Educators are worn out. We feel overwhelmed. We doubt our effectiveness. We question our purpose. And amid our self-doubt and anxiety about the state of education, we are bombarded with admonitions to silence our negative emotions, deny our anguish, and at least pretend that everything
How do we help students to believe in themselves--to believe they can master complex content, and that effort determines their academic success? If they are behind academically, it’s not because there is something wrong with their brains or their “ability” is deficient. I will mention malleable ability throughout this article (malleable ability means ability
Just Google “growth mindset” and it won’t take long to uncover the storm of controversy over this popular theory. It’s well-known by now that several studies have shown that mindset has a low effect size of 0.19 (Nottingham, 2018). Proponents say mindset is being done wrong; the opposition
I am a huge fan of Rocky and I’ve watched the movie a dozen times. Do you know what the 72 steps Rocky ran up were made of? They were made of mindset (and stone too). The character of Rocky Balboa possesses growth mindset in
Each fall students, teachers, and parents join together to support the academic curriculum of their classes. In a typical classroom, the first days of school are allocated to teachers and students getting to know each other and learning the classroom protocol for successful learning. During
We often say that we learn from our failures. But neuroscience does not completely agree. The reality is that humans are more likely to learn from mistakes if they have experienced a sufficient amount of success. The brain produces motivation by the secretion of dopamine in
“You don’t have to be bad to get better.” We all have room to learn and grow, regardless of our level of experience or expertise. For educators, adopting a growth mindset is essential to the complex work of teaching and learning. How does mindset impact instructional leadership? According to
In the long run, the most useful form of assessment is self-assessment, right? We want our students to know whether they’ve finished a task without asking someone else; to know whether they need help, more research, or polish; to know whether they have done or
People with growth mindsets are people who are limitless—they can do anything they put their mind to, simply because they are willing to roll up their sleeves and complete the hard work of learning new skills, all while reflecting on progress made, and progress yet
Having a growth mindset means focusing on effort, revision of work, and learning from each situation in order to develop intelligence. But do traditional curriculum design efforts lend themselves to this type of thinking? Usually not. Traditional curriculum is often linear, and students are tested