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[buravirgil]

__Carol Dweck Revisits the 'Growth Mindset'__ )Ed Week(

Recently, someone asked what keeps me up at night. It’s the fear that the mindset concepts, which grew up to counter the failed self-esteem movement, will be used to perpetuate that movement. In other words, if you want to make students feel good, even if they’re not learning, just praise their effort! Want to hide learning gaps from them? Just tell them, “Everyone is smart!”

The growth mindset was intended to help close achievement gaps, not hide them. It is about telling the truth about a student’s current achievement and then, together, doing something about it, helping him or her become smarter. I also fear that the mindset work is sometimes used to justify why some students aren’t learning: “Oh, he has a fixed mindset.” We used to blame the child’s environment or ability.

__There’s one key difference between kids who excel at math and those who don’t__)Quartz.com(

A body of research on conceptions of ability has shown two orientations toward ability. Students with an Incremental orientation believe ability (intelligence) to be malleable, a quality that increases with effort. Students with an Entity orientation believe ability to be nonmalleable, a fixed quality of self that does not increase with effort.

__The Inverse Power of Praise__)NY Magazine(

For the past ten years, psychologist Carol Dweck and her team at Columbia (she’s now at Stanford) studied the effect of praise on students in a dozen New York schools. Her seminal work—a series of experiments on 400 fifth-graders—paints the picture most clearly.

[schwa]

Nothing substantive to add but reading/absorbing those three articles, especially the third one, felt like one of the most valuable intraining modules I've encountered in a while. Their point is clear. The evidence is thoroughly convincing. I'm going to measure the words with which I aim to encourage my young highschoolers much more thoughtfully, starting exactly tomorrow.

Thanks for posting.

[gregory999]

[buravirgil]

Thank you Schwa. I have to be careful not to blink when your avatar appears and, likewise, blinked to confirm you weren't ironically praising a post about praise. And thanks to gregory999 for critically addressing the last article though the links were meant to be read in tandem as the first link was the last Dweck has had published online about her research in which she addresses interpretations of "fixed" vs. "growth" mindsets.

A growth mindset isn’t just about effort. Perhaps the most common misconception is simply equating the growth mindset with effort. Certainly, effort is key for students’ achievement, but it’s not the only thing. Students need to try new strategies and seek input from others when they’re stuck. They need this repertoire of approaches—not just sheer effort—to learn and improve.

We also need to remember that effort is a means to an end to the goal of learning and improving. Too often nowadays, praise is given to students who are putting forth effort, but not learning, in order to make them feel good in the moment: “Great effort! You tried your best!” It’s good that the students tried, but it’s not good that they’re not learning. The growth-mindset approach helps children feel good in the short and long terms, by helping them thrive on challenges and setbacks on their way to learning. When they’re stuck, teachers can appreciate their work so far, but add: “Let’s talk about what you’ve tried, and what you can try next.”

And there are other observations she offers about interpretations and how her research (and its publicity) might be misapplied despite identification.

But I don't wish to threadsit and contend opinion when it's sufficient to be delighted others are engaged whether it be negatively, positively, or meh. Only voice an appreciation because attention-intensive posts rarely garner more than a few initial responses. --Cheers

[johnslat]

One attitude that has stayed with me for 60 years: my parents never really cared what grades I got in school just as long as my grade in "Effort" was high.

Yes, back in the day, we actually used to get graded on that, in parochial schools, anyway,

Regards,
John

[Xie Lin]