Growth Mindset in Teaching

Dalian University of Education Email:877620964@qq.com

[Abstract]By examining the science behind“Growth Mindset”and the way that helps with students’learning,this paper explores on how to cultivate a growth mindset in the classroom.Besides,it makes an analysis of factors that influence students’learning as well as the role of motivation and self-resiliance in this process.It also discusses how teachers can apply the theory in the classrooms with the way of praise and communication.

[Keywords]Growth Mindset;brain-based learning;self-efficacy;resilience;academic socialization

Introduction

as educators,we always hear“I’m always not good at this.”“I’m just not as smart as her.”“I’m better at sports than academics.”All these statements come from a concept called“fixed mindset”.According to Growth Mindset Theory(Dweck,2007),a person with a fixed mindset avoids challenges,gives up easily,sees effort as fruitless,ignores useful criticism and is threatened by others.On the contrary,if a person has a growth mindset,he or she believes ability is developed.They tend to embrace challenges,persist in obstacles,see effort as necessary,learn from criticism and inspired by others’success.They can cultivate their skills through effort and hard work.In a word,with a fixed mindset,you believe you are born with your abilities and that’s all you’ll ever get whereas with a growth mindset,you believe abilities are learned from effort and mistakes.Most people have a combination of fixed and growth mindset.How to train the brain to think in a growth mindset?

Science behind it:Brain-Based Learning

Definition of Neuroplasticity

People always claim that“Practic e makes perfect”,but is there real science behind this to support this saying?The answer is yes.Recent researches and data are showing that the brain continues to change over time.Our brain cells actually grow from learning and practicing.Scientists have begun to reveal the secret of how we learn and brought up the concept of neuroplasticity.Neuroplasticity is a term that explains brain-based learning in a scientific way.According to Jensen(2008),the brain nerve cells,neurons can interact with each other by sharing chemical messages.During the interaction,another neuron sends its own message to the next neuron(Monet,2019).As the brain learns,these messages are delivered more and more quickly.Brain matter,myelin,develops to solidify learning and ensure faster processing.This makes something that was once new to a person become easier to remember.To translate it into easy words is that the human brain is capable of learning by rehearsal and practice.Once people understand the process,they can actually make the learning pathways shorter,straightforward and more stable so as to learn more easily.

The Benefits in Learning

Sometimes students are not convinced that their efforts really make a difference.What educators can do is to present them the evidence with the science behind it that their brains actually change.From the theory above,at the beginning of a task,it requires a lot of focused attention and effort as cells involved in learning new information are developing the pathway.The information becomes more retrievable and they become more efficient at doing so.Showing students the changes in the brain is slow yet steady and is helping them to see that the process is not built in one day.It’s critical as many students try to memorize or study a lot of information the night before a test believing that they can get through a test.However,they will not remember the information for very long,nor would they learn the information more easily the next time.The more they use their brains to create pathways,the easier they will learn.Students will learn that the effort they have made is not in vain but to pave their pathways in order to help future learning.Learning overnight allows students to get an A for one single test,however,reinforcement and rehearsing after learning allows students to contain the knowledge and get As in a long term.The“benefit”of this to be shown to students is crucial.

Other Factors on Brain-Based Learning

Besides the importance of nutrition,a comfortable and safe environment for the brain to work well,and emotions can impact brain processes as well.When students feel threatened or worried,their brain is programmed to trigger the release of chemicals like adrenaline and cortisol into their body.These chemicals quickly alter the way they think,feel and behave.When students are tired or stressed out,brains are smart enough to know that they are not in the best condition to learn.In real life learning,students tend to get nervous and frustrated when they encounter obstacles.Instead of judging and criticizing students for their inadequacies,teachers should build a learning-friendly environment where students can embrace their failures and strive for further learning and success.Germer(2019)teaches us a lesson that we all want to avoid pain,but letting it in and responding compassionately to our own imperfections,without judgment or self-blame are essential steps on the path to healing.We can state that this is essential to learning as well.All these things that affect students’emotions contribute to the quality of learning as well.This will be further discussed in the next part of this article.

The Influence of Emotions on Learning

Frustrations from Learning

Learning can be exciting and rewarding,yet also stressful and disappointing.It’s from experiences that if one person always succeeds in learning something,he or she will find this“easy”and delightful to continue learning.Whereas if a person constantly struggles with understanding materials he or she will be more likely to give up on it easily because it causes negative thoughts.Learners need to face a fact that learning happens most when they encounter obstacles,so that their brain is paving its way to solve the problem.Hearing other people or oneself define themselves as struggling learners is not a positive experience in learning.According to Merriam-Webster dictionary,“struggling”means to“proceed with difficulty or with great effort.”and“developing”means“to acquire gradually”.In the learning process,if these two words are used to define students,it’s very likely that the latter might encourage students to continue learning while the former might shut students down from learning.In addition,a lot of teachers and parents that have a fixed mindset feed students the incorrect belief that successful learning means receiving 100 percent on assignments and exams.When they don’t achieve that goal,learning would be considered as a failure whereas learning often involves getting things wrong and then having means to deal with and grow.However,continuous failing to do something or hearing negative comments may lead to automatic thoughts.

