
In your head you are thinking, "Where did I go wrong?"
I modeled. We discussed with partners and groups. We questioned each other. We practiced together. I gave you an exit slip and gave you immediate feedback on your progress. You SHOWED me you could in fact, DO THIS!
Why don't you believe in yourself like I do?
The answer lies in the power of your thoughts. Possibly a buzzword that has popped up into education recently is the idea of a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. I've noticed over the last 3 years especially that I am getting more students who try to work within a fixed mindset and obviously, it makes the learning process tedious, frustrating, and seem worthless.
And the thing about a fixed mindset is that it can impact any kind of student. I've seen some of my highest academic students suffer from the consequences of having a fixed mindset when they are presented with something that doesn't come naturally easy to them right away. I've seen some of my most enthusiastic learners discover that there are times when they are less than enthusiastic about a new, challenging skill. And I've seen students who are struggling already with academics shut down and believe in the their own thoughts that this task is impossible and that they shouldn't even try.
Perhaps the most frustrating thing I've encountered around mindset work in my students is that I can not change my student's mindsets. I can only give them tools to help them change it themselves and teach them that they were born to learn. I can remind them of this ability, bring their attention to their effort and the results, and give them opportunities to work on having a growth mindset. Below are 4 things I make sure to touch on when discussing growth mindset with my students.

Bring up times when they couldn't do something yet and had to learn how to. Some great examples include eating and feeding themselves, walking, speaking. The reality is they probably don't remember doing these things. They don't remember having negative, fixed mindset talk. They just kept trying. My teammate came up with a great reflection activity where she talked about learning something in stages. She titled the stages: learning, practicing, mastered. We used this idea to help us set new hopes and dreams for the rest of the school year when we came back from winter break, but we also are talking about it during our new learning.
Long division is kicking some of our butts right now. But we are reflecting each day at the end of the lesson on which stage we are at in our learning process. Instead of saying, "I'm a 1 or 0" meaning, they don't get it yet, we are saying" I'm in the learning stage," or, "I'm in the practicing stage." Reminding students that they already have learned new things and their brain is growing and changing helps to put things in perspective.


We're teachers. We do this daily. But are we acknowledging it to our students? Are we telling them, having them reflect, having them notice that their brain in picking up on new learning all.day.long? And are we providing it in more ways than just in our academic content? Like I said earlier, we are in the thick of long division- a brand new skill for all my students. It is obvious to them that this is new. But so is building the tallest structure during indoor recess, or trying to draw something for a card for a friend. Let students explore new learning in places other than just things that get a grade. I've noticed some of my best success when I draw attention to this during indoor recess and I have a kiddo who typically struggles with challenging content during the school day. However, when he is working on building a sculpture with pattern blocks at recess and it topples over... he doesn't give up like he does when it's long division. He reacts in a bit of frustration and begins again, this time with a different plan. When I bring his attention to it, he recognizes that his brain is constantly firing off new connections and that he can apply the same strategies to other tasks too.
One of my biggest take aways is that this isn't something you do in a couple lessons and then move on. It is embedded into our work daily... hourly... minutely (is that a word even). We ourselves will get into a fixed mindset about kids having a fixed mindset. Let yourself start there, but don't let yourself stay there.
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