4 Activity 2: Developing a Growth Mindset

Estimated time: 20 minutes

Objectives:

Students will be able to:

• Discuss whether personality is fixed or changeable
• Use and develop ways to accept constructive criticism

Materials

Graphic organizer

Vocabulary

• Fixed mindset
• Growth mindset
• Neural pathways
• Self-perception

Activity

Part 1: What’s My Mindset?

Start by taking the Mindset Assessment. You will need to enter an email address to receive your results.

Share your results with the class. Do you have a fixed mindset, a growth mindset, or are you somewhere in the middle?

• Fixed mindset: intelligence and ability are the same throughout your life. There is not much you can do to improve or change them. Hard work is frustrating.
• Growth mindset: you can change your intelligence and ability through hard work, persistence, and appropriate teaching methods. Hard work can be used to help you learn and grow.

Where did your mindset come from?

• Take a moment to think about your past school experiences.
  • Did anything happen that affected your mindset?
  • Did a parent, teacher, or other student make a comment that has stayed with you?
  • Have you had an experience with a challenging subject or assignment? What was the outcome, and how did it change how you feel?
  • Have you ever seen another person try very hard to achieve something? Did that person succeed or fail?
• Freewrite for 3-5 minutes about your mindset. Include examples from past experiences or any other factors that have influenced your mindset and attitude.
• Share what you wrote with the class (optional).

Part 2: How Can We Develop a Growth Mindset?

If you believe you can learn something, it will be much easier to learn that thing. But sometimes experiences and messages from our past make it more difficult to believe. Some messages we may have heard might include:

• I’m just not a good reader.
• Girls can’t do science.
• Your brother is the smart child in the family. You’re good at sports/dance/music/being pretty.
• If you didn’t grow up speaking English at home, you’ll never be able to catch up with the rest of your peers
• I keep studying and I just can’t understand math.
• Why is he here? He’s too old to be in school.

Imagine your mind is a grassy field. It may be hard to get from one place to another by walking through tall grass, but eventually you will wear down paths and it will be easier to get to certain places. The paths we make in our minds are called neural pathways, and we make them by working on certain skills.

Evidence increasingly suggests that our minds can change throughout our lives. You may not have the neural pathways necessary to learn, say, the Korean language, right now. However, as you practice the sounds, alphabet, and grammar, you will develop paths and it will be easier to access Korean in your brain.

Four steps to a growth mindset:

Change self-perception
Take another look at your freewriting. Underline or highlight anything that describes what you believe about yourself. How can you change these ideas? Can you rewrite the negative sentences you’ve heard or said to yourself?

• • “I’m not good at math” becomes “I’m not good at math yet, but I’m going to get help and keep trying.”
  • “Girls can’t do science” becomes “Science isn’t traditionally a field where girls are encouraged, but I’m going to do my best and learn interesting things.”
  • “If you didn’t grow up speaking English at home, you’ll never be able to catch up with the rest of your peers” becomes “Now that I’m older, I’m better at learning and studying. I can learn English skills even if I didn’t grow up speaking the language at home.”

Whenever the negative thoughts come up (they will!), replace them with the new sentences you’ve written.

Challenge ourselves
If there were an easy way to learn anything, I would tell you what it is and be wealthy. Sometimes we need to put in a lot of work to learn.

• • Remember that hard work is often invisible. Ask a professional athlete how much time they spend practicing, reviewing video, doing physical therapy, and managing their diet. We don’t think about that; we just focus on the moments of glory. Likewise, someone who seems to understand schoolwork easily might be doing a lot of work that you can’t see.
  • Get help. There may be another way to learn the topic that works better for your learning style. If there’s something about your textbook or instructor that isn’t quite working, there may be other things you can try.

Accept constructive criticism
When an instructor, a tutor, or a fellow student offers feedback to you, they want you to do better. Sometimes past experiences or our current insecurities make it hard to hear that feedback. This can make us want to stay in our safe zone and stick with our fixed mindset.

• • Think about what they’re saying. Is it accurate? You may have to reflect on the feedback for a few hours to be sure.
  • Thank them for the feedback. You may be tempted to argue or be defensive. Again, they want to help, so thank them for trying to help.
  • Ask questions. Make sure you understand their advice.
  • Apply the feedback to your next assignment. See if it helps you.

Be inspired by others’ successes
What inspires you? Do you know anyone who has overcome difficulties? Is there a true or fictional story that makes your heart sing? Remind yourself of these stories. Stay positive! The world can be negative, but try to stay focused on all that you can achieve.

Part 3: Reflection

Complete the graphic organizer on the next page. (Instructor: you may expand this graphic organizer into a writing assignment.)

My Mindset and Beliefs Graphic Organizer

For each row, write two sentences. One sentence shows what someone with a fixed mindset would say, and the other shows what someone with a growth mindset would say.

Which sentences are more positive? Which mindset do you think will be more successful?