Growth Mindset: Changing the Game

By Marissa Kamieniecki and Rheanna Wurz

A growth mindset is a set of attitudes towards one’s abilities and
competencies. A growth mindset makes you look at yourself as a dynamic
person capable of growth and change rather than a static individual whose
success is predetermined at birth.

In this Professional Inquiry Project, we sought to help our students develop

their growth mindset. We came to realize that this topic was relevant to our
professional practice and the context of our school specifically as students
failed to try without knowing success was guaranteed. We noticed that
students would only make attempts at trying things they felt comfortable
with, and we wanted to gear students toward building more positive attitudes
toward learning.
To find success in this, we also had to grow our own growth mindsets about teaching. How could
we expect students to take risks if we didn’t? How could we expect students to believe in their
ability to change if we were telling ourselves we’d never get better? Carol Dweck, the person who
first coined “growth mindset”, has an article about how teachers can develop a growth mindset. In
it, she states that, “It’s never too late to develop a growth mindset about your abilities. The first
step is to get in touch with your fixed mindset” (Dweck, 2015). In a staff meeting, one topic
discussed was wellness. Many staff members brought up how much they appreciated the staff
community and how we support each other in growth. Sometimes we need another teacher to be
our external growth mindset voice because our internal fixed mindset voice is screaming that we
aren’t doing enough. This connects back to addressing your fixed mindset and being in touch with
it, also discussed by Dweck (2015).
To gauge students’ overall initial growth mindset, we
conducted a student self-assessment based on the self-
assessment for students present in The Growth Mindset
Coach: A Teacher’s Month-By-Month Handbook for
Empowering Students to Achieve by Annie Brock and
Heather Hundley. The original version used a binary
choice of true/false for each statement, however, we felt
this was limiting and chose to use a 5-point scale. This
way, we could determine the degree of agreement each
student felt for each statement. We used Google Forms to
administer this self-assessment to our Grade 7, 8, and 9
classes as it automatically provides several ways to view
the data collected.
Based on the results of the first self-assessment, the average result was more towards a growth
mindset. This is evident from the following data.

In the above figure, students rated their beliefs on a scale from 1-5. One being “not at all like
me” and five being “extremely like me”. From the data, we could see most students disagreed
with the statement. This is reflective of a growth mindset as students stated that they kept
trying when things got difficult or frustrating.

In the figure above, students rated their beliefs on a scale from 1-5. One being “strongly
disagree” and five being “strongly agree”. From the results, we could see that most students
agreed that anyone can learn something if they work hard at it. This is reflective of a growth
mindset as students stated that they could become better at things with practice and effort.

The evidence from the first self-assessment, however, was at odds with what we experienced
within the classroom setting and with how students talked about themselves. While students
seemed to understand the concept of change and growth, especially in learning, the majority of
students in practice did not reflect that upon themselves. This caused our Professional Inquiry
Project to be more difficult than we initially thought it would be. If students know something,
how can we teach them to do it?
We created the following list of possible strategies for redirecting fixed mindset statements and
for helping students cultivate a growth mindset about themselves:

Use process praise when giving feedback on assessments (ex. I can see you put effort into
learning this!, I appreciate the effort you put into these questions to do them well, etc.)
Use process praise when giving verbal feedback (ex. Look at what you can do today
compared to yesterday, you’ve learned a lot, thanks for putting in that level of effort, etc.)
Shut down attempts to say things like, “Wow, I’m so stupid”, and restructure the
statement as “Wow, look at how much I can still learn”
Encourage and teach students how to advocate for themselves when they become
dysregulated and have difficulty learning
Reminds students that intelligence isn’t fixed and sometimes we’re not functioning
correctly
Reminds students that they can do it, they just need to be able to learn to do it
Allow students to redo assignments and assessments
For students to redo some assignments they need to demonstrate that they’ve made
an effort to keep learning what they struggled with
Ex. doing practice questions for a table of values before redoing questions on a
table of values.
Take advantage of opportunities to have less confident students show other students how
to do something or answer a question

Using these strategies, we became the external growth mindset voice to challenge students’
internal fixed mindset voice.

One particular student frequently and excessively gave voice to what his fixed mindset was
telling him. This often negatively affected class morale, and all students would begin to follow his
example. To combat this, we would coregulate with him when he was still at the stage in which
he could remain in the classroom. When he couldn’t stay in the room, we’d give him a choice of
what he could do and where he could go to get away and reregulate. Most of the time, we had to
identify when he was beyond coregulation and send him on a specific mission to reregulate. This
was most often taking a walk throughout the school. On November 29th, however, he advocated
for himself and decided on his own to reregulate by going for a walk. He did this before voicing
what his fixed mindset was saying.

These beginning changes in students’ growth mindset led to the final stage of our Professional
Inquiry Project - a final self-assessment in which students answered the same questions as the
first assessment.
 Based on the results from the first
assessment (Figure 1) most students
agreed that they liked to try hard
things. This supports the notion of a
growth mindset.

However, the final self-assessment

(Figure 2) expresses a regression to
the first self-assessment. This
Figure 1 indicates a shift toward a more fixed
mindset in our grade seven, eight and
nine students overall.

Upon looking at individual class data,

no class significantly changed their
overall agreement with the statement.
However, some individual students
had a noticeable positive change
overall.
Figure 2

Based on the results from the first

assessment (Figure 3) most students
disagreed with the statement saying
that there are some things they would
never be good at. This supports a
Figure 3 growth mindset.

However, the final self-assessment

(Figure 4) expresses a regression
compared to the first self-assessment
as more students agreed with the
statement. This indicates a shift
toward a more fixed mindset overall.

Figure 4
 Based on the results from the first
assessment (Figure 5) most students
somewhat agreed with the statement.
This depicts a split between the two
mindsets.

The final self-assessment (Figure 6)

expresses a progression compared to
the first self-assessment as more
Figure 5
students agreed with the statement.
This indicates a shift toward a more
growth mindset overall.

Figure 6

Based on the results from the first

assessment (Figure 7) students
mostly disagreed with the statement
given. This result shows a stance
towards a growth mindset.

The final self-assessment (Figure 8)

expresses a progression compared to
Figure 7 the first self-assessment as most
students disagreed with the
statement. This indicates a shift
toward a more growth mindset
overall.

Figure 8
We took on this project with good intentions and in the end, we believe that this was beneficial
for some of our students. However, the prevalence of fixed mindset was more than we anticipated
in all of our classes across all subjects we taught, and as a result, this topic warrants more
attention than the two of us alone could provide. With more time and a full staff effort, along
with parent support and involvement, we truly believe these students are capable of developing a
growth mindset.

Reflecting on this project, we would engage the students in uncovering the growth of people they
find inspirational. What got that person where they are today? Was it pure talent they were born
with? Or was it time, effort, practice, and using feedback? This would teach our students the
impact of practice, time, and dedication. It also would have made a growth mindset seem more
intentional to our students, rather than some that happens to them.

Ultimately, we have walked out of the Professional Inquiry Project and our practicum with a
more developed growth mindset. This project may not have yielded the results we expected, but
we are better equipped to help our future students develop a growth mindset.

Resources:
Brock, A., & Hundley, H. ( 2016). The Growth Mindset Coach: A Teacher’s Month-by-Month
Handbook for Empowering Students to Achieve. Ulysses Press.

Dweck, C. (2014). How Can You Develop a Growth Mindset About Teaching? Educational
Horizons, 93(2), 15–15. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24637292