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Classroom Strategies to Foster a Growth Mindset

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Classroom Strategies to Foster a Growth Mindset

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Education Week - Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo

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The question asked last week was:

What are actions teachers can take to help their students develop a growth mindset?

As Professor Carol Dweck -- one of authors of today's guest response and the developer of the term and concept -- has written elsewhere:
Individuals with a fixed mindset believe that their intelligence is simply an inborn trait--they have a certain amount, and that's that. In contrast, individuals with a growth mindset believe that they can develop their intelligence over time.
Thanks to Professor Dweck's work, I have been explicitly applying this concept in the classroom for the past few years, but won't take up space here to share my experiences. Instead, I've developed a list of resources you can access here.

We're lucky today to have Professor Dweck and Dr. Lisa Blackwell, the co-founder of the organization designed to help schools be more effective in helping students develop growth mindsets, as the co-authors of today's guest response.

In addition, several readers offer their comments.
Response From Carol Dweck & Lisa Blackwell
Dr. Carol Dweck is the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, and internationally renowned expert on mindsets and motivation. Her colleague and Mindset Works co-founder, Dr. Lisa Blackwell, is a former school leadership coach and the principal designer of Brainology. She is currently VP of Design, Implementation, & Evaluation at Mindset Works, which offers curricula, professional development, and tools that foster a growth mindset in students and educators. Learn more about deepening student motivation at Mindset Works:

Students typically begin each new school year with a mixture of anticipation and anxiety. Will their teachers be supportive or severe? Will they succeed or not? Adding to the anxiety is the fear of public embarrassment if they do have difficulty. Here is a 5 th grader talking about how he feels about challenges and about making mistakes in class:

Our research ¹ on the growth mindset ² shows that students who believe they can grow their basic abilities have greater motivation and higher achievement than do students who believe their abilities are fixed, and that teachers can influence students' mindsets. The beginning of the new school year is a great time to establish your classroom as a growth mindset environment. Here are some things you can do right away to lay a foundation for growth all year:

1) Establish high expectations (not just high standards). Research by Geoffrey Cohen and colleagues shows that this increases motivation in vulnerable students. So let students know that you are challenging them because you know that all of them have the ability to meet those expectations. For example:

Use lesson-framing language that outlines high expectations, as in this Growth Mindset Framing Tool. For example, when introducing a new topic, you can tell your students, "This will be a challenging concept to learn, but all of us can reach the goal. I want you to stretch."

Write comments to your students that contain specific feedback on ways to improve, along with an explanation that you are providing it because you believe they have the capacity to develop a high level of skill in that area.

2) Create a risk-tolerant learning zone. Let your students know that you value challenge-seeking, learning, and effort above perfect performance, and that the amount of progress they make individually is more important than how they compare to others. Make it clear that mistakes are to be expected and that we can all learn from them. For example:

At the beginning of the year, write a letter to your students saying how much you look forward to supporting their individual growth, and explaining that mistakes are welcome in your classroom. (See this Welcome Back Letter contributed by a middle school teacher.)

When you introduce a new topic or assignment, tell students they should expect to find some things confusing and to make initial errors. Ask kids to share their "best" mistake of the week with you, and what they learned from it (and do the same yourself).

3) Give feedback that focuses on process--the things students can control, like their effort, challenge-seeking, persistence, and good strategies--not on their personal traits or abilities. Avoid praising children for their "smartness," and instead help them understand the importance of their own actions in achieving success. Claudia Mueller and Carol Dweck ⁶showed that praising students for effort triggers growth mindset thinking. But many students think that effort is simply doing something for a long time, or doing the same thing over and over. Instead, help your students understand the many ways to employ effort effectively, such as seeking out challenges, setting goals and making plans, using creative strategies, and sticking with it when they are having difficulty. For example:

Recognize your students' effort with tools such as this Effective Effort Rubric ⁷ and teach them to use it to self-assess and build on their effort strategies.

Give feedback that is appropriate to the situation--for example, don't praise effort if the student did not work hard. See theGrowth Mindset Framing Tool ⁸ for sample language in situations where students worked hard and succeeded, made an effort but have not yet met the goal, or did not exert effort.

4) Introduce students to the concept of the malleable mind. Recent research in neuroscience shows that our brains develop through effort and learning, and that they are more malleable than previously thought. Teaching this can be a powerful way to help students develop a growth mindset about their own ability. For example:

Have your students read and discuss an article about the malleable brain, such as You Can Grow Your Intelligence.⁹ Let students know that when they are practicing hard things their brains are forming new connections and making them smarter. Instead of feeling dumb when they struggle, they will learn to "feel" those connections growing.

Teach students about how the brain changes with learning and how they can build their brains with effective learning strategies through programs like the Brainology ¹⁰ blended learning curriculum.

