Mindset Works’ Blog

Laura Gonzalez and Cindy Sheets!

It was very hard to choose a winner! Thank you ladies for your great contirbutions and thanks to all of our participants. Read below for the winning entries to the contest: How do YOU motivate students to take on challenging tasks?  

Laura Gonzalez

Before challenging tasks, I work on fostering a mindset that will ACCEPT the challenge. I ask my students if it's all right to make mistakes. They overwhelming yell "Yes!" But is it all right not to try? and they say "No!" This calms their anxiety because they know that their efforts are what matters.

Thank you for all of your entries into the Growth Minded Educator Contest! The Growth Minded Educator of May is: Marg Hauck!  

Marg wins an autographed copy of Mindset: The New Psychology Of Success, by Carol Dweck.

Read the winning contest entry below to the question: "What is a time you made a choice to change your response to a challenge from a fixed minded response to a growth minded one?"

Last year was my third year sharing Carol Dweck's great work with my grade 5 students.

Our former Growth Mindset Educator Contest Winner, Mark Carter has been applying Dweck's research to coaching and football in the UK! This self-reflection tool helps students improve their football (soccer) skills and supports the development of a growth mindset. Nice work Mark!!

"Children can learn to learn. And teachers can help children develop the mindset of a learner. What we say, the feedback we give, how we interact, the questions we ask - these can all portray the idea that we are all on a learning journey. There is no such thing as "can't" - just "can't yet". Ministry of Football believes in working with parents to develop the traits of a Growth Mindset." -Mark Carter

Thank you for all of your entries into the Growth Minded Educator Contest! The Growth Minded Educator of April is: Caresse Nguyen!

Congratulations to our winner, and thank you to all who participated!

Below is the winning entry to the contest question: "What is your favorite growth mindset moment or story from your classroom? We are looking for great quotes from students that show they are learning a growth mindset!":

"Returning to school should have a top spot on the top-ten list of human fears. All adult educators would agree that adult students' anxieties are high. Returning adult students have been out of school for a number of years, and many of them have had negative experiences with learning and school...

Thank you for all of your entries into the 19th Growth Minded Educator Contest! The Growth Minded Educator of August is: Matthew Barrett!

Congratulations to our winner, and thank you to all who participated!

Below is the winning entry to the contest question: "Growth minded people use feedback to help them grow. How do you provide opportunities for your students to provide feedback to one another?  Send us a description of what you and your students do!":

To encourage feedback among my college students, I created a class wiki where they all have usernames that are anonymous to each other, but not to me.  This allows them to give feedback and discuss topics without fear of judgment, rejection or reprisal--I see much more participation on the wiki than I do in the classroom.  Just this semester, I've created a system for peer graded essays on the wiki, where each essay gets a grade averaged from 3-5 other students who graded it using a rubric.  So far, it's been very successful; I've seen better essays in general because they are more familiar with the rubric, and the essays have increased in quality so far over the semester.  I still have to watch for lazy grading, but this system has lightened my workload and increased the GM of my students.

Matthew Barrett--The Brain Trainer

About Matthew Barrett

I teach Psychology and Human Growth at Saint John's River State College in Florida, and I run my own brain training business (Brain Trainers Mental Fitness LLC).  I love sharing growth mindset concepts with students as well as with my private clients.  Even at home, my wife and I have added "yet" as a third "magic word."  When anyone says, "I'm not good at this/that!" we say, "What's the magic word?" It may get some grumbling, but they say "...yet," and then we talk about how effort is so much more important than natural talent.

www.brain-trainers.net

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