Making your children watch a few inspiring and motivating Ted Talks for kids, will help them develop a growth mindset, and be more confident about themselves.
We ALL have beliefs about ourselves and the world around us. How we understand and react to that world depends on our mindset. Discovered by psychologist Dr. Carol Dweck, mindset refers to the way we look at our abilities and intelligence as qualities we can change and grow. Check out the
Neuroplasticity is the science behind growth mindset. When kids understand neuroplasticity, their perception of their own abilities changes. It becomes much easier for them to understand growth mindset and embrace mistakes, obstacles, and challenges. In this article, we’ll provide helpful resources and activities to teach your children or students about their brains ability to grow and change.
Do your students have a growth mindset or a fixed mindset? Here are some engaging ideas and activities for elementary kids. These lessons are designed as a way to foster a Growth Mindset culture in your classroom with your students.
These growth mindset quotes will inspire both you and your kids to work hard, not give up, and view challenges as opportunities.
Teaching growth mindset can be done with read-alouds! Rosie's Glasses is a great book for this. Get ideas for using this book to teach being positive.
Do your students have a growth mindset or a fixed mindset? Here are some engaging ideas and activities for elementary kids. These lessons are designed as a way to foster a Growth Mindset culture in your classroom with your students.
These are some of my favorite growth mindset books for kids to help start a conversation about taking risks, dealing with failure, and having persistence through it all.
The best way for kids to understand about growth mindset is to ask them growth mindset questions on a daily basis.
Developing a growth mindset for kids may require that adults shift the way they talk to students about abilities, intelligence, effort and strengths.
Growth mindset, for good reason, has become one of the biggest buzz words and theories in education today. The concept comes from Dr. Carol Dweck’s studies of thousands of children and their attitudes towards failure. In her research, Dr. Dweck noticed that, when faced with failure, some children felt devastated and helpless, and quickly gave…
Help growth minded students embrace mistakes as an integral part of the learning process rather than fear challenges or setbacks.
Why is that I had not read the book "Mindset" by Carol Dwek before? If you haven't read this book, I totally recommend it! In her book, Dr Carol Dwek uncovers the differences between two types of mindsets: the growth mindset and the fixed mindset. I had heard about the concepts in this book many times before so they were all familiar but a lot of them click deeper as I read the book. You can find the book here. Once again, I can't recommend this book enough. I want to start just by defining bo
Proven growth mindset parenting tips. Raise kids with a growth mindset who are more resilient and better at overcoming challenges, even as adults. Strategies to encourage a growth mindset for kids!
Guest blogger Cindy Bryant, moderator of the LearnBop PLC, illustrates how the growth mindset aligns with the Common Core Standards for math.
Instill a Growth Mindset A collection of images, videos, and links to spark learning.
This week at school our focus has been on growth mindsets. In Primary 1 and in Primary 6 we have been comparing fixed and growth mindsets. This is something we believe is a fundamental part o…
Find out about the importance of making mistakes in Maths & the Beauty of Carol Dweck's Growth Mindset. Includes Free Math Mistakes Poster!
Having a growth mindset is powerful! There are many ways we can cultivate a growth mindset each day. Mantras and statements are simple and effective tools to encourage children and they can be used in a variety of ways.
These are some of my favorite growth mindset books for kids to help start a conversation about taking risks, dealing with failure, and having persistence through it all.
This innovative, Brain-Based Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Curriculum is for kids 8-12 years old*. This is an interactive, hands-on curriculum with a parent and teacher guide. Children learn 3 secret strategies that will help them with identifying and regulating their emotions. They also play 3 games to reinforce all concepts and terms learned: Amygdala Hijack! card game, Heads Up! Emotions, and Social Edge! Taboo. In addition, there is a parents and teachers guide with many different extension activities (e.g., creating a mind jar, guided visualizations). In this program students will develop self-awareness, identify and manage emotions, and they will learn to be self-motivated. This program has been piloted with different groups of students through city programs and at an elementary school. Parents and teachers have noticed a significant improvement with kids being able to identify and regulate their emotions. This program will empower