
– “Praise the journey not the destination”
• Showing pupils that their brain and body can physically achieve
more through training and effort.
– This will be sessions to highlight the biology of learning.
• Giving clear and inspirational examples of others who have used
their Growth Mindset to great effect.
• The opportunity for pupils to think about, discuss and write about
how adopting a growth mindset has helped them achieve.
Can we help promote a Growth
Mindset at home?
• Yes.
• We’re not trying to tell people how to bring up
their children.
– I hate it when my mother-in-law gives “advice” on
bringing up my son let alone a stranger telling me.
• However, if the methods being used in school
can be echoed at home, it helps youngsters to
hear a recurring theme and start to believe in
their ability to grow.
Michael Jordan
Chris Hoy
Up till 2004, Hoy had won two World Championships, one
Commonwealth gold and one Olympic Gold in his speciality
race – the 1 kilometer time trial. In 2005 the Olympic
Committee removed the “kilo” from the Olympic programme
and people said he wouldn’t win again due to his style of
cycling.
Hoy didn’t give up, he reinvented himself.
With hard work and determination he won 5 Olympic Golds,
4 World Championships and one Commonwealth Gold in
events he was supposedly not capable of doing.
Maybe because they were so gifted and won so easily, they didn‘t really have the
desire to work hard when they had to, and they also didn’t like the feeling of losing
when it happened.”
Chris Hoy on why he surpassed the more “talented” kids:
Scott Forstall
Scott Forstall, senior vice president of Apple in charge of
iphone software, talks about his experience of putting
together the iPhone development team.
He identified a number of the highest flying superstars within
various departments at Apple and asked them for a chat.
At the start of each interview he warned the recruit that he
couldn’t reveal details of the project but promised the
opportunity, “to make mistakes and struggle, but
eventually we may do something that we’ll remember the
rest of our lives.”
Only people who immediately jumped at the challenge
ended up on the team. He wanted people who valued
stretching themselves over those obsessed with being the
best all the time yet being scared to try something new.
Katherine Grainger
• Katherine won Olympic Silver at the Sydney,
Athens and Beijing games.
• Many people would have been delighted at this…
Catherine wasn’t.
• Some suggested that she may be too old (37) to
compete at the next Olympics.
• She believed she could still grow her ability, worked
hard for a further 4 years, took on board
constructive criticism and set her goals.
• She won Gold at London 2012!
YET
Growth Mindset
Hard work beats talent when
talent doesn’t work hard.
http://www.centreforconfidence.co.uk/
http://mindsetonline.com/
http://www.mindsetworks.com/
Dr Carol Dweck’s, “Mindset: How you can fulfil your
potential” is available in most book shops and online.
Chapters 1, 2, 7 and 8 are most suited to youngsters.
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