Growth mindset plan
Why is the growth mindset so important?
The growth mindset is important to anyone who wants to grow and learn. As noted in Scott Jeffrey’s article, “How to Change Your Mindset from Fixed to Growth: A Definitive Guide” success and growth are not rooted in a person’s innate intelligence but in the effort expended to achieve a goal. I teach elementary to middle school children at all levels and abilities. Differentiation is routine in my lesson planning. However, I always stress to each of my classes that it’s all about the effort they expend on completing an assignment. My students know that I value effort most of all because it shows academic growth despite errors/failures shown in assignments. For example, one of my students, Melissa, came to my class with a defeatist attitude. At the beginning of our first class, she came and told me that she was terrible at Spanish and would not do well. I encouraged her and showed her how well she was doing on assignments. Eventually, she took an online test that I had prepared where students had the opportunity to take and retake until they got the score they wanted. Apparently, her effort in doing and re-doing paid off. She later came to me and said, “I am good at Spanish. I got a 95 on the assignment.” Her effort paid off in her eyes. In my eyes, I could see her determination to get a higher score by the number of times she re-took the test. “For language learners who endorse a growth mindset, they believe effort is an effective way to become more competent and set goals that focus on the learning process. In contrast, learners who endorse a fixed mindset believe that effort may reflect one’s lack of natural talent and set goals that focus on the learning outcomes or avoiding negative judgment.” Effort matters, especially when students are given the opportunity to improve their scores not so much for the score itself- although that seems to matter most to the student - but for the opportunity it affords each student to grow in their understanding of the subject matter.
Step 1: Learn to hear your fixed mindset “voice.”
Learning to hear your fixed mindset voice is the first step to understanding where you are in terms of academic growth. Everyone has doubts about their own abilities, especially when tackling something new and challenging. I believe it’s part of human nature to run into doubts about one’s own intellect and abilities especially under those circumstances. The key is knowing that this is part of the process of learning and achieving. Overcoming doubts about one’s own intellect and abilities is part of growth. However, overcoming the fixed mindset is a challenge. According to the article, “The Relationship between a Growth Mindset and Junior High School Students’ Meaning in Life: A Serial Mediation Model.” “When facing difficulties, individuals with more positive psychological resources can recover more quickly and then generate positive incentives for themselves, ultimately forming a higher self-evaluation [53,54]. … When facing difficulties or setbacks, they tend to be more optimistic; that is, they have more positive psychological resources. (Zhao pg. 4)” The growth mindset can’t succeed without the will and desire to want to succeed. Even if at times the fixed mindset intrudes, a strong will and desire to succeed can overcome whatever your mind perceives to be lacking in your intellect/ability. Effort and not intellect is the key ingredient to success. The question is how to equip students with the psychological fortitude they need to overcome the fixed mindset.
Step 2: Recognize that you have a choice
Overcoming doubts about one’s own abilities is part of the growth process and it is definitely a choice. The growth mindset can’t succeed without the will and desire to want to succeed. “According to (Hong et al, 1999), growth-mind-oriented individuals may focus more on efforts to increase their ability. By contrast, fixed mindset-oriented individuals weigh the role of ability more heavily in terms of performance. This difference can be reflected in the choices they make concerning easy or more challenging tasks, with fixed-mindset-oriented individuals avoiding more challenging tasks to avoid making mistakes (Nieuwenhuis pg. 123).” It is your choice to challenge yourself or to accept that the challenge is too difficult and not worth your effort. Choosing to live with a fixed mindset means never challenging yourself or growing in intellect or ability. Simply put, accepting what you think are your God given limitations. Or, you can reject that concept and train yourself to believe that every challenge is an opportunity for growth. The choice is yours to overcome whatever your mind perceives to be lacking in your intellect or ability or to accept the challenges that come your way. Effort and not intellect is the key ingredient to success. It is all about the choices you make.
Step 3: Talk back to it with a growth mindset voice
There’s no doubt that when tackling a new and difficult challenge, setbacks will be inevitable. Failure is most likely part of the process and the journey to growth. The key to growth is effort, will, and the desire to succeed in spite of the failures. To combat a fixed mindset, students need to learn how to strengthen their mental fortitude through positive affirmations and belief in their own ability. Furthermore, social psychological self-affirmation research shows that value affirmations (i.e., promote self-affirmation) often boost adaptive functioning (Howell 2017), and affirmation of personal adequacy (i.e., promote self-affirmation) can not only strengthen resilience to adverse events (Cohen and Sherman 2014) but improve the performance of executive functioning, which have been shown to have a significant impact on the outcomes of actions (Harris et al. 2017). Therefore, self-affirmation may be the effect of a growth mindset in terms of reasoning ability and academic achievement (Wang pg. 784).” Positive affirmations, whether they come from teachers, parents, influential adults or self, ultimately have a positive impact on the growth mindset of the individual thereby promoting growth.
Step 4: Take the growth mindset action
Be mentally prepared for moments of doubts, stress, and defeat as these challenges create neural pathways that increase learning cognition. According to Khan Academy’s YouTube Video, “LearnStorm Growth Mindset: The Truth About Your Brain,” it takes effort and repeated failures to grow your brain muscle. They point out that when we struggle our neurons also struggle and that’s a good thing. The more the neurons struggle, the more they make new connections in the brain resulting in you getting smarter. So the next time you think a challenge is too hard for you, think about how good the challenge is for your brain. Take action by accepting that setbacks can be a part of the process of learning and growing and learn how to do it better next time.
