Week 2- Growth Mindset

What is the link between Tinkering, hard play and the growth mindset

Growth mindset
I really enjoyed watching the Tedx talk by Carol Dweck. She had some fantastic points about how the wording of what teachers say can have a huge impact of student’s success. When students are faced with a difficult experience or problem with a fixed mindset they realize the problem is too hard for them and run away. They know its to hard and have the mindset of why should I try it because I am just going to fail. When students feel like they have failed it sets them up to not want to try and take risks with difficult problems again in the future. This mindset can have disastrous consequences later in their life (Dweck 2007).
In contrast when students have a growth mindset students believe they “believe they can get smart and put in the extra time and effort (mindsetworks.com).

I also liked how Carol spoke about how we praise our students. She reminded me that when students are only working for a A or a certain test score they are doing a disservice to themselves. They are focused more on a score instead of the process of learning. Students should get rewards for their learning not their final test score.

Tinkering and Hard Play
These terms are ones with many things to explore. They each require students to have a growth mindset. When students tinker, engineer, and construct they will fail. The most important thing is to encourage then to learn from what didn’t work and use that to change their thinking to improve their approach when they try it again.
I like the idea of using MakerSpace to foster a growth mindset in young children. I don’t think there’s a better way to teach students that it’s ok to fail the first time. They need to learn that the most important thing is how they recover from that failing. They should be able to reflect on what caused the project or idea to fail and how things can be changed to succeed next time.
All the materials available for students in a MakerSpace are geared around that idea that students need to fail in order to succeed.
Maker spaces in schools help to “create a passion for learning rather than a hunger for approval” (Popova).


Dweck, C. (2007). Carol Dweck: The Power of Believing that you can Improve [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/carol_dweck_the_power_of_believing_that_you_can_improve/details?language=en


Decades of Scientific Research that started a Growth Mindset Revolution. (n.d.). Retrieved May 27, 2018, from https://www.mindsetworks.com/Science/Default

Popova, M. (n.d.). Fixed vs. Growth: The Two Basic Mindsets That Shape our Lives. Retrieved May 27, 2018, from https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/29/carol-dweck-mindset/


Comments

  1. UnknownMay 30, 2018 at 1:15 PM

    I like your idea of praising students for their learning, rather than their final test score. Just because a student only earned a C, doesn't mean they didn't put in tremendous effort to make that C and learned a lot in the process. Considering I work with a large population of ELLs, this concept is extremely important! If I only praised students for their ability to speak, read, and write in English, those students would shut down and never make the growth that I would see if I praised their effort to learn English. I like your idea of using a MakerSpace to foster that love of learning and acceptance of failure— if our students who struggle in other classes learned that mindset in a MakerSpace, I can only imagine how that would transfer to their other classes!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dr. FMay 30, 2018 at 4:30 PM

    Nice blog. I am going to follow up on Dweck's research.

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownMay 31, 2018 at 12:48 AM

    Great post. I really like how you mentioned the importance of choosing our wording carefully. I think the last thing we want to do for our students is to say something that will give them a fixed mindset. Choosing our words carefully allows us to praise our students while encouraging them to keep up the hard work. I enjoyed reading the part where you mentioned how essential it is that we encourage our students to learn from their mistakes and use those findings to help them better tackle the problem again in the future. I agree with your point about a Maker Space being a great way to foster this growth mindset in students. When we use these, students don't see their struggles or setbacks as a loss but more so as a stepping stone to what they are trying to succeed.

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