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B1 Level - Action vs. Nonaction Verbs Worksheet

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Learners and Teachers at Sabancı University, School of Languages

This website is the home of our project and contains all the information SL learners and teachers need to undertake this semester's challenge.

Teachers who are interested in Project Based Learning

We are extremely proud of the effort and high quality work of SL learners during the project and the wonderfully memorable conference days. We would like to share our experiences and knowledge of developing PBL to help English language teaching and learning with any teacher who is interested.

If you are such a teacher, welcome to our site. Please feel free to look around the pages related to our current project and visit the Teacher Resources page for more insights. We would love to hear from you if you would like more information or just to say hello. You can find contact details here.

Please feel free to use or adapt our materials. PBL is not a new approach but is fairly rare when applied to English language teaching and learning. We have naturally taken ideas and influences from others and referenced this work. If you choose to use our materials we would ask that you respect this original referencing.

Here is an overview of our website pages and their contents.

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Learners and Teachers at Sabancı University, School of Languages This website is the home of our project and contains all the information SL learners and teachers need to undertake this semester's challenge. Teachers who are interested in Project Based Learning We are extremely proud of the effort and high quality work of SL learners during the project and the wonderfully memorable conference days.

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Welcome to SL Proj. 001. This website provides the background and information to complete the project. You provide the rest....

This project focuses on lifelong learning. You will conduct research into lifelong learning to identify the skills, characteristics and attitudes lifelong learners possess. You and your team will then dig deeper into one of these aspects. You will design and deliver an activity for your university colleagues to help them develop these aspects. Your team will write the whole process up as an academic research report.

You will present your research report and a plan for your activity on the School of Languages Lifelong learning website. From here students, teachers and others in any institution can access your research and use your activity plans in their own teaching and learning contexts.

We also hope that you will have the opportunity to deliver your activities on other occasions in the future, for example during the induction weeks for new SU students or at other institutions. ​

In this project you and your team will collaborate to answer the question
How can we encourage lifelong learner at Sabancı University?
You will work as part of a team. Each team will research a specific area related to lifelong learning. The outcomes will be:
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An activity that you plan and deliver to other university students. This activity will promote a specific attribute that lifelong learners have.
A mini-presentation of your background research
​A session plan of your activity. *
A project report. The report will give details of the research you have conducted into lifelong learning, the activity you have chosen and the results of the activity.*

* Each team will have a page on the SL Lifelong Learning website to upload their research report and session plan. The website is open to anyone who wishes to visit. This means that anyone from around the world may visit your page to find an activity they can use to promote lifelong learning. Your report will give them information on the relevance of your activity. Your session plan will enable them to recreate the activity if they wish.

There are many reasons for doing this project but the primary reason is to help you improve your English language use, knowledge and skills.

SL Proj 001 is also based around a real academic research project and it will help you prepare for the type of projects you will undertake in your faculties. It will help you to learn and develop the skills you will need as Freshman students when you do Proj. 102.

Additionally, you will also have the opportunity to develop your soft skills. These are the type of skills that are increasingly valued in the professional and business worlds. The list below from the World Economic Forum shows the top ten skills employers consider vital. All of the skills are soft skills and you can see how their importance is predicted to change by 2020 . If you approach this project positively and proactively, you can start or continue to develop some of these skills.
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You can read more about these skills here.

Another important area you may develop your skills in is Digital Literacy. Digital Literacy involves more than being able to use relevant technology specifically for a specific purpose. You may be proficient at using your Smart Phone for communication , which is an important part of Digital Literacy, but there is much more to learn and develop. JISC describes six . "capabilities which fit someone for living, learning and working in a digital society"

This project will provide you with the opportunity to enhance your digital literacy in each area.​ The graphic below gives more information.

The project lasts for nearly the whole semester. We expect high quality work and to complete the project fully and well, it will take all this time. For a detailed schedule click here.

SL Proj 001 is a team project however each person will be given an individual grade for the whole project. To find out more about the elements of assessment please click here.

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Welcome to SL Proj. 001. This website provides the background and information to complete the project. You provide the rest.... This project focuses on lifelong learning. You will conduct research into lifelong learning to identify the skills, characteristics and attitudes lifelong learners possess. You and your team will then dig deeper into one of these aspects.

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Sabancı University, School of Languages. Lifelong Learning. - Blog

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Sabancı University, School of Languages. Lifelong Learning. - Blog

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Sabancı University, School of Languages. Lifelong Learning.

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Daniel Kish has been blind since he was 13 months old. Both of his eyes had to be removed because he contracted a rare form of cancer. This devastating event was a life-changing experience for Daniel...

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Sabancı University, School of Languages. Lifelong Learning. - Welcome

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Sabancı University, School of Languages. Lifelong Learning. - Welcome

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Sabancı University, School of Languages. Lifelong Learning.

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Welcome to the Sabancı University School of Languages website dedicated to Lifelong Learning.

We wish this site to be a resource for all no matter what stage of our lifelong learning journey we may be on. So, please feel free to get in contact whether you be an instructor or learner in SL or a visitor to our site. Please take some time to look around and get in contact if you have any comments, suggestions, would like to contribute to the site or would just like to say hello.

In Autumn 2016 we published our lifelong learning statements. They were the result of a project that collated our instructors' opinions of lifelong learning in our context and application of relevant research such as that of Carol Dweck into Mindsets.

Our statements are below. We formulated them to guide our interests and development. We recognise that all of us will be at different stages of our development in different areas. The statements indicate guiding attitudes, principles and skills. They are certainly not intended to be used as Can Do statements.

To discover more about the ideas behind the individual statements please click the relevant links.

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Sabancı University, School of Languages. Lifelong Learning.

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Welcome to the Sabancı University School of Languages website dedicated to Lifelong Learning. We wish this site to be a resource for all no matter what stage of our lifelong learning journey we may be on. So, please feel free to get in contact whether you be an instructor or learner in SL or a visitor to our site.

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Feedback & Self reflection

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Andrew's blogs, SL Website & PPt Presentation

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Andrew's blogs, SL Website & PPt Presentation

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A scale of lifelong learning attitudes of teachers - The development of LLLAS

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We can all agree that meaningful schoolwork promotes students' learning of academic content. But why stop there? I believe that meaningful work can also teach students to love challenges, to enjoy effort, to be resilient, and to value their own improvement. In other words, we can design and present learning tasks in a way that helps students develop a growth mindset, which leads to not just short-term achievement but also long-term success.

