When I was teaching introductory composition, my students often warned me early in the term that they were “bad at writing,” or “just not that good at English.” These statements were frustrating—who wants to begin a semester with unenthusiastic students? However, they also demonstrated a prevalence of what psychologist Carol Dweck dubs as the “fixed mindset,” or a belief that intelligence is set at a certain level. My students had experiences that suggested they were incapable of writing well, and they believed that competency at this skill was unattainable.
The fixed mindset dwells opposite of the significantly more productive “growth mindset,” which emphasizes that intelligence can be developed. As Dweck explains in her 2007 monograph, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, individuals who maintain a growth mindset persevere and achieve greater success than their counterparts who hold fixed mindsets. Pedagogical research shows that emphasizing a growth mindset in our classrooms can promote student motivation (Rhew et al. 2018), performance (Yeager et al. 2019), and inclusivity (Sahagun et al. 2021). Not to mention, highlighting a growth mindset for our students can help prepare them for future academic success, one of the tenants of the IU 2030 Strategic Plan. Below, you’ll find ways you can foster growth mindset in your classroom.
Set the Stage for Growth
- Talk to your students about mindsets. Take time to discuss growth mindset with your students in the first few weeks of class and throughout the semester. One of the studies cited above (Yeager et al. 2019) showed the positive effects of growth mindset simply by incorporating two 20-minute modules about growth mindset into the curriculum of high school math students. Students who completed the modules were more likely to enroll in subsequent math courses, had higher GPAs at the end of the year, and were more likely to believe in the plasticity of intelligence.
- Discuss your own trials in academia. Listening to you, an expert in your field, discuss your own challenges throughout your career demonstrates that intelligence and skills can be acquired and built upon. Additionally, as my colleague Madeleine Gonin discusses in her recent blog post, sharing your own challenges can also normalize asking for help.
Promote Progress
- Try a wrong-answers only game. In my literature classes, we often play “wrong answers only,” an activity where students respond to my questions about the texts with wrong answers (i.e. Q: “What do you think motivates Ahab to hunt down Moby Dick?” A: He always wanted to be a marine biologist!”). This dismantling of the traditional lecture call-and-response lowers the stakes of class discussion and confronts students’ fear of failure. Not to mention, the wrong answers often lead us into interesting discussions of the right ones!
- Create assignments that require revision. Having students revise their own work helps solidify the content they are learning and suggests continual improvement based on practice. Creating assignments that require multiple drafts or frequent check-ins gives students this opportunity. Remember that drafts and check-ins aren’t just for essays—try them with group projects, portfolios, or make-up exams.
- Focus your feedback on growth. While some faculty members are using specs-grading systems to encourage student self-efficacy and growth, you can also encourage growth by centering your assignment feedback on ways students can improve. As James Lang points out in Small Teaching, using ability-based feedback (“You’re such a good writer!”) can actually deter students by making them think they either a) have no work to do or b) are going to disappoint you by revealing they are not as smart as you thought. Rephrasing your comments to suggest improvements (“I love how you synthesized your evidence in this paragraph with your concluding sentence. I’d love to see you use that structure again in future work”) can motivate students, help them build connections in their learning, and give them concrete things to work on next time.
Speaking from personal experience, when I started explaining and promoting growth mindset in my courses, I saw a major increase in student enthusiasm, motivation, and performance. They were more willing to talk to me about their processes and create work that they were proud to add to their personal dossiers. They also began understanding their own agency in their education, which made my role as an instructor even more rewarding. We also managed to eliminate the statement, “I’m bad at writing,” from our classroom vocabulary.
If you’d like to chat more about growth mindset in your courses, consider scheduling a consultation with a CITL consultant.
Works Cited
Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: the New Psychology of Success. New York: Random House.
Lang, J. M. (2016). Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning. Jossey-Bass.
Rhew, E., Piro, J. S., Goolkasian, P., Cosentino, P., & Palikara, O. (2018). The effects of a growth mindset on self-efficacy and motivation. Cogent Education, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2018.1492337.
Sahagun, M. A., Moser, R., Shomaker, J., & Fortier, J. (2021). Developing a growth-mindset pedagogy for higher education and testing its efficacy. Social Sciences & Humanities Open, 4 (1). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssaho.2021.100168.
Yeager, D.S., Hanselman, P., Walton, G.M. et al. A national experiment reveals where a growth mindset improves achievement. Nature 573, 364–369 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1466-y.
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