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Struggle and Failure Leads to Deeper Learning

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Struggle and Failure Leads to Deeper Learning

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https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/embracing-struggle-exl

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Students who embrace struggle while learning and solving problems develop skills that others may not. Learn how Expeditionary Learning has incorporated struggle and the growth mindset into their school.

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Student Resource

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http://www.mindsetworks.com/FileCenter/3JIQAYABR8M8GHQCQ05Q.pdf

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https://www.qualtrics.com/blog/why-educators-need-to-change-their-approach-to-growth-mindset/

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According to Carol Dweck, telling your child he or she is smart may actually limit their potential.

In her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, which was first published in 2006, Dweck introduces her "growth mindset" theory. Educators, schools, and districts have since latched onto her work, incorporating a mindset that encourages educators to step back from traditional approaches to education and encourage students to take on tough challenges.

Unfortunately, in the process of incorporating growth mindset into the education system, many have fumbled and failed to provide the necessary framework for students to continually learn and achieve success. And while educators should by no means abandon growth mindset, it's time for schools, teachers and district leaders to take a new approach to incorporating it into student learning.

Dweck's research revealed that when people believe talent, intelligence or other abilities are fixed traits, they avoid challenges or limit the amount of effort they expend on a task. These individuals adopt what Dweck refers to as a "fixed mindset", and they tend focus on documenting the qualities they have been praised for, instead of developing and growing outside their comfort zone.

In his article " How Not to Talk to Your Kids " Po Bonson displays the way our schools place children in this fixed mindset. He points to Thomas, a young fifth grader who had been told by countless adults and teachers that he was "smart." Of course, their praise wasn't wrong - Thomas had tested in the top one percent on his school IQ entrance test. But as Thomas progressed through his education, his self-awareness of his own intelligence actually limited his growth. His father noticed that Thomas refused to try things he didn't immediately excel at. When things didn't come quickly to Thomas, he quickly gave up trying, saying things like "I'm not good at this." Thomas perceived success and performance as innate and he didn't believe he could be successful at tasks that didn't come easily to him, which limited his learning in and out of the classroom.

Because educators realize that students like Thomas are not an anomaly, they've done a phenomenal job of shifting their focus from measuring student success and performance to reversing fixed mindset behaviors and encouraging student growth. This is, no doubt, a step in the right direction.

A recently published article, "How to Weave Growth Mindset into School Culture," describes Arroyo High School's multi-year efforts to infuse growth mindset into every classroom. Teachers and administrators have adopted a culture of encouraging students to take on challenging problems - to explore and stretch themselves.

Adilene Rodriguez, a student at Arroyo high school, serves as a powerful example of growth mindset success. Adilene says she always struggled in school - until her science teacher, Jim Clark, taught his class about growth mindset. He told his students to push themselves and try harder, whether they were struggling with a specific homework question or falling behind on a larger level. He constantly reminded students that they wouldn't get things right every time, but promised them improvement and mastery would happen over time.

Adilene took this to heart. She starting engaging in class, she put more effort behind her homework, and she stopped telling herself that science was her weak spot. Clark even encouraged Adilene to enroll in AP Biology, something she had never even considered. A few years later, she excelled in science, and she enrolled in college-level genetics courses during her summer break. Adeline's success was the result of Arroyo High School's focus on growth mindset.

But not every school has approached growth mindset like Arroyo High School. In fact, in an effort to adopt a growth mindset and improve student outcomes, some educators have even undermined student growth.

This happens when educators and teachers encourage students to fail or try a different approach without providing students the necessary instruction, resources or support to get up and try again.

It's the classrooms like Mr. Clark's, where teachers put in extra time, approach teaching from various perspectives and provide online resources or additional reading to help a student improve their learning. It's schools that push a culture of constant improvement that help students realized that "failure" is not a permanent label, but rather an opportunity to keep learning.

Unless educators and schools establish a framework that supports students when they haven't achieved mastery, growth mindset will not work in schools. If teachers encourage students to tackle hard problems, approach things in a different way, and stop shackling themselves with unreasonable expectations, then district and school leadership must also make sure they're also providing students with the resources they need to learn and master the material. If not, the status quo remains in tact and educators risk perpetuating negative outcomes and blaming students without examining the academic climate and structures that stand in the way.

If educators want to successfully adhere to Dweck's research findings and encourage a growth mindset, individual schools need to make a culture shift. Growth mindset is not a strategy that one can simply apply and expect to see transformative results. District and school leadership need to create environments where students can make mistakes, receive productive praise and then benefit from instruction and resources that help them develop.