By introducing the growth mindset into your classroom early in the year, you can begin to build a culture of growth that will support your students as learners all year long.
Modelling growth mindset in how we speak and act with kids is probably the most important thing we can do.
I love how Dweck's research helps us to question the focus on grades, awards, tests, and results and places the focus on descriptive feedback that both supports and challenges the efforts of students.

One of our Board Trustees said it best when I presented our school's plan that included the work of Dweck. He said, "with a focus like this, you basically remove any excuse why a child cannot be successful in school. Keep the focus on effort and with the support of us, children will achieve more."

All kids have strengths but the conversation needs to be on why they have these strengths and the purposeful practice that has gone into developing an interest and/or strength in this.
Jeff Carpenter Teachers can tell stories of their own growth experiences - anecdotes from their own lives that show how they developed their own intelligences. They should probably at least have examples of how they became smarter as teachers! We can help our students take a growth mindset by taking ourselves off the "all-knowing-teacher" pedestal.
Sharing anecdotes from Gladwell's Outliers or the various studies that find the importance of diligent practice (eg., Bloom 1985; Winner 1996) could provide examples of growth, in addition to the teachers' own examples.

llynwalton:

I think well crafted self evaluations of personal student work that allows students to explore alternatives to their thinking can be a powerful way to help students consider alternatives to a fixed mindset.

When a forced choice evaluation is presented, students are often faced with the cognitive dissonance necessary to choose an alternate way of thinking. Self evaluation allows a teacher to accept student response while providing opportunity for quality directed feedback, hopefully in the form of questioning, assurance, clarification, and mutual respect.

I think kids won't change their mindset in an environment void of caring and kindness. They have to feel, and believe, that a change in thinking will produce a change in results, and that their teacher will notice, care, and value their journey. Learning is a partnership, and valuing students for who and where they are at the introduction, and celebrating their growth (meaningfully, not based on something as dry and impersonal as standardized test scores) while they are a learner in your classroom (and beyond if the teacher is so fortunate) until the time of departure gives purpose to the work of teaching.

Extra Credit?:
Teaching a growth mindset is a challenge in our current education and social structure.
The best a teacher can do is to allow students to work through the failure process, without grades being viewed as a negative consequence, but as a means of growth through failure.

Remember, school is about grades and not mindsets. If we want to teach a student how to develop a mindset we need to provide students with appropriate motivation to fight through their current and misplaced view of failure. As a psychology teacher I teach this within my curriculum. I also teach the learning process, both cognitive and affective. Once students see learning as a process of growth through improvement, the rest is easier to get intrinsic buy in.

Also, intrinsic motivation to improve your ability to grow mentally is a must. This is very difficult within our current education structure which says those who have little social interaction with other students during class and can read and comprehend, are successful students. Actually, our education system says the opposite about success. Growth and failure are bad and conformity with blind agreement is good, where the teacher is viewed as the giver of knowledge.

Complete growth isn't good is our schools today, I wish it were though.

Thanks to Doctors Dweck and Blackwell, along with readers, for taking the time to contribute their responses!

Please feel free to leave a comment sharing your reactions to this question and the ideas shared here.

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at [email protected] .When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it's selected or if you'd prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo.

Anyone whose question is selected for this weekly column can choose one free book from a selection of seven published by published by Jossey-Bass.

Just a reminder -- you can subscribe to this blog for free via RSS Reader or email....

And,if you missed any of the highlights from the first year of this blog, you can check them out here.

I'll be posting a new "question of the week" on Thursday.

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Response: Classroom Strategies to Foster a Growth Mindset

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The question asked last week was: What are actions teachers can take to help their students develop a growth mindset? As Professor Carol Dweck -- one of authors of today's guest response and the developer of the term and concept -- has written elsewhere: Individuals with a fixed mindset believe that their intelligence is simply an inborn trait--they have a certain amount, and that's that.

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Using Flexible Participation in Technology-Supported Universal Designed Preschool Classrooms

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Using Flexible Participation in Technology-Supported Universal Designed Preschool Classrooms

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Virginia Department of Education - Technical Assistance  - UDL

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Virginia Department of Education - Technical Assistance  - UDL

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Margaret Vaughan, M.Ed.

For the early childhood world, Universal Design for Learning suggests that instructional design encompass a range of flexible learning materials and activities.

Consider for a moment a typical state-sponsored early childhood classroom for 4-year-old children. To qualify for the program, a child must be 4 by Sept. 30. Within the classroom, there may be a child whose birthday is Sept. 29, and one whose birthday is on Oct. 1.
Therefore, a student who is turning 4 at the end of September could have a classmate who is essentially a year older. The difference a year can make between two children consists of many developmental milestones and growth variations. Added to the mix in the classroom are students with differing backgrounds, experiences, cultures and languages. And as more students with disabilities are educated with their peers, it is common to see them enrolled in these programs as well. This is a common picture of many early childhood communities. How then do teachers meet the needs of so many, while considering the individual strengths and contributions of each student, and still meet learning standards and goals for both students and the program?

