Schools regularly revisit the growth mindset theory developed by Stanford University psychologist Dr Carol Dweck (2006), and they are wise to do so.
It is after all a real lifeline for us. The theory is based on the belief that our abilities, skills, performance and even our intelligence can all improve with the right mindset and targeted intervention.
The research and writing that accompanies the theory has aided with promoting its essential message. Books have been written to convey the power of the growth mindset at all levels. Excellent examples include:
- I Can’t Do That, YET: Growth mindset – by Esther Pia Cordova, Createspace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017.
- The Cow Tripped Over the Moon – by Tony Wilson, Candlewick Press, 2015.
- She Persisted: 13 American women who changed the world – by Chelsea Clinton and Alexandra Boiger, Philomel Books, 2017.
School leaders are aware that investing in the growth mindset can reap phenomenal rewards: it improves students’ response to feedback, increases self-esteem, and enables them to feel empowered about their journeys.
However, while schools are generally good at illustrating the theory of growth mindset, what is more challenging is its day-to-day implementation. Fortunately, there are a number of steps we can take straight away.
Meaningful, individualised, and thoughtful praise
Students can see right through a tokenistic compliment rather quickly. For teachers, this means that we must get creative about the ways in which we word our feedback so that it serves its intended purpose: to encourage our students to take pride in their work and strive for even better.
A small first step towards this is to use students’ names in their exercise books. An instant connection is made. Keeping the praise specific helps: “Zara, I love how unique your nocturnal metaphors are.” This will mean much more than: “Great use of language techniques.”
Praise their methods, strategies, effort, persistence, enjoyment, courage, and the willingness to try.
In my experience, a few telephone calls home on a Friday afternoon with the explicit purpose of praising a student’s effort can have amazing results.
At the Ridgeway Education Trust, we use postcards home as one of our main reward currencies and, not surprisingly, we have found that a handwritten note that reaches home does wonders for a young person’s self-esteem.
It is worth sharing with our students that praise is both a validation of their efforts and achievements but also an invitation to a challenge. Unfortunately, praising effort constantly and mindlessly with meaningless phrases can be redundant, counterproductive and can quickly lose impact.
Normalise failure
As schools we are beginning to realise that we need to remove the stigma around failing and failure. Part of having a growth mindset is acknowledging, accepting, and unpacking failure in order to grow from it.
Viewed this way, failure becomes an opportunity to develop, and I would even say that I welcome it from time to time! I have found that sharing experiences of failure is as powerful as sharing stories of success.
Journaling or reflecting in any suitable way, even for subjects like maths, in order to understand the learning and cognitive process is very powerful. It enables our students to analyse the approaches used and be reflective about their individual learning.
Unfortunately, the obsession with perfection and getting it right all the time (no doubt exacerbated by examination pressure) does not ultimately serve the purpose of letting people improve and grow.
Teachers worldwide will testify that many students can become so fearful of getting it wrong that the anxiety around “failure” often prevents them from trying in the first place. At Ridgeway Education Trust, we endeavour to talk about failure openly and honestly, enabling our young people to realise that it is a shared universal experience that need not hold them back.
Welcoming a good challenge
As teachers, we are perfectly placed to role-model how exciting and gratifying a challenge can feel. We grow as a result of embracing challenges, both academic and emotional, but this is not necessarily how every young person will view a difficult test question.
Model your thought processes when you encounter a challenging question – talk them through your approach and be as open as possible. This is the sort of connection students really love. Allow students to see that challenges can feel difficult yet rewarding.
The over emphasis on crispness and slickness can sometimes alienate students and work against us. The reality is that learning is sometimes messy.
The human mind is accustomed to fear tests of any kind but changing mindset can change the game completely. When my student leaders prepare to make speeches to large crowds, I invite them to visualise being successful and view their nervousness as excitement instead of dread.
The good news is that our brains are very responsive to such persuasion and our performance when tackling a challenge of any sort will be vastly improved as a result.
As part of this, of course, it is important to teach and model risk-taking; our students will benefit by learning how to weigh out the consequences, plan ahead, and watch out for their own fears and anxieties. Armed with this knowledge, the growth mindset can be particularly effective as we are giving students more autonomy over their learning process and validating their individual approach to risks and challenge.
Exams and tests can make the strongest of us wary and uncomfortable, but a change in attitude alongside carefully modelled risk-taking can help to overcome these obstacles. It is transformational to remind young people that our beliefs about ourselves have the power to transform our thinking, our actions and our lives.
Dismantle the myth that growth mindset is magic
Here is where we stand to lose a lot of buy-in from young people. It is important to convey that the growth mindset leads to incremental, yet significant gains. When these accumulate, the overall picture looks phenomenal. It is a marathon not a sprint, but happily the rewards come along the way and not just at the end.
Situations do not change rapidly in most cases. However, the magic comes from how our fundamental beliefs about ourselves can change our entire life’s course. It comes from realising that when we believe that our intelligence and abilities are fixed or determined, we develop an unhealthy obsession with proving ourselves rather than believing that we have the capacity to keep growing.
Dr Dweck has addressed this misconception in the latest edition of her book (2017). In order to convey this to students we need to become more cognisant of the incremental gains and progress – not just in results but also in attitude, revision, preparation, commitment.
According to Grant et al (2018), a growth mindset is made up of “the dual belief that skills and abilities can be improved, and that developing your skills and abilities is the purpose of the work you do”. Encourage students to look back and become more conscious of progress and begin to track just how far they have come both in terms of skills and abilities.
Don’t always glorify hard work
Don’t insist on it being enjoyable: this may sound somewhat counter-intuitive, but sometimes it is important to come clean with students about hard work being, well, hard!
I confess to my students when I find some aspect of the topic heavy or dull and I acknowledge that there are times when revision can feel onerous.
Equally, the rewards of consistent hard work and sincere effort more than make up for the process.
Validating students’ experience both when they are enjoying lessons and when they are not, ultimately makes it easier to get them on board. Keep an eye on the result – yes enjoy the process but don’t expect it to feel rewarding at each stage.
Furthermore, I believe students benefit a great deal when we distinguish “working hard” from “working smart”. My eight years of teaching at a girls’ school has presented numerous examples of students working much harder than they needed to. The reminder (with modelling) that efficient, smart, and flexible ways of working can be just as effective if not more so is an important one. The sooner we teach young people to organise, prioritise and multi-task the better.
Final thoughts
From a personal perspective, the growth mindset has been invaluable in a much wider sense too, extending far beyond the academic world. It allows me to acknowledge that I have the ability to keep learning, growing, and evolving as a mother, as a teacher and as an individual.
The idea that my personal growth is boundless and infinite makes me excited and immensely curious about myself. The growth mindset allows me, if I may quote Einstein, “to comprehend a little of this mystery each day”.
Growth mindset at a glance
- Take time to dismantle the myths around the growth mindset; ensure that students understand what it really means.
- Thoughtful, tailored praise for students.
- Visual displays of growth mindset theory.
- Encourage young people to have a vision and keep revisiting it.
- Teach students to track and acknowledge any progress.
- Invite students to welcome a challenge.
- Delineate working hard and working smart.
- Talk openly about failure.
- Dr Gohar Khan is director of ethos and associate senior leader at the Ridgeway Education Trust in south Oxfordshire. Her subject specialism is English and she has a PhD in post-colonial English literature.
Further information & resources
- Dweck: Mindset: The new psychology of success, Random House, January 2006.
- Dweck: Mindset: How you can fulfil your potential, Robinson, January 2017.
- Grant et al: Five mistakes companies make about growth mindsets, Harvard Business Review, July 2018: https://bit.ly/3HYXXFW