During the past several decades, my colleagues and I have conducted research identifying two distinct ways in which individuals view intelligence and learning. Individuals with a fixed mindsetbelieve 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 (Blackwell, Trzesniewski, & Dweck, 2007; Dweck, 1999, 2007).

These two mindsets lead to different school behaviors. For one thing, when students view intelligence as fixed, they tend to value looking smart above all else. They may sacrifice important opportunities to learn-even those that are important to their future academic success-if those opportunities require them to risk performing poorly or admitting deficiencies. Students with a growth mindset, on the other hand, view challenging work as an opportunity to learn and grow. I have seen students with a growth mindset meet difficult problems, ones they could not solve yet, with great relish. Instead of thinking they were failing (as the students with a fixed mindset did), they said things like "I love a challenge," "Mistakes are our friends," and "I was hoping this would be informative!"

Students with a fixed mindset do not like effort. They believe that if you have ability, everything should come naturally. They tell us that when they have to work hard, they feel dumb. Students with a growth mindset, in contrast, value effort; they realize that even geniuses have to work hard to develop their abilities and make their contributions.

Finally, students with a fixed mindset tend not to handle setbacks well. Because they believe that setbacks call their intelligence into question, they become discouraged or defensive when they don't succeed right away. They may quickly withdraw their effort, blame others, lie about their scores, or consider cheating. Students with a growth mindset are more likely to respond to initial obstacles by remaining involved, trying new strategies, and using all the resources at their disposal for learning.

Teachers who strive to design challenging, meaningful learning tasks may find that their students respond differently depending on the students' assumptions about intelligence. Students with a growth mindset may tackle such work with excitement, whereas students with a fixed mindset may feel threatened by learning tasks that require them to stretch or take risks.

To prepare students to benefit from meaningful work, therefore, teachers need to create a growth-mindset culture in the classroom. One way to create such a culture is by providing the right kinds of praise and encouragement. My research has shown that praising students for the process they have engaged in-the effort they applied, the strategies they used, the choices they made, the persistence they displayed, and so on-yields more long-term benefits than telling them they are "smart" when they succeed.

Teachers should also emphasize that fast learning is not always the deepest and best learning and that students who take longer sometimes understand things at a deeper level. Students can learn about many historical figures who were not regarded as "fast" learners in childhood. Albert Einstein swore that he was slow to learn and that's why he pondered the same questions year after year-with, as we know, excellent results.

Some teachers teach their students about the different mindsets directly. (To learn about a growth mindset curriculum that my colleagues and I have created, go to www.brainology.us.) Teachers may illustrate the concept of the growth mindset by having their students write about, and share with one another, something they used to be poor at and are now very good at.

In one class, for example, the students were astounded to learn that the school's baseball star used to be inept at baseball and only became proficient after much practice. Such discussions encourage students not to be ashamed to struggle with something before they are good at it.

Teachers can also ask their students to choose an area in which they would like to improve and then to establish a personal goal that would be a big reach for them. For example, a student who is typically afraid of criticism might decide to seek critical feedback on her next art project; an algebra student struggling to understand absolute values might commit to watching a YouTube video on how to solve linear absolute value equations, and then teach the process to his classmates; a student who lacks physical confidence might join a sports team; or a shy student might approach other students she would like to befriend. Students can share their plans and even help one another enhance their skills and reach their goal.

Another strategy is to have students write a letter to a struggling student explaining the growth mindset, telling the struggler not to label himself or herself, and giving the student advice on improvement strategies to try.

Through such exercises, teachers are transmitting crucial information-telling students that they view them all as having intelligence that they can choose to develop. The teachers are also communicating that their role is not to judge who is smart and who is not, but to collaborate with students to make everyone smarter.

Within a classroom culture that supports a growth mindset, teachers can design meaningful learning tasks and present them in a way that fosters students' resilience and long-term achievement.

Meaningful learning tasks need to challenge every student in some way. It is crucial that no student be able to coast to success time after time; this experience can create the fixed-mindset belief that you are smart only if you can succeed without effort.

To prevent this, teachers can identify students who have easily mastered the material and design in-class assignments that include some problems or exercises that require these students to stretch. This way, the teacher will be close at hand to guide students if necessary and get them used to (and ultimately excited about) the challenging work. Some teachers have told me that after a while, students begin to select or create challenging tasks for themselves.

When presenting learning tasks to students, the teacher should portray challenges as fun and exciting, while portraying easy tasks as boring and less useful for the brain. When students initially struggle or make mistakes, the teacher should view this as an opportunity to teach students how to try different strategies if the first ones don't work-how to step back and think about what to try next, like a detective solving a mystery.

Suppose that a student has attempted a math problem but is now stuck. The teacher can say, "OK, let's solve this mystery!" and ask the student to show the strategies he or she has tried so far. As the student explains a strategy, the teacher can say, "That's an interesting strategy. Let's think about why it didn't work and whether it gives us some clues for a new path. What should we try next?"

When, perhaps with the teacher's guidance, the student finds a fruitful strategy, the teacher can say "Great! You tried different ways, you followed the clues, and you found a strategy that worked. You're just like Sherlock Holmes, the great detective. Are you ready to try another one?" In this way, the teacher can simultaneously gain insight into what the student does and does not understand and teach the student to struggle through knotty problems.

Meaningful learning tasks give students a clear sense of progress leading to mastery. This means that students can see themselves doing tasks they couldn't do before and understanding concepts they couldn't understand before. Work that gives students a sense of improvement as a result of effort gives teachers an opportunity to praise students for their process. That is, teachers can point out that the students' efforts were what led to the progress and improvement over time.

Some teachers make students' progress explicit by giving pre-tests at the beginning of a unit that purposely cover material students do not know. When students compare their inevitably poor performance on these pre-tests with their improved performance on unit post-tests, they get used to the idea that, with application, they can become smarter.

Homework is an especially important component of an instructional program that enhances students' sense of learning and progress. Homework assignments should not feel like mindless, repetitive exercises; rather, they should present novel problems for students to solve, require them to apply what they've learned in new ways, or ask them to stretch to the next level.

For example, suppose that students are learning about the rise and fall of civilizations. Their homework assignment might be to apply their learning by designing a civilization that would either thrive (by building in positive factors) or implode (by building in risk factors). They can write the story of their civilization and what happened to it. Or suppose students were studying Shakespeare's sonnets. For homework, they could write a sonnet to the person or animal of their choice in the style of Shakespeare.

The way teachers evaluate their students' work can also help students develop a growth mindset. At one high school in Chicago, when students don't master a particular unit of study, they don't receive a failing grade-instead, they get a grade of Not Yet. Students are not ashamed of that grade because they know that they're expected to master the material, if not the first time, then the next time, or the next.

