3/21/23: Some Practical Tips for a Growth Mindset

Back at it again!
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But First, A Chuckle!
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Devin Siebold: “What Teaching is Like Today”

Helpful Stuff

The “what” might be explicitly required in your curriculum and/or scope and sequence but the “how” is open for your creativity on how to reach students and help them learn.
Not every lesson needs to be a masterpiece (because let’s face it, some lessons are better as whole-group instruction) but even just little tweaks or 1-2 more options the “how” part can will yield incredible results for you and more importantly, your students and their learning.

For example, readying and studying a theatrical play while reinforcing the growth mindset principles could include reading a summary of the overall play and then having a student or group of students focus on a scene or two from an act and having them display their understanding and mastery of the standards through a skit, a song, a freestyle rap, an animated video, a comic strip, a podcast episode, or any of the other millions of creative options students have at their disposal.

The key here to model the growth mindset would be clearly-defined check-in points, where the teacher would check in with the students and give constructive feedback that models a growth mindset:

“You guys are on your way to really getting this down! Have you thought about trying ____ or ____?”

“Remember this a process, and it can get messy sometimes but we are all students, myself included, and we are getting better every day.”

Having the students struggle appropriately during class will reinforce the idea that learning involves struggle and that it’s OK because that results in growth.

It might also help to explicitly have conversations about the learning process and how each student’s struggles might be unique to that student but that all they’re struggling is helping them develop a growth mindset.

Journaling would also be a great option for them to reflect their stumbling blocks and how they overcame them, or at least brainstorm their plans of attack to reach their goal.

Remember Teachers: you are the captain of your ship, you steer and navigate a lot more and in a much more powerful way than you may think!

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A Little Inspiration

I recently had an experience with a student (we’ll call her “Riley”) that really lacked motivation and was doing everything and anything except the actual schoolwork.

At first I was very upset and annoyed because here I was bending over backwards to help Riley succeed academically and it felt like a slap in the face.

Like she didn’t appreciate anything I was doing and didn’t care enough to do the work.

I took two days to cool off and to be able to respond more rationally, as well as observe more closely what exactly she was and wasn’t doing. When I saw her again, I realized she had spoken to the principal, who had already made contact with Riley’s mom.

When she came to my class, Riley was very upset that her mom was being involved.

I explain to her that we reach out to the students first and if they are responsible and can resolve the issue themselves, we would all be happy to end it there. (Of course, we would discuss it in the following parent/teacher conference, but would not be a big fuss for the time being.)

I also explained that since most students don’t have the maturity to resole the situation on their own, it usually ended up with parental contact.

I consider this a huge win for me approached this discussion in a new way of explaining that I knew she was capable of more things and can work hard to do better than the expectations.

I also explained that parental contact goes both ways and if she did well I would reach out to mom and let her know.

This completely changed the tone of our conversation —she was excited to get a good phone call from school for what seemed to me the first time.

I am happy to say that that day Riley did TWO more activities than what was expected and the look of pride and accomplishment on her face was worth my two days’ struggle of trying to figure out how to solve the problem.

I called home and mom was elated to hear that her daughter had done very well that day. I also mentioned the slight struggle with motivation but told her what I was doing to help Riley stay focused and motivated including: one-on-one daily conferences/coaching sessions and frequent progress checks to let her know how she was doing that day.

Of course I know not every situation can work out like this but it was a nice win for me that will hopefully carry over to future students and situations where I need to approach it with giving the student the benefit of the doubt and keeping my ego and emotions in check.

As always, please forward this to any teacher that could benefit from this message and help spread the love!

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Keep changing the world!

Charlie with Shining Scholar Education

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