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Articles & Ideas mentioned in the video:

While promoting the growth mindset is important it must be done so within the context of structural changes to the learning environment. The research is quite clear using the growth mindset as an intervention alone or on its own will not make any significant difference. If you wish to help your learners adapt and grow a growth mindset then you make a structural change and create a significant learning environment in which you give your learners choice ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities.

The “Mindset” Mindset: What We Miss By Focusing on Kids’ Attitudeshttps://www.alfiekohn.org/article/mindset/

Kohn’s concluding paragraph summarizes the problem of promoting the growth mindset while not changing the structural arrangements or the learning environment:

I’m not suggesting we go back to promoting an innate, fixed, “entity” theory of intelligence and talent, which, as Dweck points out, can leave people feeling helpless and inclined to give up. But the real alternative to that isn’t a different attitude about oneself; it’s a willingness to go beyond individual attitudes, to realize that no mindset is a magic elixir that can dissolve the toxicity of structural arrangements. Until those arrangements have been changed, mindset will get you only so far. And too much focus on mindset discourages us from making such changes.

The growth mindset problemhttps://aeon.co/essays/schools-love-the-idea-of-a-growth-mindset-but-does-it-work

Hendrick points to the systemic problem that we have in education that limits the potential of the growth mindset:

One of the greatest impediments to successfully implementing a growth mindset is the education system itself. A key characteristic of a fixed mindset is a focus on performance and an avoidance of any situation where testing might lead to a confirmation of fixed beliefs about ability. Yet we are currently in a school climate obsessed with performance in the form of constant summative testing, analysing and ranking of students. Schools create a certain cognitive dissonance when they proselytise the benefits of a growth mindset in assemblies but then hand out fixed target grades in lessons based on performance.

To What Extent and Under Which Circumstances Are Growth Mind-Sets Important to Academic Achievement? Two Meta-Analyseshttps://www.researchgate.net/publication/323565554_To_What_Extent_and_Under_Which_Circumstances_Are_Growth_Mind-Sets_Important_to_Academic_Achievement_Two_Meta-Analyses

This Meta-Analyses of growth mindset interventions reveals that there week impact of the growth mindset on student achievement. Growth mindset interventions on their own won’t bring about change but as the researchers argue:

Alternatively, mind-set interventions might need to be combined with other interventions to increase effectiveness.

More evidence to suggest that changing the learning environment and giving learners choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities may make the difference.

Misinterpreting the Growth Mindset: Why We’re Doing Students a Disservicehttp://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/finding_common_ground/2017/06/misinterpreting_the_growth_mindset_why_were_doing_students_a_disservice.html

Hattie warns us to not over-reach with our claims of what the growth mindset will provide and encourages us to go back to the original work and recognize that the growth mindset has a role to play in the whole learning environment.

We need more care about over-reach with concepts like growth and fixed mindsets- otherwise, they will disappear like other over-used and over-rated claims that bedevil education and psychology. We will then miss the incredible value the research on these topics can provide relating to when to use them, how to use them, with which students, and to what ends.

Is “Have a Growth Mindset” the New “Just Say No” https://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2015/09/04/is-have-a-growth-mindset-the-new-just-say-no/

Gerstein argues:

The faddish or pop culture version of the growth mindset is emerging as: “Have a Growth Mindset.” This smacks of the “Just So No” campaign of the Reagan era. Catch phrases about a growth mindset will have as much effect on actually developing a growth mindset as just saying no did on curbing drug use.

Carol Dweck says mindset is not ‘a tool to make children feel good’https://schoolsweek.co.uk/why-mindset-is-not-a-tool-to-make-children-feel-good/

Dweck argues:

A lot of teachers are saying ‘yes I have a growth mindset’, without doing the work and without making a journey to deeply understand it and to know how to apply it.

Once again we argue that this hard work involves creating a significant learning environment in which you give your learners choice ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities.

How to Build a Growth Mindset – While this video is upbeat, motivation, and does point to the fact you have to take action it misses the key factor of the need to change your learning environment in order to create the context for the growth mindset. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=20&v=V7XjFTrPl6o

Additional links:

I subscribe to Seth Godin’s blog and Simon Sinek’s Blog which includes a subscription to Sinek’s Notes to Inspire and as a result I receive a regular email from both of these thought leaders that offers either a short quote or statement that is inspiring and motivating. In addition I have read several of Godin’s books and have recently read Sinek’s book Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action and am about to start reading his latest book Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t and am continually impressed with these thinkers insights. After receiving these daily posts for the last couple of years I appreciate their ability to continually put out such helpful information.

I also realize that you don’t need to write novels, short stories or even paragraphs to get your ideas across: sometimes the most powerful thoughts and ideas are stated in a just a few sentences. So this morning when I read Godin’s post Two ways to listen, I realized that we may all have the ability to be as insightful.

You can listen to what people say, sure.

But you will be far more effective if you listen to what people do.

Godin, 2014

The two ways post resonated with me because I have been saying something very similar for the past 20 plus years. Consider and compare Godin’s statement to the following:

A man is not judged by his spoken word but by his unspoken word.

Harapnuik, 1993

After doing a quick google search I learned that these words are unique to me, Dwayne Harapnuik. Obviously the idea is not unique but the words and the way they are put together to convey the meaning are unique.

I have come to two realizations. First, I often like a saying, quote or an idea because it either corresponds or reinforces one of my own ideas. Second and perhaps even more important–I have some good ideas and insights that I should be sharing.

We don’t need to be a best selling author to have something important to say and to share–we just need to be focused and passionate and our ideas can help others. Furthermore, the biggest difference with between most of us who have these good ideas and thought leaders or best selling authors is that until we put those ideas out there we won’t have the opportunity to become a thought leader or a best selling author.