The word "yet" is valuable and should be used frequently in every classroom. Whenever students say they can't do something or are not good at something, the teacher should add, "yet." Whenever students say they don't like a certain subject, the teacher should say, "yet." This simple habit conveys the idea that ability and motivation are fluid.

Some teachers my colleagues and I work with tell us that they've shifted their grading system to consider more growth-mindset criteria, so that no student can coast to an A and students who struggle and improve get credit for their effort. One school bases one-fourth of each student's grade on growth-mindset factors, thus rewarding students who challenge themselves, are resilient in the face of difficulty, and show clear improvement over time. Other schools give a separate grade for challenge-seeking, effort, and resilience. Of course, for that grade to be effective (and not just a consolation prize), teachers need to have reinforced the value of these qualities daily throughout the school year.

What if a student puts in great effort but does not improve? The teacher needs to factor in the effort but then work with the student to figure out what the impasse was and how the student can break through that impasse.

Meaningful work not only promotes learning in the immediate situation, but also promotes a love of learning and resilience in the face of obstacles. This kind of meaningful work takes place in classrooms in which teachers praise the learning process rather than the students' ability, convey the joy of tackling challenging learning tasks, and highlight progress and effort. Students who are nurtured in such classrooms will have the values and tools that breed lifelong success.

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We can all agree that meaningful schoolwork promotes students' learning of academic content. But why stop there? I believe that meaningful work can also teach students to love challenges, to enjoy effort, to be resilient, and to value their own improvement. In other words, we can design and present

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UIL | UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning

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UIL | UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning

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Lifelong Learning is a Crucial Educational Mindset | Edudemic

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Lifelong Learning is a Crucial Educational Mindset | Edudemic

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LLL for teachers

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Doctors, lawyers, and other professionals never stop learning new techniques and strategies to hone their craft and remain on the cutting edge in their field - and so, too, do teachers. Teachers should consider the concept of "lifelong learning" and a few reasons it's a great frame of mind for educators to have.

What Is a Lifelong Learning Mindset?

Image via Flickr by duane schoon
According to Gerhard Fischer, director of the Center for LifeLong Learning & Design (L ³ D) at the University of Colorado, Boulder, "lifelong learning is an essential challenge for inventing the future of our societies; it is a necessity rather than a luxury to be considered ... It is a mindset and a habit for people to acquire. It creates the challenge to understand, explore, and support new essential dimensions of learning such as: (1) self-directed learning, (2) learning on demand, (3) informal learning, and (4) collaborative and organizational learning." Fischer explains that lifelong learning "requires progress and an integration of new theories, innovative systems, practices, and assessment." For teachers, putting in this kind of lifelong work will help better amplify their capabilities, collaborate with colleagues, and transform in turn the way their students navigate the world.

Why Should Teachers Adopt a Lifelong Learning Mindset?

1. Lifelong Learning Helps Teachers Face Challenges

Kati Lepi's Edudemic article titled, "How to Become a Learning Teacher," references an infographic that captures several key points about lifelong learning and teachers: what it means to be a learning teacher, the types of learning that teachers do, and reasons to continue learning. Professional development days don't necessarily target the areas in which teachers want to focus their learning or address their concerns. Teachers who adopt a lifelong learning mindset have access to information and use it to collaborate with others. Learning teachers also view mistakes and challenges as part of the learning process rather than as failures.

2. The Best Learning Happens on the Job

In her Edutopia post, Heather Wolpert-Gawron explains that to fully adopt a lifelong learning mindset, teachers must understand the ways in which it benefits their career and themselves. Wolpert-Gawron says that the best teachers are willing to learn from their students. She also contends she "learned more from other teachers, my students, and their parents than I learned from any class in my teacher-credential program.... In turn, when they saw my own enthusiasm for learning, students were more inclined to learn from me. And that's how my own happiness and growth has translated into the success of my students."

3. Lifelong Learning Makes Big Transitions on the Job Easier to Process:

Paul Jun also makes the case for becoming a lifelong learner: "By embracing a student-like mindset and learning to turn self-education into a daily habit, you can hone your current skills and develop new ones while enriching your mind. Then, when the time to adapt arrives, transitions are less bumpy." Teaching is by far the career that demands the most flexibility as schedules, students, standards, and regulations change nearly constantly. Teachers have to think on their feet when students ask questions, and the only way that they can approach the daily challenges of their career is to be a lifelong learner.

4. Lifelong Learning Fosters Creativity

Similarly, Fischer outlines some of the key reasons to adopt a lifelong learning mindset, and two of them are the most critical for educators. First, he explains that in the information age, people lack creativity (a debatable claim, but for the purposes of argument, let's run with it for now). He references a study that shows that lifelong learning positively influences creativity in individuals, groups, organizations, and countries. He also contends that for people to thrive in the 21st century, they must have the ability to proficiently use new technologies and media; learning to use these new technologies and media is a key component of lifelong learning.

Lifelong Learning Enhances Technology Usage

Fischer also describes the pace of change in the 21st century as being "so fast that technologies and skills to use them become obsolete within 5-10 years." Ask any educator if he or she was using Edmodo, iPads, apps, Chromebooks, or other such technology in his or her classroom ten years ago, and you would likely get a negative response. Yet, technology is an essential part of teaching and learning today, and teachers must be knowledgeable about technology in the classroom to meet state requirements and prepare their students for their futures outside the classroom walls.

Fortunately, teachers who adopt a lifelong learning mindset are not intimidated by technology in their classrooms or in their students' hands. They are willing to learn about technology from theirs students and fellow teachers and adapt their teaching practices to meet the demands of their 21st century students. Moreover, digital literacy is a critical component of education today, and teachers must know how to teach and assess it in their classrooms. The bottom line: Being prepared to teach in the 21st century automatically equates to being a lifelong learner in the 21st century.

Lifelong Learners Are Innovative Teachers

Though the current state of education promotes standardization and common curricula and teaching methods, teachers must be innovative to engage and inspire 21st century learners. In fact, the days of teaching through rote memorization and organizing the classroom with desks in rows are long gone. Teachers must adopt a lifelong learning mindset to continually push themselves to learn new ways of facilitating learning and increasing student engagement. By taking courses and collaborating with colleagues on creative teaching methods including collaborative learning environments, flipped classrooms, and student-centered learning situations, teachers will reap the benefits of adopting a lifelong learning mindset and being innovative educators.

In Short

Can a teacher successfully educate students without becoming a lifelong learner? In the age of accountability and high stakes, it is unlikely. With all of the benefits and advantages that lifelong learners accrue, teachers who adopt this mentality are more than excellent educators: they're excellent models for their students.