Automatic Thoughts and How to Deal with Them

As discussed above,when negative feelings build up,people may develop automatic thoughts,which do not reflect reality.There are different ways to feed automatic thoughts inappropriately:assuming,catastrophizing,thinking about“should,musts,and oughts”,over-generalizing.In the long term,students will tend to feed themselves with thoughts like“I’m just not good at this and I would fail anyway.”“Since I failed in the past,I can never succeed”.These are all typical examples of a“fixed mindset”.However,these are not the truth and students can avoid these by replacing irrational thoughts with reasons.Many people tend to lash themselves with criticism when they have a difficult time or fall short of their expectations.Instead,they should analyze what specifically caused this failure.Then they can record in detail the distressing event.Last,they need to rationalize their automatic thoughts with evidence.Instead of considering themselves“stupid”,they should tell themselves why they are not stupid by providing evidence.This way,it helps students develop a habit to analyze the problem reasonably instead of using assumptions without trying.

Model Self-Compassion for Students

There are a lot of students being hard on themselves.Constantly blaming oneself is not helpful to build a friendly environment for a growth mindset in learning.As discussed,this might result in a false“fixed mindset”that causes students’failing to succeed in learning.These students need to learn the concept of self compassion.Having compassion for oneself is just like having compassion to others.Sharing the three principles of self-compassion(self-kindness,a sense of common humanity,and mindfulness(Neff,n.d.)can guide students through the rough time.Educators can provide strategies and communicate with students.Learning is a process and changing is also a process.Students should be trained to have self kindness.Teachers need to coach students to be kinder to themselves,then they can face the failures.They also need to have students know a sense of common humanity.It’s common to make mistakes and nobody is perfect.Destructing personal thoughts is not a way to deal with it.Last,mindfulness should be brought to students as well.Mindfulness is a non-judgemental mind state in which one can observe thoughts and feelings as they are.They should try to talk to themselves about the thoughts and feelings they have and analyze them with rational reasons.

Role of Motivation and Self-Efficacy

Motivation:Attribution Theory

Based on the attribution theory table(Rubenstein&Thoron,2014)below,there are internal versus external and controllable versus uncontrollable factors that affect performance.It’s easier for students to change the internal and controllable factors that come from themselves and are not affected by others.If learners can attribute their success mainly to internal and controllable factors,they can gain control of struggling or striving.Educators can train students to have self-talk letting them believe that grades are a reflection of effort instead of other factors.This reflects the growth mindset that learners see effort as necessary and to develop their own ability is the solution of this equation.

Table 1 Determinants of Achievement Behavior

External Task difficulty Luck

However,this doesn’t mean that uncontrollable and external factors should be totally ignored.Instructors can adjust the task so that it can provide learners opportunities to practice and apply their knowledge in a reasonable pace and means.During this process,instructors should provide assistance and guidance that ultimately contributes to helping students develop their motivation towards the materials.When applying attribution theory in learning,it is important for instructors to assist learners to accept that their effort is the main factor of achievement.Educators should use student-centered strategies such as problem-based learning,individualized application and inquirybased instructions to facilitate students’internal control and motivation to learn.

Intrinsic V.S.Extrinsic Motivation

Motivation comes from different sources,which cause forming different mindsets.Extrinsic motivation usually shows features as tangible rewards,recognitions and avoidance of negative consequences.These are usually considered as physical prizes,a praise on students’grades or their smartness and not being scolded by teachers or parents.Meanwhile,intrinsic motivation is based on personal enjoyment,personal interest and inner satisfaction.It’s not difficult to find out that intrinsically motivated students are from a growth mindset group.They feel good about achieving because of the validation of their efforts and hard work.On the other hand,students who are satisfied by extrinsic motivation focus more on the outcome instead of what it actually took to get there.They tend to achieve to the point of achievement but no further.This outcome overweighting process is a typical presentation of a fixed mindset.It’s critical to help develop students’intrinsic motivation as educators as that’s the way to help develop the growth mindset.When applying this in teaching,educators should be careful with the way they praise students based on their effort,attention and hard work rather than solely on the“A”.This helps acknowledge students’process of learning instead of the outcome.Communication with parents on their ways of showing realizing their children’s achievements is important as well.Both sides need to stay consistent so that students can see the connection between effort and performance and help align their attributions,motivation and mindset.

