Archives For fixed mindset
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’ Attitudes – https://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 problem – https://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-Analyses – https://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 Disservice – http://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:
If we really want to take advantage of all the opportunities that the digital information age offers, we need to move away from fixed mindset to growth mindset thinking. Carol Dweck, Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, the author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
- Tend to view looking smart above all else;
- May sacrifice important opportunities to learn—even those that are important to their future academic success—if those opportunities require them to risk performing poorly or admitting deficiencies;
- Believe that if you have ability, everything should come naturally;
- Tell us that when they have to work hard, they feel dumb;
- Believe that setbacks call their intelligence into question, they become discouraged or defensive when they don’t succeed right away;
- May quickly withdraw their effort, blame others, lie about their scores, or consider cheating.
In contrast Dweck explains that students with a Growth Mindset believe that they can develop their intelligence over time and subsequently will:
- View challenging work as an opportunity to learn and grow;
- Meet difficult problems, ones they could not solve yet, with great relish;
- Say things like “I love a challenge,” “Mistakes are our friends,” and “I was hoping this would be informative!”
- Value effort; they realize that even geniuses have to work hard to develop their abilities and make their contributions;
- More likely to respond to initial obstacles by remaining involved, trying new strategies, and using all the resources at their disposal for learning.
The fixed mindset, or as it is more often referred to as innate intelligence, was the widely accepted theory of cognitive development until 60’s when UC Berkley professor Mark Rosenzweig replicable studies made the case for the environmental impact on brain development and plasticity. It is now widely accepted that the brain remains plastic and adapts to our constantly changing environment which is foundational to Dweck’s argument for the growth mindset.
This notion of adapting to a constantly changing environment is also important when we consider our move from a static print information age to the dynamic digital information age.
The emphases of the print information age and print culture include:
- development of systems of cataloging and retrieval
- emphasis on memorization
- information as primary, analysis as secondary
- centralization of instructional space
- learning as hierarchical, “objective,” and categorized
- standardization paramount
Therefore, the greatest challenge of the print information age is finding existing or fixed information. A learning environment that is based on the print culture will emphasize memorization and regurgitation of standardized information.
In contrast the emphasis of the digital information age and digital culture include:
- systems of communication & interconnection
- emphasis on participation
- analysis, critique & “remixing” as primary
- information as a “commodity”
- centralization of creation & production
- emphasis on community & social interaction
The greatest challenge of the digital information age will be assessing Information and making meaningful connections between existing information and new information that is developed. A learning environment that is based on digital culture will emphasize, creation, communication, and participation as primary and hold information simply as a commodity or a product of interconnected human endeavours.
Considering that we have moved into and have been in the digital information age for at least the past two decades we need to consider our roles as educators and look long and hard at the changes we need to make to our learning systems. The following questions are central to how I will be responding to how I see my role as an educator in the 21st Century:
- If I imagine my primary job as a teacher is to serve information, am I helping solve the current informational problem or make it worse?
- And given the vast complexity of the informational network, if I insist on my centrality, does that establish or harm my credibility as a teacher?
- If assessing information – and the wisdom & experience that requires – is the central challenge of the current informational age, are teachers more or less necessary?
Helping learners assess the vast amounts of information that is available and giving them necessary skills and abilities that they need to make meaningful and useful connections is more important than it has ever been. Learning is an active and dynamic process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current/past knowledge. The making of meaningful connections in the digital information age is key to the learning and knowing.
We need to move from fixed mindset thinking and the passive educational environment of main lecture points, rubrics, individual competition and standardized testing to growth mindset thinking of active learning, dynamic interactivity, critical and analytical thinking, collaboration and meaningful projects.