your children to learn more about their brain, and why their minds and bodies react in particular ways during times of conflict or stress. It will also provide them with concrete strategies that they can use to help regulate their emotions. This pack includes: -Understanding the Brain: Prefrontal Cortex, Amygdala, and Hippocampus -Understanding an Amygdala Hijack! -Mind/Body Connection during an Amygdala Hijack! -Differences between real and perceived threats -Understanding fight-or-flight responses in their lives -Understanding how Anger is a secondary emotion (and how to figure out the primary emotion felt) -Feelings chart (with over 200 feeling words, many that kids don't know!) -Emotions chart to sort feelings (Positive, Negative, In-between, and Emotions I don't Know) -Weekly Logs (to journal feelings and train their prefrontal cortex to step in before an Amygdala Hijack!) -Understanding Mind Bubbles (mindfulness related activity) -The Strategy STOP -Conscious vs. Subconscious Mind (Limiting beliefs) -Worry Bullies (addressing anxiety and worries) -The Power of Positive Affirmations & Simple Yoga Poses -Failed Successes (Michael Jordan, Katy Perry, Walt Disney) -The Power of Vision Boards (template to create a vision board) -Amygdala Hijack! Card Game (with real-life scenarios kids have encountered) -Heads Up! Emotions Game (reinforcing all the emotion words they learned) -Social Edge! Taboo Game (reinforcing all key concepts learned) The 5 lessons can be broken up in the following way: 1. Your Brain worksheets (Play Amygdala Hijack! card game) 2. Secret Strategy #1 worksheets (Play Heads up! game) 3. Secret Strategy #2 worksheets (Create a Mind Jar, Participate in a Guided Visualization) 4. Secret Strategy #3 worksheets (Create a Vision Board) 5. Culminating Activity! Review what children didn't understand & Reinforce New Vocabulary (Play Social Edge! Taboo game) Having good social and emotional skills will help children be successful in their personal and professional lives. Research shows thats employers hire for EQ and train for IQ. Depression is the fastest growing disease, currently effecting 300M people (WHO). The late childhood years (just before the transitional period of puberty) is a time when there is significant growth in the prefrontal cortex and sets the stage for advances in the executive functioning, how they will organize, sequence, and regulate behavior (Giedd, 2008). Late childhood and upper elementary school is a time period when the child’s personalities, behaviors, and competencies come together to shape who they will become in adolescence and as adults (Collins, 1984). Providing enrichment activities that support healthy forms of self-regulation and reflection and prosocial dispositions could ameliorate or even prevent some of the mental health and school-linked problems that often arise as they transition to puberty (Best & Miller, 2010; M.C. Davidson, Amso, Anderson & Diamond, 2006). *This curriculum was developed by Dr. Amita Roy Shah based on her education and expertise. She has an Ed.D. in Curriculum and Teaching from Teachers College, Columbia University. She was a former teacher for Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). She is currently a Professor in the Child and Adolescent Development at San Jose State University.
Based on Carol Dweck's mindset theory, here are some practical tips for teachers who want to help their students develop a Growth Mindset.
Some of the questions and comments on this chart are specifically about sports coaching, but it's easy to jiggle them for any kind of learning that benefits from a growth approach! See a transcription of the questions and comments below the infographic which comes from @SportsPsychDunc. Coaching a Growth Mindset 5 question to develop a growth mindset What did you learn from today's performance? What steps did you take to make you successful today? What are some different strategies you could have used? How did you keep going when things got tough? What can you learn from your opponent today? 5 feedback comments to develop a growth mindset This will be a challenging concept to learn, but I believe you can master it. You haven't got it yet, but you will if you keep working and thinking about it. I really appreciated your effort today. It's okay to take risks; that's how we learn. Getting better takes time, and I see you improving. @SportPsychDunc
A goal setting template where students identify the smaller aspects that they will focus on to achieve one main goal.
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Growth and fixed mindsets are both discussed by Carol Dweck, a researcher on human motivation. Such self-conceptions are crucial in self-regulation and the ability to improve. A fixed mindset entails the belief of static traits
Your mind has the power to make you sick or well. You can change your life by changing your mindset. That's why I want to address the difference between a
Fixed vs Growth Mindsets are the two basic sets of beliefs people have about their abilities. Finding out which one you have can be life-changing.