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Lifelong Learning is a Crucial Educational Mindset

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Doctors, lawyers, and other professionals never stop learning new techniques and strategies to hone their craft and remain on the cutting edge in their field - and so, too, do teachers. Teachers should consider the concept of "lifelong learning" and a few reasons it's a great frame of mind for educators to have.

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The propensity for lifelong learning: measure of attitudes

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The propensity for lifelong learning: measure of attitudes

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The propensity for lifelong learning - measure of attitudes

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Grit and the Secret of Success – Brain Pickings

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Grit and the Secret of Success – Brain Pickings

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"Inspiration is for amateurs - the rest of us just show up and get to work," Chuck Close scoffed. "A self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood," Tchaikovsky admonished. "Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too," Isabel Allende urged. "You have to finish things," Neil Gaiman advised aspiring writers. But while our cultural history may brim with creators who intuited the importance of doggedness in success, it wasn't until recently that psychologists were able to ascertain the science behind this intuitive observation. We now know that genius-level excellence takes enormous dedication and that the impetus to reboot from autopilot is crucial to reaching such a level, but arguably the most significant work in the field comes from pioneering psychologist Angela Duckworth, who came up with the notion of "grit" - that very doggedness essential for success - and went on to receive a MacArthur Genius grant for her research.

In a recent success-themed episode of NPR's TED Radio Hour with Guy Raz - which, by the way, is absolutely spectacular and well worth subscribing - Duckworth challenges us to reconsider our culture's definitions of "success" and shares her findings on the character trait that appears most essential for attaining it. Duckworth's work is a centerpiece of Paul Tough's remarkable and incredibly important book How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character (public library), and is also a prominent part of Sarah Lewis's fantastic meditation on creativity, mastery, and the gift of failure.

Grit is the disposition to pursue very long-term goals with passion and perseverance. And I want to emphasize the stamina quality of grit. Grit is sticking with things over the long term and then working very hard at it.

Grit is living life like it's a marathon, not a sprint.

A few years ago, I started studying grit in the Chicago public schools. I asked thousands of high school juniors to take grit questionnaires, and then waited around more than a year to see who would graduate.

[...]

Half of the questions on the grit questionnaire are about perseverance, right. "I am a hard worker." "I finish whatever I begin." The scale is five points. It goes from "very much like me" to "not at all like me." "Setbacks don't discourage me." "I don't give up after disappointment." And "I'm diligent." The more you say, that's very much like me, then the higher your grit score. Turns out that grittier kids were significantly more likely to graduate even when I matched them on every characteristic I could measure. Things like family income, standardized achievement test scores, even how safe kids felt when they were at school.

One of Duckworth's most important points, from both a practical and big-picture point of view, has to do with her advice to parents and educators about cultivating grit in kids - she points to Carol Dweck's seminal insights about "growth" vs. "fixed" mindsets as the key:

So far, the best idea I've heard about building grit in kids is something called growth mindset. This is an idea developed at Stanford University by Carol Dweck, and it is the belief that the ability to learn is not fixed. That it can change with your effort. Dr. Dweck has shown that when kids read and learn about the brain and how it changes and grows in response to challenge, they're much more likely to persevere when they fail because they don't believe that failure is a permanent condition.

Dive into Dweck's pioneering work here, and see How Children Succeed for the broader implications of this research, not only in cultivating gritty kids but also in our everyday grownup lives.

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"Inspiration is for amateurs - the rest of us just show up and get to work," Chuck Close scoffed. "A self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood," Tchaikovsky admonished. "Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too," Isabel Allende urged.

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25 Practices That Foster Lifelong Learning - InformED

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25 Practices That Foster Lifelong Learning - InformED

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"I don't divide the world into the weak and the strong, or the successes and the failures... I divide the world into learners and nonlearners." -Benjamin Barber, sociologist
Is your capacity for learning is fixed or fluid? Can you improve your intelligence and talents through hard work and practice, or are you stuck with the brains you've got? Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck says most of us have either a "fixed" or "growth" mindset when it comes to learning. Most of us can get through sixteen years of schooling regardless of which mindset we have, but when it comes to lifelong learning-learning for the sake of learning, without outside pressure-only a growth mindset will cut it.

Lifelong learning is now recognized by educators, governing bodies, accreditation organizations, certification boards, employers, third-party payers, and the general public as one of the most important competencies a person can possess. But even if we all agree on its value, and harbor the best intentions of possessing it ourselves, it can easily escape our grasp if we approach it the wrong way.

First off-and this is what Dweck was getting at-we must believe that, at any point in time, we always have the potential to change and grow through application and experience.

"In a fixed mindset students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits. They have a certain amount and that's that, and then their goal becomes to look smart all the time and never look dumb. In a growth mindset students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching and persistence. They don't necessarily think everyone's the same or anyone can be Einstein, but they believe everyone can get smarter if they work at it."

In fact, we are all born with a growth mindset, Dweck says. It's just that some of us don't hold onto it:

"Everyone is born with an intense drive [I prefer need] to learn. Infants stretch their skills daily. Not just ordinary skills, but the most difficult tasks of a lifetime, like learning to walk and talk. They never decide it's too hard or not worth the effort. Babies don't worry about making mistakes or humiliating themselves. They walk, they fall, they get up. They just barge forward.

"What could put an end to this exuberant learning? The fixed mindset. As soon as children become able to evaluate themselves, some of them become afraid of challenges. They become afraid of not being smart. I have studied thousands of people from preschoolers on, and it's breathtaking how many reject an opportunity to learn."

Lifelong learning requires embracing opportunities to learn. Do lifelong learners believe that, with enough motivation and hard work, they can become Einstein or Beethoven? No, but they believe that a person's true potential is "unknown (and unknowable); that it's impossible to foresee what can be accomplished with years of passion, toil and training."

So how do you cultivate a growth mindset if it doesn't come naturally? And how do you hold onto it if you've got it already? Below are 25 recommendations to guide you in the right direction.

1. Begin with the end in mind.

When you approach a new concept or subject, don't think of it as an isolated learning experience. Think of it as a new territory you've begun to conquer. More than likely, you will find in the future that you'll have many uses for it that weren't obvious to you during your initial studies, so think of each learning experience as an investment rather than a one-time transaction.

2. Accept responsibility for your own learning.

We've all had bad teachers and various obstacles that prevented us from sailing smoothly through formal education, but ultimately, we are responsible for our own learning outcomes. This becomes clearer than ever when formal schooling ends and adult life begins. The knowledge you cultivate is directly related to the effort you put into gaining it.