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a blueprint or framework for supporting all learners of any age. The three principles of UDL, as put forth by the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST), the designers of UDL, call for:

Multiple means of representation, to give learners various ways of acquiring information and knowledge

Multiple means of engagement, to tap into learners' interests, offer appropriate challenges and increase motivation

Multiple means of action and expression, to provide learners alternatives for demonstrating what they know (CAST, 2009, p. 1)

Figure 1

Multiple means of representation

What other formats can I use
to enhance or replace this
book?

Can I find multiple copies of
the book to allow better
access for students?

Do I need to add visuals to
the book to assist in
understanding?

Are the pictures in the book
abstract or more concrete,
and how can I change that to
reach children on differing
levels of understanding?

Is there software I can use to
supplement and enhance this
story?

Multiple means of engagement

What else might I need to do to
engageall students?

How do I ensure that this
activity is not designed for one
"level" of student?

How can I make this experience
unique and exciting?

Will the group size matter?
Should I change that?

Does the activity include
movement? If not, how can I add
that component?

How long have the children been
sitting up to this point? Let me
consider that.

How can I encourage student
involvement and discussion?

What is students' prior
knowledge with this information?
(Without a solid foundation of
prior knowledge, children cannot
learn new information.) How will
I/do I gather this information?

What kind of feedback and
encouragement can I offer to
students who need it?

Multiple means of action and expression

What are some of the
forms that expression
could take? (talking,
writing, reciting,
illustrating, selecting,
describing, reporting,
following directions,
showing, etc.)

How can I facilitate these
experiences?

Do I have the means to
allowevery student the
ability to communicate and
interact in some way with
peers and teachers?

For the early childhood world, UDL suggests that instructional design encompass a range of flexible learning materials and activities. These learning materials and activities should incorporate a variety of opportunities and ways (visual, auditory, kinesthetic and tactile) to access the curriculum goals and learning objectives, offer multiple methods by which to process information and include a range of methods for students to demonstrate their knowledge and learning. To put it simply, UDL encourages early childhood environments to exhilarate children's senses with exciting, engaging and authentic learning opportunities; to give them the ability to create, explore and manipulate materials; and to participate in diverse and meaningful learning experiences at the level and comfort dictated by their strengths and needs.

Sheryl Burgstahler, Ph.D., suggests that universal design can be applied to all aspects of instruction - teaching techniques, curricula, assessment - as indicated in the following guidelines:

Class climate. Adopt practices that reflect high values with respect to both diversity and inclusiveness.

Interaction. Encourage regular and effective interactions between students and the instructor and ensure that communication methods are accessible to all participants.

Physical environments and products. Ensure that facilities, activities, materials and equipment are physically accessible to and usable by all students and that all potential student characteristics are addressed in safety considerations.

Delivery methods. Use multiple, accessible instructional methods that are accessible to all learners.

Information resources and technology. Ensure that course materials, notes and other information resources are engaging, flexible and accessible for all students.

Feedback. Provide specific feedback on a regular basis.

Assessment. Regularly assess student progress using multiple, accessible methods and tools and adjust instruction accordingly.

Accommodation. Plan for accommodations for students whose needs are not met by the instructional design. (Burgstahler, 2008)

Many of these guidelines fall into the three principles of UDL, but may not be obvious areas of consideration when using the framework to inform teaching practices.

So what do the guidelines and suggestions look like in action in an early childhood classroom? Let's take a look at an activity that occurs on a daily basis in preschool classrooms and see how the planning and facilitation of the activity interface with the UDL framework.

Activity: Reading a book during large group or circle time
Often the activity looks like this: The teacher sits in front of the students with a book in hand or on an easel. She/he talks about the front and back of the book, the author, the title and maybe the illustrator. The book is read, and questions are asked. There may be a follow-up activity related to the plot or the characters in the book.

Using the UDL framework, some questions that teachers should ask themselves while planning for this type of activity are presented in Figure 1. These questions will help ensure that UDL principles are a component of their teaching design.

The population of students in classrooms everywhere will continue to grow more diverse. Striving to reach the needs of all students should continue to be an idea that needs to be front-and-center on our radar as professionals. UDL is an avenue that can continually assist with that challenge. The more familiar teachers are with its components and guidelines, the easier it will become to use it as an integral component of their classroom blueprints.

