A mindset is generally thought of as a mental attitude, inclination or state of mind — a fixed state of mind by many definitions. A person’s mindset combines their intelligence, personality and talent as well as their experiences, education, prejudices and other informative factors. The question is whether these are truly fixed traits or if individuals can cultivate and change them. In her decades of research on achievement and success, psychologist Carol Dweck, Ph.D., identified two types of mindsets: fixed and growth.
According to this delineation, people with a fixed mindset believe their qualities and talents are unchangeable. They also believe that talent is a prerequisite for success. Those with a growth mindset, on the other hand, take the approach that their most basic abilities can be nurtured through hard work and dedication.
For instance, teachers who decide to advance their education and career potential with the online Master of Science in Education (MSEd.) in Curriculum & Instruction – General program from Northwest Missouri State University leverage a growth mindset to work toward goals and self-improvement, modeling that mindset to their school community. Talented people reach great achievements through practice and dedication. For curriculum and instruction leaders, supporting and engendering a school-wide growth mindset can help create a culture of meaningful learning and engagement, growing, continuous improvement and achievement for teachers and students alike.
The Growth Mindset in Education
Facilitating a growth mindset and continuous improvement in educational settings can be challenging. Teachers tend to praise students’ smarts. However, this feedback promotes the fixed mindset and limits learning. In taking a growth-mindset approach, educators focus on students’ hard work and the process used to find a solution.
It is important to understand that encouraging a growth mindset takes more than effort. Effort is one part of the equation. The other part requires helping students learn from experiences they try that do not work and encouraging them to explore and test more ideas — essentially facilitating inquiry-based learning. Educators adopting a growth mindset must view it as a journey that requires follow-through.
Dr. Dweck’s studies show that praising students’ actions and efforts can lead them to undertake more challenges and succeed. On the other hand, students with a fixed mindset may get stuck — believing they are not smart enough and cannot do anything to change it. Therefore, students with the fixed mindset may be unlikely to tackle challenges, feeling it is pointless to try. Conversely, adopting the growth mindset reframes challenges as opportunities to grow, or “fail better.”
The Growth Mindset for Teachers
As noted above, teachers can benefit from the growth mindset, too, whether pursuing their own continuous improvement or inspiring growth in colleagues and students. Educators can spur improvement through learning how to model the growth mindset for their students and colleagues, creating a cyclic expansion of a growth-oriented culture. Here are a few ways curriculum and instruction professionals can foster the growth mindset in themselves and others:
- Try new activities and make mistakes. A growth mindset involves testing new ideas and approaches. Rather than focusing on whether the idea or approach will succeed or fail, work to learn from the process.
- Reflect on learning. To create space for new ideas, it is important to include time for reflection. Teachers reflect on what they have learned from the process.
- Use formative feedback. Formative feedback is provided on an ongoing basis and helps students — and teachers — improve as they go. Summative assessments — like midterm exams, final projects for students and performance reviews for teachers — assess the student’s or teacher’s performance at the end of an instructional unit or school year. Switching from summative feedback to formative feedback throughout learning and teaching experiences enables continuous improvement for students and teachers. It therefore makes the feedback more meaningful and applicable.
Engendering a Growth Mindset Culture Takes Time
Encouraging the school and staff to move from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset will not happen overnight. Educational leaders who understand the effectiveness of the growth mindset can start by learning how to provide effective feedback.
These professionals can pursue professional development opportunities and develop their abilities to help others improve through advanced graduate program coursework. For instance, Northwest’s online MSEd. in Curriculum & Instruction includes the course Feedback and Goal Setting. This course helps educators learn how to evaluate performance and give feedback in constructive, useful and actionable ways, further inspiring self-reflection and self-evaluation in teachers and students. This type of reflective, constructive environment fosters a collective growth mindset.
How can educators implement a growth mindset in their classrooms? Dr. Dweck and others propose legitimizing and normalizing the growth mindset while recognizing that human mindsets exist in a continuum, rather than an either/or binary between a fixed- or growth-oriented mindset. The purpose of helping students and others understand that growth is possible with intent, effort and feedback is to develop their belief that they exist in a spectrum of mindsets and can choose to move along that spectrum.
Normalizing the possibility of growth can make a mindset shift a realistic prospect for students who otherwise may never truly develop intellectual self-efficacy. Thus, helping students develop a more growth-oriented mindset can support continuous improvement in their lives far beyond school — the ultimate goal of the educator.
Learn more about Northwest’s online MSEd. in Curriculum & Instruction – General program.