3. View challenges as opportunities for growth.

Challenges excite lifelong learners. Why? Because lifelong learners see challenges as learning opportunities and, ultimately, a chance to enhance their own competence and intelligence. Relishing challenges is one of the most distinctive differences between people with growth versus fixed mindsets.

4. Have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner.

You may have had trouble performing well in school, or maybe you feel that you have a poor memory and can't soak up all the facts that other people can. The first step towards correcting this is to combat it first-hand. Improve your memory with puzzles and reward yourself when you do perform well now. Have the confidence to say you can become a competent, effective learner-through a growth mindset-if you aren't already.

5. Create your own learning toolbox.

What personal learning strategies do you use? Do you listen to podcasts, jot down notes, draw concept maps, or rehearse what you've learned aloud? What's your routine like? Do you enjoy reading the news in the morning while you drink your coffee? Skim the Twitter headlines during your lunch break? Study French after dinner? Identify the tools you use to promote your own learning, and create new ones to add to your collection. Being aware of how you learn is an important part of being an effective lifelong learner.

6. Use technology to your advantage.

Mobile learning has never been more possible. Take advantage of it! You are what you do, so make a habit of using technology to boost your skills and knowledge on a daily basis.

7. Teach/mentor others.

If you can't explain what you've learned to someone else in a way they can understand, then you probably don't really understand it yourself. Sharing knowledge with others is an excellent way to reveal your own strengths and weaknesses and really lock learning into place.

8. Play.

You've heard of the "importance of play," maybe a little too frequently lately, and it's essential not only to immediate, short term learning but also to lifelong learning. Keep it fun and it will remain interesting as well.

9. Look at the science.

One thing that might be keeping you back from learning new things is the belief that you can't learn new things. But neuroscience and psychology have shown this to be false. Our brains remain plastic and malleable well into old age, and it's possible to create new connections among neurons and learn new things even if you're 80 years old.

10. Try new things on a frequent basis.

Trying new things not only keeps our brains sharp but also feeds the growth mindset. When you broaden your perspective, you start to realize there's far more left to learn about the world than you ever imagined.

11. Learn from those who have a strong growth mindset.

Surround yourself with people who are constantly learning, reading, sharing, discovering. It will inspire you to do the same for yourself.

12. Design personal learning goals.

It always helps to have a plan. Sure, one of the best things about learning is that you're free to explore any topic, any time you want. But mastery feels good. That's why some of us decide to learn Italian in six weeks or memorize all the decimals in Pi. Identifying and visualizing goals helps us become driven, effective learners.

13. Talk about what you've learned.

This one becomes increasingly important as you meet people throughout adulthood. We all want to sound educated and informed to others, and lifelong learning ensures that we will. Be sure to use what you learn in conversation.

14. Always have an answer to the question, "What are you reading?"

It can be a series of articles, a short story collection, a novel, a memoir, a textbook. Anything, as long as you're invested and willing to learn.

15. Keep a "to-learn" list.

It can consist of entire languages or quirky facts, as long as it's yours. There's something permanent-feeling about writing something down-try it, you'll see the difference.

16. Ask questions when you're confused.

Many of us think asking questions is a sign of ignorance, but I say it's a sign of maturity. If you are confident enough in your own intelligence to speak up when you need clarification, you'll have no trouble becoming a lifelong learner-and you'll know more than you did if you'd been too shy.

17. Practice thinking for yourself.

Albert Einstein once said, "Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking." Simply studying the wisdom of others isn't enough, you have to think through ideas yourself. Spend time journaling, meditating, or contemplating over ideas you have learned.

18. Put it into practice.

Skill-based learning is useless if it isn't applied. Reading a book on C++ isn't the same thing as writing a program. Studying painting isn't the same as picking up a brush. If your knowledge can be applied, put it into practice and create something.

19. Filter your information stream.

There's a lot of information out there, much of it unreliable or presented in a way that seems new but actually repeats what you already knew. Lifelong learners know when to pay attention and when to say, "Next, please."

20. Learn in groups.

Some of us don't like doing this-it reminds us of group projects in school. The truth is, learning with others is often more rewarding than learning on your own. For one thing, you get to see how other people interpret the same information in different ways, which is priceless information in and of itself.

21. Unlearn assumptions.

We all have long-held assumptions about the way the world works (or doesn't work). To be lifelong learners, we need to be open to every and all possibilities. The world changes rapidly each decade, year, month, day-can you keep up?

22. Choose a career that encourages learning.

Pick a career that encourages continual learning. If you are in a job that doesn't have much intellectual freedom, consider switching to one that does. Don't spend forty hours of your week in a job that doesn't challenge you.

23. Have projects and hobbies.

It seems like a simple idea, but the truth is, projects and hobbies can easily slip away from us when we're not looking. And we tend to fall into patterns of low variety. Sure, you can learn plenty watching Breaking Bad every at night after work, but what if you also pick up knitting or read a Shakespeare play every other morning? It will only feel like work until you've slipped into a routine (which usually doesn't take long).

24. Learn something new every day.

A short Education Life piece about a young "Renaissance man" describes how he has learned something new every day since his junior year in high school: For two and a half years, Jeremy Gleick, a sophomore majoring in bioengineering at the University of California, Los Angeles, has devoted an hour a day to learning something new. His rule: It can't be related to schoolwork, or merely reading a novel. Even if he's sleeping at a friend's house, he squeezes in his hour. "At some point in the evening, I just excuse myself and go do it." He recently passed his 1,000th hour of self-study, most of it done online.

25. Improve your memory.

If you can't remember what you've learned, learning can be frustrating. There are plenty of techniques available to help improve your working memory capacity so that you can recall more of what you've learned. Try the card game "Set" for starters.

Promoting lifelong learning as continuous, collaborative, self-directed, active, broad in domain, everlasting, positive and fulfilling, and applicable to one's profession as well as all aspects of one's life has emerged as a major global educational challenge. Meeting this challenge will require changes in the way teachers teach and learners learn, as teachers take on a more facilitative role and learners take more responsibility for setting goals, identifying resources for learning, and reflecting on and evaluating their learning. Start with these 25 recommendations and you'll be off on the right foot.

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25 Practices That Foster Lifelong Learning - InformED

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"I don't divide the world into the weak and the strong, or the successes and the failures... I divide the world into learners and nonlearners." -Benjamin Barber, sociologist Is your capacity for learning is fixed or fluid? Can you improve your intelligence and talents through hard work and practice, or are you stuck with the...

