Great Resources to Start Teaching Growth Mindset in Your Classroom
The Places to Start When You Want to Teach Growth Mindset
The ideas of and around growth mindset took off with Carol S. Dweck's Mindset: The New Psychology of Success in 2006. While the book was published almost ten years ago, I was first introduced to this text as a staff book study in 2013. You can watch her TED Talk here:
Her concepts of the growth mindset and fixed mindset were not new, but the way they were phrased was profound and interesting to the English educator giving feedback. I initially keyed in on the type of feedback I was giving students. I wanted to make sure I said more than "good job." I was also saying things like, "I love the way you added detail" and "great job revising your paper" to give specific feedback. This idea of rewards and feedback was just one single aspect of growth mindset studies; it does not capture the entire picture. The best way to describe growth mindset is how you build new pathways to learning...without giving up. I have adopted this mantra with the teaching of writing. I mean...my blog is called writing MINDSET after all. How we think about teaching, writing, and learning. This is what matters. It would be negligent to not discuss growth mindset in my practice as it has directly impacted how I think about teaching outside of the classroom in meaningful and significant ways.
These are the best growth mindset resources that I have come across in my web findings. Whether you teach elementary school or at the secondary level, all students can believe in the power of "yet."
Mindset Works is where it all should begin. This is the site that works directly with Carol Dweck and Lisa Blackwell to produce their material. They have come a long way since I first have seen their site in 2013. They have inventories to help teachers and students evaluate their mindsets, they have a whole Brainology curriculum that can be used in the classroom, and they have other programs for pathways in teaching. I have used the Brainology program in class, and students love the inventory of what mindset they have. These materials help students find out the foundations behind the definition of growth and fixed mindset. We have had some pretty amazing discussions around grades and evaluation of student growth as a result of these curriculum materials.
Stephanie Van Horn's blog and TPT Store 3rd Grade Thoughts has a great round-up of where to start resources for teaching Growth Mindset. I looked at many of my materials, video clips, and handouts I already had lined up, and they are listed here on Stephanie's page. I always maintain that elementary teachers and secondary teachers always have so much to learn from each other. I also really value the amazing anchor charts featured on her page. There is nothing like a good writing anchor chart! I can tell that elementary teachers are using growith mindset concepts in their teaching because my sixth graders this year announced to me at the start of a lesson, "FAIL means FIRST ATTEMPT IN LEARNING!" Thank you, elementary teachers.
Ted Ed has a great introductory video on growth mindset vs fixed mindset. They also have a short quiz that could be easily assigned to students in class or say on Google Classroom. I really appreciate how many TED Talks (roughly 237 currently when this post was published) are on Ted.com. These videos are great clips to show students to help them analyze public speaking but also contain great messages.
The Daring English Teacher, aka a high school English teacher named Christina, has an amazing blog and TPT store. You will quickly fall in love with her growth mindset resources. I personally love her growth mindset bell ringers to start classes during this type of unit or as a refresher throughout the year. You can sign up through the button link on her blog to receive a week of these free. She also includes some amazing tips for how the teacher should prepare and execute the unit for teaching. I haven't tried the growth mindset writing prompts yet that she offers...but they are on my wishlist!
April, blogger and TPT store owner of School House Diva, is a great landing spot for the feedback piece of growth mindset that I mentioned above. How teachers give feedback verbally and in written form is so important to students. Dweck would again argue that this is not what the whole program is about, but you can really see from Apri's resources the value of using specific feedback. I again really appreciate my elementary school teaching colleagues helping students understand what great feedback means from their teachers (both verbally and in written form).
I just joined Angela Watson's 40 Hour Teacher Workweek Club because I am so impressed with her blog, her TPT store, her general website, and the amazing content she pushes out to teachers. I also really recommend listening to her podcast on the treadmill...I lost track of time. Her growth mindset resources available on TPT and her general information on her website The Cornerstone for Teachers are great places to start with ready-made handouts.
Laura Randazzo is one of my favorite teacher bloggers to go to after a long day. I love her website, and her tagline, "On a Mission to Prevent Teacher Burnout" aligns so well with Writing Mindset and my renewed writing focus. Her website Solutions for the Secondary Classroom has 9 posts about growth mindset. I really love her Famous Failures posts and resources in TPT that show kids that even celebrities and well-known people from history have made mistakes and recovered past a fixed mindset.
Brittany really is a superhero teacher resource producer! She has amazing products on TPT and has a corresponding blog where you can ogle over her beautiful bulletin boards. There is a myth that secondary teachers don't care about bulletin boards...we care. These activities, workbooks, and her designs are just plain beautiful. I particularly love her interactive notebook activities for growth mindset and also her example fixed mindset statements and example growth mindset statements.