Mindsets: Helping Our Children Reach Their Potential

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Mindsets Helping Our Children Reach Their
Potential
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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)

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I dont 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

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• 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

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Mindsets

• Fixed Mindset Intelligence is a fixed trait
• Growth Mindset Intelligence is a malleable
  quality a potential that can be developed

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How Do Mindsets Work?

• The Mindset Rules

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Rule 1

• Fixed Mindset
• LOOK SMART OR TALENTED AT ALL COSTS
• Growth Mindset
• LEARN, LEARN, LEARN

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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
• Its much more important for me to learn
  things in my classes than it is to get the best
  grades.

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Rule 2

• Fixed DONT WORK TOO HARD
• To tell the truth, when I work hard at my school
  work it makes me feel like Im not very smart.
• Growth WORK HARD, EFFORT IS KEY
• The harder you work at something, the better
  youll be at it.

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Do Geniuses Work Or Does it Just Come Naturally?
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Rule 3

• IN THE FACE OF SETBACKS
• Fixed Mindset
• CONCEAL MISTAKES OR DEFICIENCIES
• Growth Mindset
• EMBRACE MISTAKES, CONFRONT DEFICIENCIES

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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.

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Math Achievement in Junior High School
growth
fixed
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• The fixed mindset provides no good recipe for
  recovering from setbacks Carol Dweck

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How are Mindsets Communicated?

• The Messages We Send

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Praise Sends a Message

• Intelligence Praise Wow, thats a really good
  score. You must be smart at this.
• Effort (Process) Praise Wow, thats a really
  good score. You must have tried really hard.
• Control Group Wow, thats a really good score.

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Smart Praise vs. Effort Praise
MINDSET FIXED GROWTH
GOAL LOOKING SMART LEARNING
AFTER DIFFICULT TRIAL AFTER DIFFICULT TRIAL AFTER DIFFICULT TRIAL
CONFIDENCE LOW HIGH
MOTIVATION LOW HIGH
PERFORMANCE DECREASED INCREASED
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Number of problems solved on Trial 1 (before
failure) and Trial 3 (after failure).
Number of Problems Solved
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Lying Students who misrepresented their scores
percentage
Type of Praise Given
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Examples of Process Praise To Foster A Growth
Mindset
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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!

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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!
  Thats impressive!

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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 didnt work. Can you think of another way to
  do it? Great!

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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
  workbut youre really going to learn a lot of
  wonderful things.

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Compare

• You did that project beautifully. You see, you
  are smart. Im proud of you
• You did that project beautifully. Your practice
  and hard work really paid off. Are you pleased?

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Low Effort Success

• You got an A without working. You must not be
  learning much.
• You did that so quickly and easily. Im sorry I
  wasted your time. Lets do something you can
  learn from.

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Changing Mindsets
myth of praise

• 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

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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 youre pretty sure youll 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.
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ConclusionA 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

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ConclusionA 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.

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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.

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One Final NoteA Growth Mindset for Educators Too

• As teachers and administrators, we must
  constantly be learning and improvingthe world is
  changing, kids are changing, tools for acquiring
  knowledge are changing .
• If we dont change too, how can we make sure our
  children fulfill their potential?

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Thank you!