If you want to find out how Qualtrics can help you assess and improve your students' social-emotional competencies sign up for a free demo.

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Why Educators Need to Change Their Approach to Growth Mindset | Qualtrics

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According to Carol Dweck, telling your child he or she is smart may actually limit their potential. In her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success , which was first published in 2006, Dweck introduces her "growth mindset" theory.

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Carol Dweck: The Effect of Praise on Mindsets

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For all of us as educators, a growth mindset must be a prerequisite belief and an easy one to champion. However, where Dweck's idea presents us with a narrow gap in comprehension, the divide between comprehension and practice can be quite wide. As school leaders, how can we bring awareness to this gap and implement practices to cultivate a growth mindset within our schools?

To impact school culture and enable any mindset to grow, we have to reach all facets of the community and its members. Thus, thinking about how to foster mindsets at the student, teacher, and parent level is important. We also need to identify the components of the mindset we want to create. For example, Tom Vander Ark outlines both the teacher and student components of an innovation mindset in Innovation = Growth + Maker + Team Experiences . In Growth Mindset Parenting , author Eduardo Briceño focuses specifically on the components of parenting decisions to nurture a child's belief in their ability to grow in a malleable manner.

Applying this to fostering the growth mindset within a school culture, we benefit from first breaking down the components of a growth mindset as it applies to teaching and learning within our schools. At our school, we have identified four areas of focus in nurturing a growth mindset.

Flexibility & Adaptability

Dweck's work informs us that a fixed mindset stems from a static definition of self; thus, in our school, we have focused attention on the value of flexibility. To establish and maintain a flexible, evolving definition of self and one's abilities, it seems important to experience flexibility. While there are a number of conditions which cause teachers and students to flexibly adapt, the practice of intentional flexibility allows teachers and students to experience it themselves in different contexts and to develop skills and mindset associated with each. Here's how it looks in action:

Teachers. Developing a culture of flexible grouping and collaboration among teachers is one way in which teachers can experience variety in their practice. At our school, we have teacher committees, taskforces, and flexible team teaching which serve this purpose. We also award green rubber bands of collaboration during faculty meetings to acknowledge sharing of flexibility and collaboration stories which have yielded progress. Faculty members then place the bands around a ball which grows throughout the year. Teachers who earn the ball and bands for the week keep it in their classrooms until the next share. It's a somewhat silly, yet effective symbol of our growing strength through flexibility and collaboration.

Students. Teachers who differentiate instruction are likely familiar with the concept of flexible grouping in which students are placed in a variety of learning or project groups throughout the year. In their book Leadership for Differentiating School and Classrooms , authors Carol Ann Tomlinson and Susan Demirsky Allan outline a method for flexibly grouping students by readiness, interest, and learning profile, sometimes through teacher design and other times through student choice. At our school, we employ these methods and Google Forms to solicit student responses which help inform our flexible groups.

For both teachers and students, the use of data to inform both the grouping methods and learning pathways is important. Students and teachers can utilize data from such sources as surveys, adaptive e-learning programs, ongoing formative assessment, student reflections on progress, and teacher observations.

Passion Pathways

Circling back to Dweck's definition of a growth mindset, the opportunity to explore new passions is key. However, passion-based learning and the conventional definition of a passion are two different concepts. The question, "What is your passion?" comes from a fixed mindset as the answer is expected to be unwavering in commitment and interest. In contrast, passion-based learning, which asked the question, "What are you most excited to learn about in this moment?" promotes a growth mindset. The following approaches can generate passion pathways for both students and teachers.

Teachers. Though standards are important in learning, teachers can still experience high creativity and academic freedom if empowered as partners in building learning experiences for students. At our school, teachers are key constituents in designing project-based learning and the overall curricular experience. However, it is important to approach this planning with the right amount of time set aside for collaboration.

Students. Students can also be empowered as drivers of their learning so as to discover new passions. The mini-mester or internship are examples of student-driven, passion-based projects. At our school, we use Google Forms to solicit passion project ideas from both teachers and students, and then collaborate to build out experiences. Student-run clubs are another way schools are promoting passion learning among students, but where this kind of passion pathway can make its way into the classroom, growth mindset is enhanced.

