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Practicing growth mindset: Growth mindset consists of assurance, adaptability, and an openness to accepting assistance, so embolden your students by extending to them sincere encouragement and empathy. An attuned and attentive teacher cultivates the self-monitoring we want all children to ultimately acquire. Growth mindset also strengthens resolve and shores up resiliency. This indefatigable outlook-augmented by focus, persistence, and calculated effort-is an essential aspect of being truly college and career ready. Yet merely working hard does not guarantee results; instead, we must teach students how to work smart.

Pursuing strong skill sets: Strong skill sets back up all that belief, exertion, and perseverance. Without dependable dexterity and solid strategies, mindsets alone do not amount to much. Equipping students with practical capabilities develops the eventual self-efficacy that turns conviction into success. As facilitators, we can assist students in moving beyond being passive consumers of information and toward becoming active producers of insight and innovation.

Setting an example: Progressively behaving in ways others should emulate demonstrates true responsibility and reliability. Of course, kids cannot set examples for others until the significant adults in their lives have themselves set good examples. Along with being role models of integrity, teachers should entrust youngsters with developmentally appropriate opportunities to act independently and conscientiously. Children develop self-control only when they have been granted suitable experiences of actual control from which they can learn and grow.

Setting one's heart: A focus on that which is personally meaningful makes all the previously explained work and willpower worthwhile. Pursuing ambitions that deeply resonate and holding fast to dreams drives engagement. Unless someone has exposed kids to new experiences and ideas that allow for exploration and experimentation, however, many students do not spontaneously express their desires or refine their talents. Teachers must actively inspire and endorse their student's passions.

Armed with this powerful combination of social, emotional, soulful, and academic tools, every child can handle eventual setbacks (and even the pressures of success) with humility, humor, and honor.

Acknowledging and Optimizing Emotions

As important as it is for every person to possess a balance of interpersonal, intrapersonal, aspirational, and intellectual capabilities, expecting anyone, especially a child, to perpetually maintain positivity and productivity is not only unrealistic, it is unnecessary. Sometimes it's natural to temporarily fall back into a fixed mindset. In fact, the researcher who developed the definition of growth mindset, Carol Dweck, recognizes that we are all combinations of fixed and growth mindsets-and she asserts that this dualism is (gasp!) perfectly OK.

Everyone occasionally doubts, worries, or flirts with giving up, especially when objective evidence sparks brief bouts of despair. Yet we can also teach that there is always plenty of progress and promise to dwell upon-if we look for it. The key is to process all of our feelings so that we can quickly get back on task with the faith, grace, and gratitude that in due time will help us reach our intended destinations.

Embracing Adventure

The trust, tranquility, and thankfulness that accompany a student's initiative and strong work ethic transform their education journeys into glorious adventures that become just as sweet as reaching carefully calculated objectives. A sense of excitement and an ability to cope with adversity are the rewards growth mindset offers when students accept struggle, embrace challenge, and overcome obstacles.

Student engagement always matters because passion and purpose can be elevated into engendering real commitment and because pursuing our muses always leads to deep contentment and meaningful success. The avenues to this self-actualization are found in a holistic teaching approach that expands well beyond mindsets and creates classrooms filled with willingness, wisdom, wonder, warmth, and worth.

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Practicing growth mindset: Growth mindset consists of assurance, adaptability, and an openness to accepting assistance, so embolden your students by extending to them sincere encouragement and empathy. An attuned and attentive teacher cultivates the self-monitoring we want all children to ultimately acquire. Growth mindset also strengthens resolve and shores up resiliency.

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A young girl helps a tiny boy to fly home before it's too late! Use this delightful animated film in your classroom with our collection of cross-curricular teaching ideas and activities!

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Books, posters, resources, plans, activities

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Hello Friends!

Have you studied the Mindset work of Carol Dweck? Through years of research she has identified two types of mindsets which she calls; growth and fixed.

When students believe that dedication and hard work can change their performance in school, they grow to become resilient, successful students. Even at such a young age, it is essential for us to teach our students that their intelligence can be grown or developed with persistence, effort, and a focus on learning.

