I’m currently studying my Master of Teaching (Secondary), so I thought I’d start sharing some of the gems I am discovering in the education and training sector!

I’m also working at the same time, in the not-for-profit sector, where training adult volunteers and facilitating group events is a big part of my role. So I’m getting to exercise the things I already know about training and teaching there, as well!

Today’s tip comes from an American study, but next week I’ll bring you an Aussie one… Because you know I think our local context is one of the most important things, whether we’re talking grammar or publishing books or teaching!

How to help students succeed, by teaching them a growth mindset

So in 2016, an American study of 125 math teachers and their 3,965 Grade 9 students, looked at how students felt about their teacher’s attitude about each student’s ability to learn, and how the teacher acted in the classroom…

And compared that to what the teacher said in a survey: Did the teacher believe they had a growth attitude themselves, and did they believe they were passing on that mindset?

Wait, what’s a growth mindset?

A growth mindset is where you believe that you can learn to do anything you need to, so you can achieve anything you need to if you keep trying to learn it. (The opposite is a fixed mindset, where you believe you are either good or bad at doing something, and your ability to learn new skills is limited or “fixed”.)

The example in this study was: “My math teacher believes that everybody in my class can be very good at math.”

How to help students grow a growth mindset

The short version – heavily paraphrased by me – is that, if you want to create a growth mindset in your classroom, to help every student have a better chance to succeed academically:

• When a student is struggling, we reassure them that the struggle – the effort it takes to learn something new – is natural, e.g. “It’s definitely confusing when you’re learning a new concept, and it’s totally normal to feel frustrated.” or “Everyone gets stuck sometimes, and we keep trying new things until we get it.”
• Share accountability for the student’s success at learning, e.g. “We’ll work together on this, and we’ll make sure you get it.”
• Avoid putting it back on the student to just work harder, e.g. “You have to put in the effort and study.” would not be helpful.

And the crazy takeaway from this study is that it doesn’t seem to matter whether you, as a teacher, actually have a growth mindset or not!

Whether teachers reported in the survey stage that they have a growth mindset and they focus on teaching that to their students, or whether they said they have a more fixed mindset, or whether they said they have a growth mindset but they don’t focus on teaching that to students, didn’t affect whether students developed a growth mindset.

So we can hope that as long as you’re helping your students to believe they can learn and believe that you’ll provide help as needed, then they are likely to develop a growth mindset in your subject or class.

This 2016 study was conducted by Hooper, Haimovitz, Wright, Murphy, & Yeager – and I should note that I’m mostly reading analysis by Haimovitz and Dweck, 2017, because it’s a lovely summary.

Are you a teacher?

Send me your best teacher tips! I love learning, and although I’ve been training adults and working with young people for years, I’m so excited to be learning new strategies for helping teens become more confident, more capable, and lifelong learners.

Special thanks to the teachers who shaped my young, creative, undiagnosed-neurodiverse brain in ways that helped me find my growth mindset! Chronologically, Mr Fittell, Mr Pitt, Ms Suarez, Mr Hanlon, Mx Dugan. ♥