Comparing Growth and Change for Educators and Learners by Luke Walter

lwalter48 — 2025-09-20 16:40:18 UTC

Change is the altering or introduction of differing elements into one's life (personally or professionally). Change happens at a constant rate and has both positive, neutral, and negative effects depending on various factors. Growth involves a person's mindset and reaction to various changes, and it cannot exist without change.

lwalter48 — 2025-09-21 12:38:10 UTC

For both teachers and students, developing a growth mindset is imperative to success in the educational setting. Approaching changes, such as the pursuit of an unknown skill or concept, with a growth mindset means putting forth your best effort with an "I can" attitude. Fixed mindsets are bogged down in all the reasons why a change cannot turn into a positive endeavor. The video by Sprouts perfectly illustrates the difference between both mindsets in additional to providing examples.

lwalter48 — 2025-09-21 12:50:22 UTC

For teachers, exhibiting a growth mindset often involves looking forward rather than backwards, especially with the continual evolution of instructional technology and the way it impacts learners. For example, a teacher with a growth mindset would look at a shift in math curriculum as an opportunity. They would use this shift to learn new math strategies and approaches to problem solving in addition to ways to supplement the curriculum with new and exciting technology or instructional strategies. A teacher with a fixed mindset would likely react negatively to such a change in the classroom, especially if they were comfortable with the curriculum that was already in place.

lwalter48 — 2025-09-21 13:01:18 UTC

Encouraging a growth mindset in students becomes imperative for helping them adapt quickly and productively. While it is true that feelings such as fear or anxiousness never leave for good, a growth mindset ensure those feelings do not drive a learner's actions and feelings. This video by PBS explores child perspectives on change and how they were able to adapt to new situations.

lwalter48 — 2025-09-21 13:40:18 UTC

A fixed mindset becomes the need to maintain the "status quo." Although this article by NOBL is business oriented, many of its ideas on how individuals may resist professional change also apply to education as a profession.

lwalter48 — 2025-09-21 14:20:49 UTC

Speaking from the perspective of a learner, changes can often be uncomfortable and intimidating when initially presented, especially when those changes are immense! In my schooling, a change I encountered was moving to a new school in a new city. I was in fifth grade at this point, and I felt anxious in making new friends, getting used to a new routine and school building, and wrapping my brain around a new style of learning (my teacher utilized co-teaching in this grade). For a while, I dreaded school until I adapted and built new bonds with teachers and others students.

lwalter48 — 2025-09-21 14:42:18 UTC

Franchone Bey's journey as an educator shows the power of developing a growth mindset in response to change. Her emphasis on building up student confidence and voice through relationships in response to her own failures and reactions to change resonate with my current journey in education.

lwalter48 — 2025-09-21 15:21:57 UTC

Change, although constant, presented itself differently within every individual due to the myriad of differing backgrounds, experiences, and cultures between individuals. With this, the way change interacts with growth also differs between individuals. The way a teacher would approach learners in an urban school district, for example, differs from the way a teacher would in a rural environment, especially considering how potentially diverse those respective communities are culturally and economically. So how do we continue to build students who approach change with growth mindset despite all of these differences? It starts by embracing those differences and becoming comfortable in the uncomfortable.

lwalter48 — 2025-09-21 15:59:03 UTC

John Maxwell's quote on change vs. growth perfectly illustrates this concept.

lwalter48 — 2025-09-21 16:05:49 UTC

For students, developing a growth mindset directly relates to their development as a learner and their reactions to new concepts, strategies for critical thinking opportunities, and attainment of various new skills. A student with a growth mindset approaches a foreign reading skill, such as finding author's purpose, with an understanding that while they may not fully grasp it now, that effort and practice will ultimately prevail. A student with a fixed mindset would approach this same problem with an attitude of defeat, feeling unable to attain the skill taught.

lwalter48 — 2025-09-21 16:50:13 UTC

I liken a positive relationship between change and growth to that of independent and dependent variables in an experiment. In experiments, we utilize the independent variable, or what we change, in an experiment to affect the dependent variable. In life, we also make the choice on whether or not the changes, both personal and environmental, enact growth.

lwalter48 — 2025-09-21 16:51:56 UTC

This infographic from human insight perfectly captures the differences between a fixed and growth mindset.

lwalter48 — 2025-09-21 16:52:37 UTC

Developing a growth mindset begins with reframing how we think about change. This Edutopia article by Patrick Harris II presents beliefs on how to approach change, emphasizing how changes can turn into growth through relationships and a steady approach to personal change.

lwalter48 — 2025-09-21 16:53:13 UTC

School of Education provides many examples of strategies for promoting growth in both students and educators. Each strategy ties into promoting both the effort and process one takes to achieve growth rather than fixating on outcomes, thus developing grit and resiliency in one's self.

lwalter48 — 2025-09-21 16:53:16 UTC

This infographic from SPIN Hawaii also illustrates strategies for teaching students how to develop a growth mindset.

lwalter48 — 2025-09-21 16:53:32 UTC

Professional development is another way for teachers to foster a growth mindset. This TED talk by Tai Basurto emphasizes how relationships and support networks serve as avenues for professional development in addition to setting up the teacher as a learner.

lwalter48 — 2025-09-21 16:54:15 UTC

In this Teacher Talk, Medine Yigit shares her teaching journey that brings her across various age groups, levels of community involvement, and diverse socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. Through it all, she emphasizes the importance in moving forward with the changes that comes with every new groups of students. By building connections, prioritizing individual needs over arbitrary targets, and adapting instruction to students rather than forcing learning, student "barriers" transform into learning and growth.

lwalter48 — 2025-09-21 16:54:34 UTC

Building relationship and exhibiting empathy universally works in helping all students adjust to change. This article from PBS targets parents, but the strategies utilized are easily adaptable for teachers.

lwalter48 — 2025-09-21 16:54:48 UTC

This article by Drexel University shares student differences to consider in education, strategies for making learning inclusive, and how fostering a class culture that celebrate differences rather than maintaining a fixed mindset promotes growth in confidence and empathy!