Sara Solano

Professor Deborah Sullivan

EDU-211

Learner Exercise #9

November 27, 2020

Thinking Big About Learning: Fixed and Growth Mindset

Psychologist and Stanford Professor Carol Dweck discusses her findings regarding how

students’ perspectives about their innate abilities affect their learning and predisposes them to

either failure or success. Students who have a “fixed mind set” about learning, are convinced

that their talents and skills are predetermined. She explains that this mind set limits their

progress, because their fear of failure makes them avoid anything challenging. In the other

hand, students’ who have “a growth mindset”, are not afraid of making a mistake and welcome

challenges because they know that they are able to learn anything they set their mind to.

Professor Dweck, talked about her and her colleagues’ work, in which they applied their

growth mindset theory with phenomenal results. She first gave the example of work that had

been done in Chile with kids of high and lower socioeconomic status. They found that students

who endorsed a “growth mindset” even if they were from a low-income family out performed

students who endorsed a “fixed mindset”. A similar result was seen in an elementary school in a

Native American Reservation. This particular school was performed very poorly, and after about

a year and a half of implementing a “growth mindset” in the classroom” these students

performed at the very top of the district.

 In order for students to believe in their potential it is crucial for teachers and parents are

convince of it as well. However, she states that in many cases, although adults do have a

“growth mindset” they are not effectively passing it on to their kids. It all comes down to how a

parent or a teacher reacts to mistakes, and the methods employed by the educators to plant

the growth seed. Teachers have to provide plenty of opportunities for growth and progress.

Dweck states that teaching has to be conceptual with lots of feedback. Feedback is most

constructive, if the student is given the chance to apply that feedback as many times as

possible. Also, when it comes to rewarding the student, hard work and resilience has to be

celebrated over innate talent; Dweck demonstrated just how effective that is with the example

of a new math learning game. Unlike other games, points were granted for sustaining effort, for

progress, and for using different strategies. This game was able to engage a larger number of

students because they were rewarded for their efforts and were not penalized for their errors.

Just like students’ need to have a “growth mindset” about their learning to be

successful, so do teachers have to have it about their abilities to teach. Dweck explains, that

teachers who believed that teaching was a talent people were born with were less likely to

have career growth and in large numbers ended up abandoning the profession. To achieve

success, a teacher has to be fully aware that teaching has a learning curve. Mistakes should not

be viewed as failures but should be taken as learning opportunities. Teachers who possess this

mindset, are more likely to seek for help and take risks. Taking risks in teaching is important,

because it expands the room for professional growth. A teacher has to keep an open mind, and

strive to find new innovative and effective methods that can help them reach their educational

goals with all students, even those who are challenging.

 When teachers have a “growth mindset” and acknowledges their own mistakes and

embraces them, and does the same for students; those teachers are creating a classroom

environment were its safe to make mistakes because it is understood that its part of the

learning process. Students and teachers will remain motivated by celebrating milestones. For

this reason, teachers should set individualized goals for students as well as classroom goals.

Most importantly, students and teachers need to understand that each starting point is

different but is not indicative of how far abilities can grow; it all depends on how motivated a

person is to improve themselves.