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Learning Mindsets | Teaching & Learning Services | RIT

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Learning Mindsets | Teaching & Learning Services | RIT

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Learning Mindsets | Teaching & Learning Services | RIT

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Seen from this perspective, faculty don't just support student mastery of discipline-based content; they also-purposefully or not - influence the learning mindsets that their students practice and come to develop over time. These learning mindsets, in turn, influence the kind of lifelong learners that RIT graduates become.

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The Eaquals Framework for Teacher Training and Development

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The Eaquals Framework for Teacher Training and Development

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Begins with a Problem | English Language Teaching in Turkey – Project Based Learning, Educational Technology … and more ….

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Begins with a Problem | English Language Teaching in Turkey – Project Based Learning, Educational Technology … and more ….

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English Language Teaching in Turkey - Project Based Learning, Educational Technology ... and more ....

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Mind the gap: fostering motivation and autonomy in Turkish university students | Andrew Bosson - Academia.edu

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Mind the gap: fostering motivation and autonomy in Turkish university students | Andrew Bosson - Academia.edu

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Mind the gap: fostering motivation and autonomy in Turkish university students

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This study investigates the fostering of motivation and autonomy in learners on an English language preparatory course at a Turkish university. University teachers often comment on a perceived gap between the skills and capacities a 'university'

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Eaquals Framework aims to help teachers to evaluate and reflect on their language teaching competences, but in greater depth and using more detailed descriptors. It sets out key professional competences in terms knowledge and skills over three main phases of development and encourages a positive attitude to self-assessment and evaluation. It is equally relevant for both novice and experienced teachers, for academic managers, for teacher educators and for those planning and designing teacher training programmes.

The Eaquals Framework for Language Teacher Training and Development is now available in German as well as English and can be downloaded here.

The Eaquals Framework for Language Teacher Training and Development Online
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The Eaquals Framework reflects current interest across the profession in describing and supporting the development of language teacher competences, which are seen as a combination of attitudes, values, knowledge and skills. It resulted from an internal Eaquals project involving specialists from several countries and can be used to complement the less detailed European Profiling Grid (EPG).
What are its main aims?

To help practising teachers to assess and reflect on their own language teaching competences, and to set their own goals for further development

to help managers to identify training needs and plan professional development support for practising teachers

to encourage teachers to continue their professional development on their own and with the support of their institutions

to help document the design of public training courses for practising teachers

to serve as a tool for evaluating and accrediting teacher training courses.

The Eaquals Framework can also serve as a basis for those wishing to develop additional descriptors for more specific areas, such as the teaching of languages for academic purposes, materials design, teaching young learners, teaching one-to-one lessons, and providing specialised training.
What does the Eaquals Framework contain?
The downloadable booklet contains the following elements:

An introduction describing the Framework's aims, uses, its layout, the three phases of professional development, and an overview of the areas of teacher competence covered;

The values and attitudes that are expected to form the foundations of a language teacher's work

Tables of detailed descriptors for 25 sub-sections of five main areas of language teacher competences in the form of 'knowledge' and 'skills', organised over three development phases

A glossary, and examples of use.

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The Eaquals Framework for Language Teacher Training & Development - Eaquals

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Eaquals Framework aims to help teachers to evaluate and reflect on their language teaching competences, but in greater depth and using more detailed descriptors. It sets out key professional competences in terms knowledge and skills over three main phases of development and encourages a positive attitude to self-assessment and evaluation.

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The evolution of the European Union’s lifelong learning policies: an institutional learning perspective

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The evolution of the European Union’s lifelong learning policies: an institutional learning perspective

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Developing Teachers: The Challenges of Lifelong Learning

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Developing Teachers: The Challenges of Lifelong Learning

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Motivation for lifelong learning: a biographical account of efficacy and control

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Motivation for lifelong learning: a biographical account of efficacy and control

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Informed Teachers and Learners: The importanceof assessing the characteristics needed for lifelonglearning

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Informed Teachers and Learners: The importanceof assessing the characteristics needed for lifelonglearning

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Evaluation in terms of content analysis of lifelong learning research

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Evaluation in terms of content analysis of lifelong learning research

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Comparison of Adult Education Policies in Turkey and European Union

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Comparison of Adult Education Policies in Turkey and European Union

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New test for ‘growth mindset’, the theory that anyone who tries can succeed | Education | The Guardian

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New test for ‘growth mindset’, the theory that anyone who tries can succeed | Education | The Guardian

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Can watching short films featuring actors impersonating Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein improve your brainpower? Researchers working in 100 British primary schools will try to find out from September, thanks to a £290,000 grant from the Education Endowment Foundation to test whether instructing children aged 10 and 11 in "growth mindset", an idea from American psychology, can improve results.

"Growth mindset" is the name given by psychologist Carol Dweck to the idea that intelligence can develop, and that effort leads to success. Her influential research, which has been lapped up by thousands of teachers in the UK, divides people according to what Dweck calls implicit theories of intelligence. If we think talent or braininess is innate and something we cannot change, we have a "fixed mindset" (blamed by Dweck for the Enron scandal, among other ills). If we believe our performance at school and in life can be changed by our attitude, and particularly by how we cope with setbacks, we have a "growth mindset". The British study, called Changing Mindsets, will test its effectiveness using videos and quizzes developed by education company Positive Edge in year 6 classrooms, while psychologists will train teachers for one day.

"Expectations change neurology; if you have low expectations of a child their brain starts to function worse," says Sherria Hoskins, the Portsmouth University professor leading the study. "We're not saying you can turn a child who is struggling at maths into a maths genius. The message is about getting better."

The videos feature actors playing Darwin, Einstein and Olympic athlete Wilma Rudolph, describing their achievements in ways that emphasise a growth mindset. "There was nothing special about my intellect," announces Darwin. "The ability to change and adapt has been key to our existence."

The study will look at what Hoskins calls "learning behaviour" as well as attainment, meaning how children manage themselves and whether they learn from mistakes. But the results will depend on Sats scores, and whether the pupils who receive the training and watch the films do better than a control group who do not.

"It's about the language you use with pupils," Hoskins says. "Instead of praising them around ability or static factors related to who they are - for example, saying 'you're so good at drawing' - you move to feedback based on effort, strategy and results. Many people don't realise praise can be dangerous."

While there is widespread support for the principle of evidence-based policy, and for an approach that promotes trying over talent, growth mindset itself is a topic of heated debate. Last year Dweck was reported to be concerned about growth mindset " misuse", and told Schools Week she was kept awake at night by the fear that mindset was becoming "the new self-esteem" - an idea bandied about by teachers who had not properly understood it and used it to "make kids feel good about any effort". Hoskins says she is frustrated by the extent to which views are polarised, with mindset viewed either as a magic wand or a fad.