I don't know about you, but one of the reasons I wanted to become a teacher is because I find the "aha" moment (also known as the "lightbulb" moment) so exhilarating. I love it when a student finally understands something he has found difficult in the past. I feel a rush seeing the delight on a child's face when she masters a topic in class. Oh, the triumph! But some students, and you know you've had a few, are so beaten down by past failures that the "I can't" attitude is difficult to break through. In college, I remember learning about the growth mindset vs. the fixed mindset. If someone has a fixed mindset, she believes that some people are smart and some are not. Period. (Oftentimes, this person also feels that she is not smart.) If a person has a growth mindset, she believes that people can improve and get better at things. (Thus, she can improve and get better at things.) There's a chart floating around the interwebs (I've seen it pop up on both Pinterest and Twitter.) It's a way to move kids from a fixed mindset into a growth mindset way of thinkin'. I love this! I love it so much that I made a copy to put in my classroom. But then I stepped back and thought a little more about doing that. Here was my inner dialogue: What if this just becomes visual clutter? Well, I'll go over it the first few days of school. That will be nice. But what if they don't listen to you? Well, they are going to be precious little angels and hang on every word I say. They won't be so rude to ignore me! Okay, but what if they are just pretending to listen, but it doesn't really sink in? Well, then... I will just... Um... You see... I'll... I'm quite used to having two sides of my brain debating and having an inner dialogue. Does this only happen to me? I digress... So, I didn't want this to just be visual clutter. I want this to make an impact. So, in order to do that, I want the students to get more involved in this chart. I typed it up in a sweet little document like this. I want to spend some time - on one of the first days of school - to go over this. I want the kids to know the difference between fixed and growth mindset. I want the students to know that after I failed the "gifted test" twice in 5th grade, I found myself STUCK in the fixed mindset. Those kids were smart. Obviously, I was not. Add in the fact that I really struggled with math in middle school and high school, and I was convinced I was no longer part of the "smart kids club." Then, in college, I started to move over toward a growth mindset. With unbelievably hard work, I went from being a failing math student to making a 99 average in statistics and a 101 average in an environmental logarithms class. WHAT ON EARTH? I found out that it was true. It IS possible to get better at things. If I can become smart at math, then by gosh, anybody could! The growth mindset is for real, y'all. So I want the kids to recognize the things they think and say. Those things are in the left column. I want them to brainstorm with partners or in small groups how they could CHANGE THEIR THINKING into a growth mindset point of view! If they work on putting together a growth mindset list of things they could say instead of that "stinkin' thinkin'" - well, they might be more likely to use those phrases. Later in the year, if I hear someone say, "I can't do this math problem," or "I can't understand this book," then I can gently say, "Hey, love, why don't you turn this into a growth mindset phrase? What can you say instead?" I'm hoping that having a REAL dialogue about this with the kids - and letting them discuss it with each other - will make this an idea that lasts all year. Have you seen this chart floating around? Do you teach your kids how to think in a growth mindset frame of mind? Tell us what you do! (Oh, and if you want a free copy of this chart for your students to use in your classroom, you can download it here.)
Ladies and Gentleman... we officially have the first week down in the books!! And what an AMAZING week it was!! #BestFirstWeekEver!! My kiddos are just awesome. We learned a lot and laughed a lot! My own children also had a great week (aside from a quick bout of a stomach bug that kept one home for a day!). My oldest, Drew, started 1st grade. My middle, Quinn, started Kindergarten. And my toddler twins, Addy and Chase, began two-mornings-a-week preschool. Additionally, Mr. Musings from the Middle School (my husband Dennis), started a new school year, too! Phew!! My head is spinning! Anyway, I hope everyone is having a great weekend and recovering from this busy time of year. This post is mainly a pictorial of some of the goings on in my classroom this week. As we settle into our routine, I'll be back with more "meaty" posts (and hopefully some new videos, too!). One of my favorite activities from the week was this Growth Mindset lesson that I adapted from here. Basically, the kids had to create the image on top using just a piece of paper and scissors. It was NOT easy... but that's exactly the point! As the kids worked, I wrote down some of the comments I heard. Things like, "this is impossible," and "I give up!" After I let them struggle for a while, I brought them back together and discussed the activity with them. It was eye-opening to see their words. They all agreed that their attitude was too negative so of course they would never have been successful. Then we read the Growth Mindset posters hanging in our room and discussed what each one meant. I closed with this video from Khan Academy. It was a fun and powerful lesson. One of the BEST purchases I made from TpT for this school year is the Icebreakers that Rock bundle from Cult of Pedagogy. This product contains three PowerPoint activities that allow students to talk to each other in an easy, comfortable way. What is great about these is that you can use them as one, big activity, or you can break them up, showing just a few slides here and there, as "brain breaks" through out the day. That is how I used them. So, on the first day, I did a big "Find Someone Who" activity with them. This allowed all the kids to learn each other's names. Next, I assigned them all their lockers and we practiced opening the combination locks (super-stressful for these first time locker users)! After that, we did a few slides from Icebreakers that Rock. Then, we went over the syllabus. Next, a few more Icebreakers that Rock slides. After that, I handed out and went over all the paperwork that had to go home and be signed (oh, the paperwork!!!). Then, a few more slides right before lunch. And then a few more right after lunch. Next up, a tour of the building. Then a few more slides before trying our lockers again. Finally, another slide right before dismissal. It was the perfect break/filler/attention-getter/distraction to use throughout the day... actually, I used the slides throughout the whole week! Run to TpT and pick this product up today! Totally worth every penny. (Some of the slides can be done silently. I LOVED these slides!!) Of course, we had to number our notebooks to get ready for ELA next week. I always tell kids that this is the easiest, most difficult task that we do all year :) I really the love smell of a Mr. Sketch anchor poster in the morning! This year, I'm starting with Reading Nonfiction: Notice and Note Stances, Signposts, and Strategies. My thinking is that it will really help with getting started with Article of the Week. Here is one of several of the posters I'll be using to teach these strategies. I'm jumping on the #ObserveMe bandwagon! Read more about it here. I'll keep you updated on how this goes throughout the year! Okay... that is enough for now! The beach is calling my name... nothing beats September here at the Jersey Shore! Hope the back-to-school season is treating you well! I'd love to hear how your school year is going so far. Happy Teaching!!
