Growth Mindset Made Simple

Remember when Growth Mindset was the go-to school improvement silver bullet?

At the time, with alarm bells ringing over yet another silver bullet with which educators could could shoot themselves in the foot, we asked Dr Phil Wood of Leicester University's Department of Education, what he thought.

He suggested we check out Carol Dweck's original research, detailed her earlier book, Self Theories.

So we did.

Self Theories in Four Ideas and One Mantra

This is what we found, distilling it down to four ideas and one all-important mantra.

We feel that now all the hype around Growth Mindset has subsided (cog sci anyone?), these ideas remain important and of use to teachers everywhere:

Challenge

Don’t focus on how easy a child finds a task but on the level of challenge they felt was involved.

The purpose of the task is not its completion with the highest score possible, but embracing a suitable level of difficulty (not ease).

And if you don’t know what that level is, let the child choose.

You’ll be surprised.

Learning

‘What have you learned?’ is a far better question than ‘What mark did you get?’.

Children will be honest if you ask them what they have actually learned (just be ready for ‘We did this in Year Six, miss!’).

And by learning we don’t just mean new knowledge and skills but what they have learned about themselves too.

Effort

One child has scored five out of ten.

Another has scored ten out of ten.

One of these children tried twice as hard as the other.

The thing is, you don’t know which.

Make how hard you tried — or rather how hard you had to try — part of any feedback discussion when it comes to learning.

Strategies

‘How did you manage to get two out of ten?’ is a far better response than ‘Must try harder!’.

Whatever a child achieves in their learning, they will have used certain strategies.

Some more useful than others.

The more you focus on improving them, the more you move children away from ‘becoming’ their results.

The Golden Rule:

When all said and done, if we had to sum up Self Theories and Growth Mindset, it would be in one single, simple mantra:

You are not your exam results.

Whether you are dealing with the child (often high-achieving girls according to Dweck) who gets her first ever non-A grade and feels a failure or the boy who never shines academically, make sure they know they are so much more than any grade or score could ever measure.

Or, in the words of one 18-year-old who has benefited from this Golden Rule:

"The idea of 'You are not your exam results' has enabled me to have control over the impact my results have on me.

I have learnt never to let a percentage define me, but to accept progress and change.

A result isn’t who I am.

It will never determine my intelligence."

Perfect! [ITL]