This may sound overblown if you have never heard of growth mindset, or Dweck, but it took time for ideas about self-esteem and mindfulness to find their way into everyday life too. Becky Francis, newly appointed director of the Institute of Education and adviser to the education select committee, says the notion that anyone can improve with application and high expectations is positive, and he points to the correspondence between Dweck's work and knowledge gleaned from sociology.

"There's a lot of evidence about teachers bracketing students from particular backgrounds, and how attainment can be a self-fulfilling prophecy," she says. "Since the 1960s we have known that kids put in low-ability groups get the message very quickly."

Others welcome the injection of ideas about how children learn at a time when the curriculum is becoming less focused on skills and more on knowledge. Peter Fonagy, professor of psychoanalysis at University College London, says: "The idea that we can help people develop, that we are not bound by social or biological constraints, frees up the brain as well as the system." He cites John Hattie's finding that teachers' grasp of their pupils' problems is crucial. "Communication is enormously important. Psychology, or one human's understanding of another, enormously enhances the learning experience."

Thomas Westenholz, the Danish businessman behind Positive Edge, says he regrets the extent to which the trial featuring his videos and quizzes is tied to academic results. "There's a complete obsession with testing in this country," he tells me. "My interest is in improving long-term wellbeing, not a narrow focus on grades, but it is not possible to get funding for this."

Westenholz, whose previous venture was a company specialising in claims for mis-sold payment protection insurance, traces his own interest in growth mindset to when his newborn son was dangerously ill, and he and his wife refused to accept a bleak prognosis. "I saw in hospital how parents struggled who didn't have a growth mindset," he explains. "It's about building resilience: how do you deal with things when they get really tough?"

Whatever his private motives, Positive Edge markets itself as a tool to boost results and shrink the gap between wealthier and poorer pupils. Its website claims "Growth mindset naturally creates what Ofsted wants", asserts that the key issue for disadvantaged students is often "negative attitude", and even suggests a report showing "how your pupil premium spending is impacting achievement". While Hoskins, listed on the website as an adviser, is more cautious, she too suggests that mindset training could be targeted either at children who are struggling academically, or who are eligible for free school meals (and additional funding).

Since the foundation supporting the research was created with the aim of narrowing the attainment gap, this emphasis is no surprise. But it is cause for concern to those who are sceptical about the growth mindset approach, because they fear it risks becoming another way of blaming poor pupils for their lack of progress.

Matt O'Leary, an education lecturer at Birmingham City University, tweeted how "farcical" it was that his six-year-old daughter was being graded on her attitude to learning. While he believes children are influenced by continuous putdowns, he says the idea of schools grading attitude is "very worrying". He also fears that, far from cutting against the grain of increased testing and hierarchies, mindset could become yet another thing children are assessed on.

David James, professor of social sciences at Cardiff and editor of the British Journal of Sociology of Education, takes this critique further. While he says "it's great to dwell on the fact that intelligence is not fundamentally genetic and unchangeable", he believes the limitations of mindset outweigh its uses.

"If teachers are being rewarded on the basis of whether they get a few kids over the 'C' borderline this year, it's very naive to come along and say 'you need to change the way your kids think about themselves'. It individualises the failure - 'they couldn't change the way they think, so that's why they failed'."

James questions why the new study is needed when a previous one, in 2013, showed no statistically significant effect, and suggests there is "a bit of desperation" to unearth evidence that anything other than inequality explains the attainment gap. He believes the search for individually focused explanations is what lies behind the current interest in "character" and argues that psychology, with its quizzes and carryover into self-help, has more popular appeal and is more to current policymakers' tastes than sociology, with its structures and systems.

Francis, meanwhile, suggests a connection between mindset, coaching and a broader movement towards individualised problem-solving, "when of course a lot of our problems are structural and institutional". But she thinks mindset could prove a useful tool, for example in tackling what she calls the very British phenomenon of giving up on maths. Westenholz calls it a "small piece of a much bigger puzzle", while UCL's Fonagy emphasises the importance of influencing teachers if it is to have any effect.

No one I spoke to denied that evidence exists showing mindset to be a factor influencing learning. Doubts centre on whether similar results will be obtained in English schools.

Will the films' dramatic stories, stirring music and inspirational messages have any demonstrable effect on the children who see them? All will be revealed when the study's results are published in 2018.
Topics

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New test for 'growth mindset', the theory that anyone who tries can succeed

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Can watching short films featuring actors impersonating Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein improve your brainpower? Researchers working in 100 British primary schools will try to find out from September, thanks to a £290,000 grant from the Education Endowment Foundation to test whether instructing children aged 10 and 11 in "growth mindset", an idea from American psychology, can improve results.

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Carol Dweck Revisits the 'Growth Mindset' - Education Week

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Carol Dweck Revisits the 'Growth Mindset' - Education Week

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Opinion

For many years, I secretly worked on my research. I say "secretly" because, once upon a time, researchers simply published their research in professional journals-and there it stayed.

However, my colleagues and I learned things we thought people needed to know. We found that students' mindsets-how they perceive their abilities-played a key role in their motivation and achievement, and we found that if we changed students' mindsets, we could boost their achievement. More precisely, students who believed their intelligence could be developed (a growth mindset) outperformed those who believed their intelligence was fixed (a fixed mindset). And when students learned through a structured program that they could "grow their brains" and increase their intellectual abilities, they did better. Finally, we found that having children focus on the process that leads to learning (like hard work or trying new strategies) could foster a growth mindset and its benefits.

So a few years back, I published my book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success to share these discoveries with educators. And many educators have applied the mindset principles in spectacular ways with tremendously gratifying results.

This is wonderful, and the good word continues to spread. But as we've watched the growth mindset become more popular, we've become much wiser about how to implement it. This learning-the common pitfalls, the misunderstandings, and what to do about them-is what I'd like to share with you, so that we can maximize the benefits for our students.

A growth mindset isn't just about effort. Perhaps the most common misconception is simply equating the growth mindset with effort. Certainly, effort is key for students' achievement, but it's not the only thing. Students need to try new strategies and seek input from others when they're stuck. They need this repertoire of approaches-not just sheer effort-to learn and improve.

We also need to remember that effort is a means to an end to the goal of learning and improving. Too often nowadays, praise is given to students who are putting forth effort, but not learning, in order to make them feel good in the moment: "Great effort! You tried your best!" It's good that the students tried, but it's not good that they're not learning. The growth-mindset approach helps children feel good in the short and long terms, by helping them thrive on challenges and setbacks on their way to learning. When they're stuck, teachers can appreciate their work so far, but add: "Let's talk about what you've tried, and what you can try next."