How will you communicate the message of "yet" to your others?
Finding a way to communicate with others about the growth mindset is a challenge in itself when dealing with students who have trained themselves to believe they lack the intellect or ability to learn. This fixed mindset inhibits growth and does not allow the student to be challenged academically, at least not yet. I love the word “yet” because it conveys a message of something about to be achieved. “Focusing feedback on ‘not yet’ creates greater confidence and persistence as well as encourages students to improve.(Rietig pg. 13).” When my students say that they aren’t good at Spanish, I say to them, “ You aren’t good at it yet but you know more than you think you do.” Positive affirmations and letting students know that you truly believe in their ability to learn will go a long way to creating a positive mindset in the classroom. Students really respond to a teacher saying, “you are really good at xyz”. The student heard the teacher say it so it must be true. That little statement will ruminate in the student’s mind until they also believe it to be true. True or not yet true, the student will begin to excel or at the very least do better than before.
What resources (content, video, media, etc.) will you use to promote the growth mindset?
How can a foreign language teacher promote a growth mindset? To start, continue with positive affirmations and create engaging assignments that show measurable progress in the students’ eyes. Effective faculty members facilitate a growth mindset by creating a safe, secure environment where students can learn and engage in deliberate practice without fear of failure (Bromley, 2014). (McClendon pg. 12). As a teacher, I can measure progress through quizzes and tests but students only see scores and in some cases low scores. Allowing students to see and believe in their own progress is essential to promote a growth mindset. How can this be done? Finding applications, assignments or tools that students can use to develop their skills will help to improve how a student views his/her own ability to learn. One application I have started using is DuoLingo for Google Classroom. The application allows each student to work at their own level and at their own pace. Because the student’s access it through Google Classroom, they can compete with each other in progress and attainment of hearts and XPs. In addition, introducing videos in the target language with the goal of involving students in discussions is essential to proving that even with limited language skills, they are able to understand basic concepts presented in videos. Most importantly, create an environment where students know they are expected to make mistakes in the learning process and therefore are not afraid to engage in classroom discussions in the target language.
When and how often will you promote the growth mindset?
Promoting the growth mindset needs to be a routine part of all lesson planning and everyday interactions. “The objective of implementing a growth mindset, a non-cognitive trait, is to move away from the high stakes testing mentality and adopt a student-centered culture that promotes a PREVIEW 6 deeper learning process. Student-centered learning has also been evidenced at schools where grit is the primary focus in motivating students to persevere through difficult tasks (Vallejo pg. 5-6).”Wherever there is an opportunity to promote effort as the main objective to any assignment, it needs to be said, acknowledged and praised. Ultimately, the culture of the classroom needs to change to promote a growth mindset.
How will the growth mindset impact the way you approach your work in this course?
The growth mindset has already impacted how I present lessons and approach students who are struggling with completing assignments. Positive affirmations; stressing how much effort counts in my class; and the desire to see them succeed will be foremost on my mind as I create new lessons. Already, I have seen the positive impact some of my lessons are having on students who previously were struggling. Giving them the opportunity to excel at assignments where they are able to see their own growth through repetition rather than memorization has proved to be successful. Most importantly, this course has made me more aware of how I’m teaching, why I’m presenting a lesson a certain way and the impact each assignment I create will have on my students.
Works Cited:
Zhao, H., Zhang, M., Li, Y., & Wang, Z. (2023). The Relationship between a Growth Mindset
and Junior High School Students’ Meaning in Life: A Serial Mediation Model.
Behavioral Sciences (2076-328X), 13(2), 189.
Nieuwenhuis, S., Janssen, T. W. P., van der Mee, D. J., Rahman, F. A., Meeter, M., & van
Atteveldt, N. M. (2023). A novel approach to investigate the impact of mindset and
physiology on the choice to invest effort during an arithmetic task. Mind, Brain, and
Education, 17(2), 123–131.
Wang, D., Yuan, F., & Wang, Y. (2022). Growth mindset and academic achievement in
Chinese adolescents: A moderated mediation model of reasoning ability and self-
affirmation. Current Psychology, 41(2), 783.
LearnStorm Growth Mindset: The Truth About Your Brain. (n.d.). www.youtube.com.
Retrieved January 28, 2024, from
Rietig, K. (2021). Learning theory and the Personal Growth Mindset Framework in Higher
Education: the power of yet and dreaming big. SSRN Electronic Journal.
McClendon, C., Neugebauer, R. M., & King, A. (2017). Grit, Growth Mindset, and Deliberate
Practice in Online Learning. Journal of Instructional Research, 8, 8–17.
Vallejo, M. (2018). Non-cognitive skills and school culture: A qualitative analysis [ProQuest
Information & Learning]. In Dissertation Abstracts International Section A: Humanities
and Social Sciences (Vol. 79, Issue 9–A(E)).
Zarrinabadi, N., & Mantou Lou, N. (2022). Mindsets in language learning and teaching: an
introduction to the special issue. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 16(3),
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