Self-Efficacy and Affecting Factors

Self-efficacy is one’s belief in one’s own ability to complete tasks.As discussed earlier,there are a lot of factors that contribute to one’s success.Self-efficacy is one of the majors that come from learners themselves.Autonomy can influence self-efficacy as it gives freedom to decide for oneself,promotes self-determination.When we do not feel in control of our outcomes,we are more likely to be led to frustration.A sense of autonomy,relatedness and competence to feel most confident in learners’abilities to win as a result of self choices(Bandura,1977).Students need to feel their outcomes come from their own choice.They are from their effort and they can plan their success.As is suggested in an article from Oxford University(2013),teachers can help students develop strategies in classroom discussion and one-to-one conversations where teachers help students understand the essential part they play in their own learning.Encouraging students to reflect on their own learning can help students transfer their knowledge beyond the classroom but further as autonomous learners.Another factor that affects self-efficacy is resilience.The link between resilience and mindset is critical:the success of learning is not about grades but incorporating new information that helps students better understand.Resilience requires persistence,developing over time and ability to bounce back easily.The ability to laugh things off,focus on purpose,remain hopeful and stay flexible all contribute to resilience and a growth mindset.Students need to understand and accept that learning happens when they are getting things wrong so that they can use new methods and thinking to develop instead of defeated by hard situations.Resilience is activated when we keep trying amongst hardships.This allows us to keep on going even though the situation is against us.

Application in Teaching

Development of Students’Resilience

Facing failures,students need to keep perspective and capture the opportunity.We need to teach students not to overreact and how they can learn from making mistakes when they make one as well as redirecting students to calm down and simply think about the problem or mistake.Teachers also need to teach students the power of“grit”,build an environment and have a different assessing system to teach students to focus more on perseverance and work ethic instead of a one-time grade.Teachers can assess how many times students have tried and not given up figuring out the answer.The answer itself is not to be graded but the process and ways they have tried to get the answer.In addition,some examples from famous people or characters from books help students build connections between themselves and the characters so as to help them develop resilience.Teachers can also build competence and give students options to encourage them to keep up with what they are capable of.Teachers can deliver random compliments to students to help them realize their strength applying to different problems.Having students monitor themselves with the progress helps them see their hard work and what they have accomplished in the long way.Setting and achieving goals help build confidence.Meanwhile,they can identify their small steps in a long-term goal.They can reflect on what they have done that is very helpful and what they have used that they want to stop using in the future.This way of resilience can be borrowed and applied in their future learning as a habit.All these can help students develop resilience that help with developing a Growth Mindset.

The Art of Praise

as was discussed in the previous part,the way that teachers praise can majorly affect students’attribution and motivation.Let’s take a look at these pairs of praises.“You are a good communicator.”vs.“I like how you clarified your point with examples.”;“You are very kind.”vs.“The way you shared that toy just now was perfect.”It’s obvious that the latter one is better because you praise the process when students are working and calling attention to the effort and strategic learning.In this way,students believe they have time and space to work their way to success and that’s important.For future practice,students will remember what methods they used that were praised to get to the solution other than the solution itself.A growth mindset believes“I can gain skills with effort even if it’s hard.”Teachers should praise what’s praiseworthy not on something we normally take for granted(Conroy,Sutherland,Snyder,& AlHendawi,2009).They ought to praise the behavior,not the child.And in this way,behaviors are more focused on.In addition,they need to choose non-generic phrases rather than generic phrases,the quick and convenient way.It’s a long-term job that teachers need to stress on the compliment on the learning process and the critique on what didn’’t work during solving a problem instead of simply praising achievements and criticizing mistakes.

Academic Socialization in Communication

Parents’mindset beliefs about their own abilities are passed on to their children(Taylor,Clayton & Rowley,2004).That is to say,a parent’s mindset might influence students’mindset.In the 21st century school setting,only teachers’effort will not work effectively without the support of parents and students.Even the“best”behaved parents may fall in the natural traps where a fixed mindset belief is common:certain people are good at certain things because they have experienced themselves.When teaching a growth mindset to students,teachers need to understand the relationships with parents on the concept of academic socialization.To ensure the consistency across school and home helps students to work positively in every situation.Teachers need to build relationships with parents and students and understand the backgrounds,socioeconomic differences among different families.This information should be discussed with a guidance counselor first before approaching individual parents.Communication and expectations for classes should be discussed at the beginning of the school year so that everybody is on the same page.Teachers should communicate with parents about expectations,consult with school counselors and focus on the importance of growth mindset is important in conversations.If individual cases shall be further discussed,parent-teacher meetings can be arranged to come up with differentiated plans.

Conclusion

Growth Mindset embraces that intelligence is a result of efforts and hard work.This theory promotes students learning as everyone can and will succeed as long as they are truly putting forth their best efforts.This paper discusses the scientific proof,neuroplasticity,behind brain-based learning that our brain cells actually grow.Learning becomes easier when rehearsals and practice are made.It also addresses the profound influence of emotions in learning.When students are having negative thoughts,teachers can adapt different methods to help them rationalize their thoughts.The paper also examines ways to develop more intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy to encourage students to learn from their own will.Resilience is a critical factor in the learning process that aligns with growth mindset.The last part of the paper explores how to apply a growth mindset into teaching by advocating resilience to encourage students to embrace and not defeat their failures,by appropriately using appropriate praise towards students that emphasizes their effort,and by communicating with parents to keep the consistency of advocating growth mindset at home and at school.