Recently, someone asked what keeps me up at night. It's the fear that the mindset concepts, which grew up to counter the failed self-esteem movement, will be used to perpetuate that movement. In other words, if you want to make students feel good, even if they're not learning, just praise their effort! Want to hide learning gaps from them? Just tell them, "Everyone is smart!" The growth mindset was intended to help close achievement gaps, not hide them. It is about telling the truth about a student's current achievement and then, together, doing something about it, helping him or her become smarter.

I also fear that the mindset work is sometimes used to justify why some students aren't learning: "Oh, he has a fixed mindset." We used to blame the child's environment or ability.

Must it always come back to finding a reason why some children just can't learn, as opposed to finding a way to help them learn? Teachers who understand the growth mindset do everything in their power to unlock that learning.

A few years ago, my colleague in Australia, Susan Mackie, detected an outbreak of what she called "false growth mindset." She was seeing educators who claimed to have a growth mindset, but whose words and actions didn't reflect it. At first, I was skeptical. But before long, I saw it, too, and I understood why.

In many quarters, a growth mindset had become the right thing to have, the right way to think. It was as though educators were faced with a choice: Are you an enlightened person who fosters students' well-being? Or are you an unenlightened person, with a fixed mindset, who undermines them? So, of course, many claimed the growth-mindset identity. But the path to a growth mindset is a journey, not a proclamation.

Let's look at what happens when teachers, or parents, claim a growth mindset, but don't follow through. In recent research, Kathy Liu Sun found that there were many math teachers who endorsed a growth mindset and even said the words "growth mindset" in their middle school math classes, but did not follow through in their classroom practices. In these cases, their students tended to endorse more of a fixed mindset about their math ability. My advisee and research collaborator Kyla Haimovitz and I are finding many parents who endorse a growth mindset, but react to their children's mistakes as though they are problematic or harmful, rather than helpful. In these cases, their children develop more of a fixed mindset about their intelligence.

Kathy Liu Sun: Stop Killing Kids' Math Curiosity

How can we help educators adopt a deeper, true growth mindset, one that will show in their classroom practices? You may be surprised by my answer: Let's legitimize the fixed mindset. Let's acknowledge that (1) we're all a mixture of fixed and growth mindsets, (2) we will probably always be, and (3) if we want to move closer to a growth mindset in our thoughts and practices, we need to stay in touch with our fixed-mindset thoughts and deeds.

If we "ban" the fixed mindset, we will surely create false growth-mindsets. (By the way, I also fear that if we use mindset measures for accountability, we will create false growth mindsets on an unprecedented scale.) But if we watch carefully for our fixed-mindset triggers, we can begin the true journey to a growth mindset.

What are your triggers?
Watch for a fixed-mindset reaction when you face challenges. Do you feel overly anxious, or does a voice in your head warn you away? Watch for it when you face a setback in your teaching, or when students aren't listening or learning. Do you feel incompetent or defeated? Do you look for an excuse? Watch to see whether criticism brings out your fixed mindset. Do you become defensive, angry, or crushed instead of interested in learning from the feedback? Watch what happens when you see an educator who's better than you at something you value. Do you feel envious and threatened, or do you feel eager to learn? Accept those thoughts and feelings and work with and through them. And keep working with and through them.

My colleagues and I are taking a growth-mindset stance toward our message to educators. Maybe we originally put too much emphasis on sheer effort. Maybe we made the development of a growth mindset sound too easy. Maybe we talked too much about people having one mindset or the other, rather than portraying people as mixtures. We are on a growth-mindset journey, too.

Published in Print: September 23, 2015, as Growth Mindset, Revisited

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Carol Dweck Revisits the 'Growth Mindset'

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Opinion For many years, I secretly worked on my research. I say "secretly" because, once upon a time, researchers simply published their research in professional journals-and there it stayed. However, my colleagues and I learned things we thought people needed to know.

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The power of yet | Carol S Dweck | TEDxNorrköping - YouTube

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The power of yet | Carol S Dweck | TEDxNorrköping - YouTube

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The power of yet | Carol S Dweck | TEDxNorrköping

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Carol Dweck: The power of believing that you can improve | TED Talk | TED.com

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Carol Dweck: The power of believing that you can improve | TED Talk | TED.com

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The power of believing that you can improve

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Carol Dweck researches “growth mindset” — the idea that we can grow our brain’s capacity to learn and to solve problems. In this talk, she describes two ways to think about a problem that’s slightly too hard for you to solve. Are you not smart enough to solve it … or have you just not solved it yet? A great introduction to this influential field.

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Becoming a growth mindset school | Teaching: Leading Learning

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Becoming a growth mindset school | Teaching: Leading Learning

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The idea of becoming a growth mindset school has been over a year in the making. Our Headteacher bought each member of SLT a copy of Mindset for Christmas, and it was the main agenda item at our annual senior team conference. Today I launched the idea of becoming a growth mindset school to all staff at...

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Resources for Teaching Growth Mindset | Edutopia

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Resources for Teaching Growth Mindset | Edutopia

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Social & Emotional Learning (SEL)

Find information about growth mindset, discover how learning mindsets can affect student performance, and explore strategies that support student confidence.

Understanding Growth Mindset

Strategies for Addressing Mindsets

Embracing Failure: Building a Growth Mindset Through the Arts: Learn how educators at New Mexico School for the Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico teach students how to integrate critical feedback. (Edutopia, 2016)

Nurturing Intrinsic Motivation and Growth Mindset in Writing: Review tips from a high school English instructor about how to conduct better conferences with students; take a look at specific examples of process praise and feedback that can encourage autonomy, purpose, and choice. (Edutopia, 2014)

Praising the Process: Watch this video of a writing workshop from a first grade classroom to see how to use process praise to encourage a growth mindset. (Teaching Channel, 2015)

Using Praise to Enhance Student Resilience and Learning Outcomes: Explore Do's and Don'ts, FAQs, and other information about how to use feedback to alter student mindsets. (American Psychological Association)

The Secret to Raising Smart Kids: Read an article authored by growth-mindset researcher Carol Dweck about research into growth mindset, and learn how to give valuable feedback by focusing on the specific process a child used to accomplish something; at the end of the article, there are several useful examples of effective praise. (Scientific American, 2015)

Growth Mindset Within Math

Giving Better Student Feedback

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Find information about growth mindset, discover how learning mindsets can affect student performance, and explore strategies that support student confidence.