Growth mindset fosters success
The key to getting good at learning is believing you can do it. Your beliefs or mindset determine your ability to unleash your capacity. Mindset is the basis of accomplishment.
Students’ beliefs about their abilities have a potent effect on how they learn and if they are successful. How students think of themselves is strongly influenced by the messages they receive from their parents and teachers.
Carol Dweck, Stanford psychologist, and author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success has taught many about learning to fulfill their potential. People’s beliefs have power over maximizing their potential whether they are aware of their effect or not.
How students cope with failure is a big factor in their success. When Dweck studied children who were given progressively more challenging puzzles, they differed in how they reacted to the task. The students who thought their intellectual skills could be cultivated felt the puzzles were making them smarter. These students weren’t discouraged by failure. They thought mistakes meant they were learning.
Walt Disney’s teacher thought he lacked creative imagination yet his animation innovations continue to delight viewers. Why do some people succeed while others who are equally talented do not?
Genetic aptitude does not insure success because temperament, training, experience and effort all play a huge role. Binet, a Frenchman who invented the IQ test, actually believed that practice and training could increase attention and memory so that intelligence could grow. Experts now agree that nurture and nature interact to produce potential.
Risk and persistence have long been touted as pathways to success as exemplified by such sayings as, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” Success is influenced by how we think of our abilities. This mindset or mental attitude determines how people will interpret and respond to situations.
Those who believe that abilities are static exhibit a fixed mindset and have a harder time succeeding than those who believe in a growth mindset which can be developed. The type of mindset a person has can help motivate greater success or block it.
Teachers encourage accomplishments of students by praising effort versus intelligence. If students have a growth mindset, they believe they can develop their intelligence so they want accurate information about their current abilities which helps them learn more efficiently.
Students who have a fixed mindset can have an inaccurate or distorted image of themselves explaining away some insufficiencies and falsely magnifying others. The fixed mindset is all about the outcome. If you fail, you’re not the best.
Those with a fixed mindset think some people are naturally good at things, but they don’t feel in control of their abilities. Growth mindset believes that abilities can be constructed with practice.
Growth mindset values progress so the focus is on the process of getting better not on the outcome. Fixed mindset students feel threatened by the success of others. Growth mindset students find the success of others an inspiration.
People have a mixture of both mindsets because beliefs exist on a spectrum and vary based on circumstance. Knowing about the two mindsets can help bring about positive change.
Dweck said, “If parents want to give their children a gift, the best thing they can do is to teach their children to love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, seek new strategies and keep on learning.” Key ingredients to growth include embracing challenges, putting forth effort, making mistakes and requesting feedback.
Successful students seek out challenges and apply effort to surmount them. Then they request feedback and use it to overcome mistakes. The greatest learning takes place when students view challenges as an opportunity and respond with strategies like correcting self-limiting beliefs plus asking for help from others.
Mindsets are powerful beliefs. When students are aware of where they are on the spectrum from fixed to growth mindset, they’re better able to manage their progress and adjust their self-talk. Parents and teachers can assist by praising effort versus talent because it helps students persevere and succeed. Great things take time so don’t give up ... keep trying.