If you are just hearing about Growth Mindset or beginning your journey to learn more, I would encourage you to take a few minutes to listen to a brief video of Dweck sharing her research.

Friends this is huge, her work articulates what I have always believed! For 20 years I have believed in my students. Every.Single.One. I couldn't be happier that so many schools are now empowering students with this research to foster a growth mindset with our students. 🙂

This year I have been even more intentional in my teaching from the first day of school. I have created and found some engaging resources to help instill a growth mindset in my students. Grab a drink, read on for ideas, and grab a few FREE resources for your class. 🙂

I put together a list of book and video resources to keep at my fingertips that are perfect to share with my students.

There are sooooo many great read alouds that are perfect to facilitate discussions of perseverance, growth vs fixed mindset, and problem solving. Here are some of my favorites:

To take a PEEK inside these read alouds and see what growth mindset lessons they match up with head to this blog post THE BEST GROWTH MINDSET PICTURE BOOKS.

My favorite videos for my first graders are these ClassDojo 5 (short episodes). In
this series on Growth Mindset, two monsters named Mojo and Katie explore the
different aspects of growth mindset, perfect for K-2 students.

The video topics include:

Your Brain is like a Muscle

The Incredible Power of Yet

The Mysterious World of Neurons

Mojo Puts it All Together

You can link to the 5 episodes and discussion guides from here.

I just knew we needed a visual reminder to "grow our brain" so I made this poster, you can grab this FREEBIE at the end of the post!

#truestory During a reading assessment I noticed one of my sweet boys was reading a book at a frustration level, I asked him if he wanted to discontinue the assessment and read a better fit book, he instantly replied, "No I am going to grow my brain Mrs. Winter!"

Now that my kids have a basic understanding what growth mindset is we have set goals for our self and hung them in the hallway.

Soon we will check in on our goals and see what action steps are needed to make our goals attainable. My students will need to be reminded how their effort and belief in themselves will make them success in meeting any goals they set. Here is a sample of what I have planned, I know they will love it!

I know in order for my students to understand that their intelligence is not limited and believe in themselves I must create an environment where students are reminded daily. I created these bookmarks to keep at school and send home. Be sure to grab these color and black and white bookmarks for your kids at the end of this post!

I have many more lessons planned for this year, here are a few resources I created that you might be interested in to use with your students!

If you are interested in seeing more of my Growth Mindset Resources book and video links you can check them out by clicking the picture below.

If you ready to start fostering a growth mindset culture with your elementary students and unsure where to start? Check out this Growth Mindset blog post for more lessons, ideas, and activities.

I hope these resources offer a way to help foster a Growth Mindset culture in your classroom with your students. I have shared more ideas and FREEBIES in this Growth Mindset Blog Post

I'd love to hear in the comments any other resources you have found to help your students be successful in achieving their goals!

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Growth Mindset Teaching Ideas and Resources

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Hello Friends! Have you studied the Mindset work of Carol Dweck? Through years of research she has identified two types of mindsets which she calls; growth and fixed. When students believe that dedication and hard work can change their performance in school, they grow to become resilient, successful students.

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Read ALouds for Teaching the Growth Mindset

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Read ALouds for Teaching the Growth Mindset

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18 Perfect Read-Alouds for Teaching Growth Mindset

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5 Steps to Teaching your Students the Growth Mindset

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5 Steps to Teaching your Students the Growth Mindset

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How to teach growth mindset to students in 5 steps

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The hidden opportunity behind every rejection | Jia Jiang | TEDxMtHood

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Jia Jiang knows first-hand how the fear of rejection can hold us back. The tendency to avoid it at all costs can be detrimental to our lives, our careers, our dreams. Determined to change that, Jia takes us down a path where rejection, instead of being avoided, is deliberately and actively sought.

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Growth Mindset for Kids

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Carol Dweck - A Study on Praise and Mindsets

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multiple sclerosis (disease or medical condition)

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Tom Rinaldi tells the remarkable story of Kayla Montgomery -- who, despite being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, has become one of the best young distance runners in the country.