Agency & Empowerment

As individuals, we most readily believe we can change something if we have control over it. For teachers and students, that means learning must be something that happens through us, and not to us. By personalizing both the professional pathway for teachers and the learning pathway for students, we are able to instill a driver mentality for both groups within our school. The questions, "What do I want to go?" and "How am I going to get there?" can become mantras to this type of practice. In action, we see this through our approach to professional development and through student-led conferences.

Teachers. Teachers at our school participate in a personalized professional development process, starting with their own self-reflection and goal identification in the Professional Growth Plan . This living document is then used to guide both PD experiences and classroom observations, with teachers as active agents of their journey. Last year, this involved a choice-based PD day where teachers set their own agenda. We have also led "unconference" style learning days where teachers run workshops. This year, teachers have a variety of pathways at their fingertips through the implementation of the Redbird Professional Development Platform .

Students. To build agency and empower students as drivers of their own learning, we run student-led conferences instead of traditional parent-teacher conferences. In the driver's seat, students set the agenda and lead the discussion about their performance in each class, their growth, and their goals. In preparation for the meetings, teachers work alongside students to identify each of these components to share in the conference report .

Fail-Forward Mentality

Failure is an essential experience to developing grit, but while teachers and parents see value in failure on a theoretical level, the reality of it is still very uncomfortable. In a recent post, Carol Dweck Revisits Growth Mindset , the author addressed this very concern:

"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."

We can easily fall into this trap as teachers and school leaders in reaction to failures as universally high stakes. More often than not, we admonish mistakes as not to be repeated and use systems of consequences to reinforce this message.

At our school, we have asked, "What if we celebrated mistakes instead?" Of course, there is a balance that needs to be maintained so that students do not run wild with failure and celebration, but in the context of mature conversations, thinking about our missteps as opportunities can be empowering.

Teachers. Too often, when parents get upset about a new tool gone awry or an innovative approach veering sideways, our inclination as school leaders is to restrict or prohibit. Instead, we have instilled a golden plunger prize for teachers who share innovative teaching moments which have gone off the rails a bit. Teachers can earn the right to display the team's gilded innovation plunger for the two week period in between faculty meetings when sharing takes place. The first one awarded this year was to our art teacher, who had used a Gopro camera in his class, placing them on the heads of children to record their artistic process...just prior to an incident of head lice discovered! Taking this approach encourages a safe space for failing forward as a team and making strides in our innovative practices.

Students. It is difficult to systematically achieve a fail-forward mentality through whole-group activities. Using inspirational stories such as Nick Vujicic's No Arms, No Legs, No Worries , we have run successful assemblies around failure and getting back up. However, the most important work in this area occurs through our advisory program, utilizing Developmental Designs activities to build trust and engage in reflection, and through the one-on-one conversations we are able to have. Sometimes, consequence is still involved, and this time used as an opportunity to reflect. For example, I recently had a student start off on the wrong foot and land in trouble early in the day. During our reflection (a.k.a. detention) time together, she shared she had gotten lost on the way to school as it was her first time taking the train by herself. I shared that I thought it was wonderful she got lost. She looked at me quizzically and we then discussed how she managed to figure out how to get here anyway...so she had solved it. By the time she left, she had a strategy for getting out of a stress zone and avoiding trouble and a better sense of how she could fail forward from getting lost. Even better, she had an appreciation for the whole experience.

In a Nutshell

In schools and in our daily lives, overcoming our orientation to a fixed mindset can be quite difficult. Thus, we have to design our pathway to resilience and growth mindset. In our school, we use the following roadmap. How can we share our best practices and build this to scale across our schools?

For more check out:
Tiffany Della Vedova is Head of Upper School at The Mandell School. Follow Tiffany on Twitter, Stay in-the-know with all things EdTech and innovations in learning by signing up to receive the weekly Smart Update @TeachOnTheEdge

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How to Build a Growth Mindset into School Culture

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By: Tiffany Della Vedova. A growth mindset must be a prerequisite belief and an easy one to champion. However, the divide between comprehension and practice can be quite wide. As school leaders, how can we bring awareness to this gap and implement practices to cultivate a growth mindset within our schools?

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https://youtu.be/NWv1VdDeoRY

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Carol Dweck - A Study on Praise and Mindsets

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http://blog.teachboost.com/5-ways-instructional-leaders-can-support-growth-mindset-in-teachers

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The team at PERTS -Stanford University's Project for Education Research That Scales-has been researching growth mindset for quite some time, and their findings on student and educator learning capacity are fascinating.