To learn more about UDL, please visit:

www.cast.org - Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST)
CAST is a nonprofit organization that works to expand learning opportunities for all individuals, especially those with disabilities, through the research and development of innovative, technology-based educational resources and strategies.

www.design.ncsu.edu/cud - Center for Universal Design, North Carolina State University
This is a national information, technical assistance and research center that evaluates, develops and promotes accessible and universal design.
www.washington.edu/doit/Brochures/Academics/equal_access_udi.html - Equal Access: Universal Design of Instruction
www.ccids.umaine.edu/ec/growingideas/univdestip.htm - Growing Ideas - Increase Access: Universal Design in Early Care and Education
This site provides some ideas about UDL and early childhood.
References
Burgstahler, S. (2008). Universal design in education: Principles and applications. Retrieved December 15, 2009, from http://www.washington.edu/doit/Brochures/Academics/ud_edu.html

CAST. (2009). What is universal design for learning? Retrieved December 15, 2009, from
http://www.cast.org/research/udl/index.html

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UDL 101 in the early childhood environment

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Margaret Vaughan, M.Ed. For the early childhood world, Universal Design for Learning suggests that instructional design encompass a range of flexible learning materials and activities. Consider for a moment a typical state-sponsored early childhood classroom for 4-year-old children. To qualify for the program, a child must be 4 by Sept.

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Touching the Surface of Universal Design for Learning

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An introduction for workshopping lesson plans

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https://sites.google.com/site/udlguidelinesexamples/home

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Double-Click on a black space to share a resource, question, or you thoughts/illustration of understanding

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Double-Click on a black space to share a resource, question, or you thoughts/illustration of understanding

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Page 7 of the DEC Recommended Practices talks about Assessment

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Page 7 of the DEC Recommended Practices talks about Assessment

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How do we assess learning for a child who may have no language and low muscle tone? I work with a child who can not speak and has limited motor skills but can understand most everything you say and teach her. What would be a good way to show documentation of her learning and knowledge?

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How do we assess learning for a child who may have no language and low muscle tone? I work with a child who can not speak and has limited motor skills but can understand most everything you say and teach her. What would be a good way to show documentation of her learning and knowledge?

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National Center on Universal Design for Learning

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UDL Guidelines in Practice: Grade 1 Mathematics

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National Center on Universal Design for Learning

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Links | National Center On Universal Design for Learning

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The UDL Guidelines have a new home! Check 'em out at udlguidelines.cast.org! (The Guidelines will remain here at udlcenter.org until June 30, 2018, so you'll have plenty of time to work on updating your links.)

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Supporting early literacy using assistive technology and UDL

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Supporting early literacy using assistive technology and UDL

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supporting early literacy | Head Start Center for Inclusion

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Supporting Early Literacy Through Universal Design & Assistive Technology

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Reading Rockets - UDL: Meeting the Needs of All Learners

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Reading Rockets - UDL: Meeting the Needs of All Learners

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Education Opportunity Act of 2008, P.L. No. 110-315, 122nd Cong., §3079 (2008).

Hitchcock, C.G., Meyer, A., Rose, D., & Jackson, R. (2005). Equal access, participation, and progress in the general education curriculum. In D. Rose, A. Meyer, & C. Hitchcock (Eds). The universally designed classroom: Accessible curriculum and digital technologies (pp. 37-68). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

National UDL Center. (2011). UDL examples and resources. Retrieved on May 28, 2011 from www.udlcenter.org/implementation/examples.

Rose, D. H., & Gravel, J. W. (2010). Universal design for learning. In P. Peterson, E. Baker, & B. McGraw, (Eds.), International encyclopedia of education (pp. 119-124). Oxford: Elsevier. Retrieved April 23, 1011 from www.udlcenter.org/sites/udlcenter.org/files/TechnologyandLearning.pdf [PDF].

Rose, D. H., & Meyer, A. (2002). Teaching every student in the digital age: Universal design for learning. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Rose, D. H., & Meyer, A. (2005). The future is in the margins: The role of technology and disability in educational reform. In D. H. Rose, A. Meyer, & C. Hitchcock (Eds.), A practical reader in universal design for learning (pp. 13-35). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

Rose, D. H., & Meyer, A. (2006). A practical reader in universal design for learning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

Rose, D. H., Meyer, A., & Hitchcock, C. (Eds). (2005). The universally designed classroom: Accessible curriculum and digital technologies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

Rose, D. H., & Vue, G. (2010). 2020's Learning landscape: A retrospective on dyslexia. International Dyslexia Association, Perspectives on Language and Literacy, 36(1), 33-37. Retrieved on April 23, 2011 from http://www.udlcenter.org/resource_library/articles/2020.

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Universal Design for Learning: Meeting the Needs of All Students

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Universal Design for Learning (UDL) provides the opportunity for all students to access, participate in, and progress in the general-education curriculum by reducing barriers to instruction. Learn more about how UDL offers options for how information is presented, how students respond or demonstrate their knowledge and skills, and how students are engaged in learning.

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Universal Design for Learning in Early Childhood Inclusive Classrooms

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Universal Design for Learning in Early Childhood Inclusive Classrooms