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Steve Jobs - Inspirational Speech "If today were the last day of my life"

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Social & Emotional Learning (SEL)

Pushing our students to adopt a growth mindset is an easy call. Adopting one ourselves is harder.

© Shutterstock.com/Monkey Business Images

For a teacher, it's pretty easy to focus on improving students-that's our job, right? So when I learned about Carol Dweck's theory of growth mindset, my first thought was about how I could get my students onboard with this idea.

And then I realized that if I were to better my own craft, I would have to take on the challenge for myself as well.

1. Focus on the hard stuff. I remember early on in my teaching career realizing that while I was doing a pretty good job getting students to read and discuss literature, I was not really teaching them writing. So I decided to schedule the block day in our week as a writing day. Ten years and thousands of pages of creative writing later, I still had not successfully taught my students to write a research paper, so I blocked out three full weeks in our schedule to work through the process from beginning to end. Rather than focus on what I know is humming along fine, I look for the weaknesses. Usually, these are the areas that don't come naturally, or that I don't like very much myself. (And I still sort of despise research papers.) But when I focus on the hard stuff, I am a providing a much better learning experience for my students.

2. Try innovative solutions, and if they don't work, try some more. I have tried some crazy things as a teacher. Some I realized were flops immediately, while some I pushed through for months before admitting that they weren't working out. But some of those innovations have saved my sanity, and I would never have tried them if I had been afraid to fail. Again, I think the key here is to focus on the weaknesses, on the stuff that is not going well. It's fun to tweak assignments that are already a hit, but when I focus on my most nagging problems, I make my biggest breakthroughs.

3. Seek feedback wherever you can. Evaluations don't have to come from administrators- they can come from fellow teachers or even the students. When I switched schools about 12 years ago, I was having an especially hard time dealing with some of my new students. So a colleague came in one day and wrote down everything that was said or done during an entire class. No comments, no suggestions, and no filter. It was brutal to be confronted with that reality, but it also gave me a lot of insight into what I was missing from the front of the room. Two years ago, when a group play project went really badly for some of my classes, I took a whole day to get student feedback on the event. Through reflection questions and some writing, I figured out what was going on behind that disastrous cooperative project.

4. Know that you are always developing your skills. I often say that I consider myself to be a B+ teacher. Maybe I'll be an A- teacher one day. Giving myself permission to be good now means that I don't wait until I'm perfect to try something new.

5. Reflect at the end of every day, especially the bad ones. I have learned a lot from my toughest students and my biggest lesson plan flops-but only because I reflect on what went wrong. If I were to write those students and lesson plans off as not my fault, I would never learn from experience. Sometimes one kid has a bad day, but the truth is that when the lesson goes badly for the entire class, it's probably something that I did wrong.

6. Notice the areas where you have a fixed mindset. It's easy to think that there are some areas of teaching that I'm just not good at, but I know that's an excuse I use when things get hard. Reflecting on my attitude and how it affects my willingness to grow is always useful. I can't have a growth mindset about everything all the time, but I can notice when I'm talking myself out of trying something because I'm afraid.

I think that I succeed as a teacher because I'm willing to mess up often and mess up big. And yet, I also take any excuse to avoid pushing myself to grow. Having a growth mindset doesn't just mean learning about the theory and leaving it at that. It's a constant process. Sometimes it's difficult, often it's a little painful, but it's always worth the effort.

Six Tips for Instilling a Growth Mindset in Yourself

There's a catch to learning a lot about growth mindset. Once we learn just how much of our lack of growth is a product of our attitude, it's not so easy to write things off as impossible anymore.

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Pushing our students to adopt a growth mindset is an easy call. Adopting one ourselves is harder.

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Developing a Growth Mindset with Carol Dweck

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Good job at failing today!

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Learning to celebrate failure at a young age led to this billionaire's success. Sara Blakely discusses her father's unorthdox parenting technique that helped fuel her success in life. Video originally aired on Business Insider By: Emma Fierberg and Alana Kakoyiannis Jul. 11, 2016, 6:15 AM

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https://youtu.be/75GFzikmRY0

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Growth Mindset Introduction: What it is, How it Works, and Why it Matters