Recently we sat down with PERTS's senior program manager Jacquie Beaubien to talk about growth mindset. Because we at TeachBoost are proponents of continuous professional learning, we were excited to talk through the research that supports taking a growth mindset approach to teacher development.

Here's what we learned.

What is growth mindset?

"Growth mindset is the belief that abilities-specifically intelligence-are malleable," says Beaubien. "It's the belief that anyone can improve their intelligence."

Why is growth mindset in educators so important?

"It's a great benefit to anyone to develop a growth mindset," says Beaubien. "Evidence shows it's a positive perspective to have on someone's abilities."

We agree. In order to improve practice, students, teachers, and leadership teams need to believe that anyone can improve, including themselves and their peers.

Finally, says Beaubien, "it's important for students to see that their teachers fully embrace the belief that everyone can learn."

How can instructional leaders promote and support growth mindset in their teachers?

Beaubien offers 5 helpful tips for principals, coaches, and educator teams:

1. Deliver frequent, formative feedback.

"There's a lack of consistent formative feedback in the teaching profession," says Beaubien. "Teachers get trained and given the content, but they're not given many opportunities to improve their teaching. Most models for evaluating teachers are like old model of evaluating students-summative. It can feel very threatening."

Just like students need formative assessments and personalized learning plans, it is also critical that educators get frequent feedback on their performance, know where they need to focus their efforts, and understand the steps to take to improve their practice. "One thing I really love about TeachBoost," says Beaubien, "is that it's a platform for giving formative feedback, making mentor matches, and planning goals and next steps."

2. Be deliberate about offering growth mindset praise that supports growth mindset.

Phrases like "you're a natural" or "you're really smart" are complimentary, however they suggest that a person's abilities are innate, or inherent; fixed. Growth mindset praise is more nuanced. "You need to praise the process: the steps someone took to get to the desired end result. Effort is a part of that, but not the whole."

3. Embrace the idea that learning occurs when one is stretched beyond their comfort zone.

In other words, make room for you and your teachers to make mistakes. "One thing educators work on is helping students get comfortable making mistakes," says Beaubien, "but the same must be true for teachers. Teachers are facing challenges like adopting the Common Core, integrating technology tools- these introduce significant changes to most classrooms."

Speaking from an edtech perspective, we must embrace the belief that all educators can leverage technology in powerful ways in the classroom. A tool like TeachBoost helps leaders consider everyone in the school as a learner, which means everyone has to be comfortable making mistakes.

4. Take advantage of the Growth Mindset for Teachers kit.

To help educators foster growth mindset in their students, PERTS created a free set of courses, lessons, and best practices for use in the classroom. The kit walks teachers through the fundamentals of a growth mindset, and has activities teachers can try out in their classroom.

5. Leverage the Growth Mindset for Educator Teams course.

In addition to the classroom-oriented mindset kit, the free Educator Teams course covers setting up PLCs and PD around growth mindset, offers suggestions on how to introduce this to the whole school, and includes stories from teacher teams who've done this work.

PERTS encourages teachers to conduct peer visits to observe others working through the kits, and they provide a framework and downloadable worksheets for delivering teacher feedback. We really like this for two reasons:

1. Teacher evaluation forms aren't always great fits for peer visits, so it's great to have a new resource for intervisitations.

2. Because mindset work is new and nuanced, it's helpful that PERTS put together these guiding documents.

Beaubien suggests starting with small group of self-motivated teachers as well as a principal or school leader.

Visit the Mindset Kit website to learn more and sign up for their fantastic newsletter.

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5 Ways Instructional Leaders Can Foster Growth Mindset in Teachers

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The team at PERTS -Stanford University's Project for Education Research That Scales-has been researching growth mindset for quite some time, and their findings on student and educator learning capacity are fascinating. Recently we sat down with PERTS's senior program manager Jacquie Beaubien to talk about growth mindset.

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By: Lisa M. Hughes

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https://youtu.be/2zrtHt3bBmQ

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Growth Mindset (1 of 5) | Social Emotional Learning for kids

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https://youtu.be/ElVUqv0v1EE

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What do you think about this?

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https://youtu.be/hiiEeMN7vbQ

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Developing a Growth Mindset with Carol Dweck

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https://youtu.be/ICILzbB1Obg

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For more videos explaining evidence-based teaching, visit http://www.youtube.com/user/oakbellUK Prof. Dweck explains research which shows how important it is for learners to link success with their effort.

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http://mindsetonline.com/