I have been working on growth mindset and grit (persistence and resilience) in my classroom for years now.  It is a subject of great interest.  I consider growth mindset to be the way we think and grit to be what we do.  My goal is to help students recognize the places in which they already have a growth mindset and grit and apply it to my class.  I try to do a lot of small things throughout the semester.  We have an honest discussion about grit on the first day, and both my students and I share times we have shown grit in the past.  I include affirmations on my HW assignments reminding students it is okay to make mistakes and that challenges are learning opportunities.  Some of our activities are designed so students need to get wrong answers in order to reach the right one.  I don’t let students hand in tests or HW that have questions left blank.  I give students autonomy in some aspects of the class.  I try and give expeditious feedback and I am careful about the silent messages I send in the language I use.  These are just some examples.  If students develop a love of math and confidence in the subject, I think I have done my job well regardless of the grades received.  I keep an eye on all students with the knowledge that sometimes the students who start out as the most successful take the biggest fall if they experience any struggle.  They have never had the chance to fail in the past, so they can be the ones with the most fixed mindsets.

As a teacher, I try to have a growth mindset about my students and about my own teaching.  I know I can always improve, and I try to attend every professional development workshop with the idea that I can find something to adapt to my classroom.  A few people (particularly Masha) have mentioned that every classroom is different, and we need to take the ideas we learn here and make them work for us.  I absolutely agree!  I believe every student deserves a fresh start.  I believe every student can succeed.  There are many times when a student will say to me, “I don’t understand, I was never good at math before”.  My response is usually, “I don’t understand either because you are doing so well.  You came into this class with a good mindset and see how far it got you.”  At the same time, I know a growth mindset and grit can only take a student so far.  It is not a panacea for our students.  There are major problems in our education system, and they can be very difficult to overcome.

With all of this in mind, some of the things I would like to do in addition to what I already do is to have my students read and write a written reflection on a couple of chapters in Carol Dweck’s book Mindset.  I find that making students aware of mindset is a big first step.  I would also like to add to my introductory survey the questions, “Do you ever feel smarter with some teachers than others? Why?” and “What is the best class you ever took?  What did you do, what did your instructors do, and what did your peers do to make that happen?”  I think the greatest challenge is making sure students don’t feel as if they are being taught to have new mindsets, but rather that they already have these mindsets and just need to apply them to areas they have not before.  One of the ways I try to do this is to model a growth mindset.  I make sure that I point out and allow them to point out my mistakes, and we talk about how they may have helped me do better.

I have seen big changes in my students even though I am only making many small changes in my classroom.