Good Habits
Don’t look now but the 2010-2011 school year is already underway. DODEA schools are back in session and most school systems across the country have welcomed teachers back with students to follow in a few days or weeks. I like to think about each new school year as another opportunity to learn.
Here at the MCEC office we are taking an opportunity to learn too. We are learning about good habits and that is what I want to share with you in this blog. Through a happy connection with Carol Gray and the Thrive Foundation, we have been learning about www.stepitup2thrive.org , one excellent website full of excellent ideas and good habits.
Here are some good habits that you and your students can work on for this school year and I think you will find that they may change your lives in very positive ways. Take a look at what Thrive has to say:
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Why do some people reach their full potential, while others of equal talent, do not?
After three decades of extensive research, Dr. Carol Dweck asserts that:
- Success is directly related to people’s beliefs about their intelligence and talent.
- Those who believe their gifts and intelligence are innate and carved in stone have a “fixed mindset”,
- Those who believe that their abilities and intelligence can be developed through effort and practice have a “growth mindset”.
- The effects of one’s mindset on life choices and resulting achievements are profound.1
Fixed Mindset
Children and adults who believe that intelligence and talents are fixed tend to be concerned about proving their abilities, rather than learning. This belief causes them to interpret mistakes as threats to their ego rather than as opportunities to improve. Mistakes defeat their self-confidence because they attribute errors to lack of ability, which they feel powerless to change. Consequently, in order to decrease the likelihood of making mistakes, and increase the likelihood of demonstrating their skill or intelligence, these individuals tend to avoid challenges.2
Youth with a fixed mindset often avoid making a concerted effort in their endeavors - in the classroom, on the field, or in pursuit of personal goals, fearing that hard work indicates a lack of ability or intelligence, which prevents them from reaching their full potential.3
Growth Mindset
Youth with a growth mindset, on the other hand, tend to demonstrate the kind of perseverance and resilience required to convert life’s setbacks into future successes. They believe intelligence and skills can be developed through education and hard work. They want to stretch themselves and learn. Challenges are motivating rather than intimidating, as they present opportunities to grow their skills and intellect, enabling them to work towards audacious goals and achieve their full potential.
Another significant difference between individuals with growth and fixed mindsets is in their ability to accurately self-assess. Those with a growth mindset are more “open to accurate information about their current abilities, even if it’s unflattering”, because they believe they can develop and improve. “Since they’re oriented toward learning... they need accurate information about their current abilities in order to learn effectively.” Those with a fixed mindset, however, tend to have distorted or unrealistic views of their abilities. 4
Mindset
2“The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives.” Dr. Dweck
Research: Junior High Transition
A 2007 study by psychologists Carol Dweck and Kali H. Trzesniewski, of Stanford University, and Lisa Blackwell, of Columbia University, proved that students with a growth mindset were destined for greater academic success, and were likely to outperform their fixed mindset peers (of comparable academic standing). The researchers followed 373 students for two years during the transition to junior high school, a time when the workload increases and grading is more stringent, to determine how different mindsets affect math performance.5
As predicted, students with a growth mindset:
- felt that learning was a more important goal than getting good grades
- “they held hard work in high regard, believing that the more you labored at something, the better you would become at it...
- Confronted by a setback such as a disappointing test grade, students with a growth mindset said they would study harder or try a different strategy for mastering the material.” 6
The students who held a fixed mindset:
- were more concerned about demonstrating intelligence and had less interest in learning
- “They had negative views of effort, believing that having to work hard at something was a sign of low ability
- they thought that a person with talent or intelligence did not need to work hard to do well
- attributing a bad grade to their own lack of ability, they said that they would study less in the future, try never to take that subject again and consider cheating on future tests.”7
“Such divergent outlooks had a dramatic impact on performance. At the start of junior high, the math achievement test scores of the students with a growth mindset were comparable to those of students who displayed a fixed mindset, but as the work became more difficult, students with a growth mindset showed greater persistence. As a result, their math grades overtook those of the other students by the end of the first semester, and the gap between the two groups continued to widen during the next two years”, demonstrating how a growth mindset can have a long-term impact on one’s success.8
While Dweck recognizes that people differ in intelligence and ability, research is converging on the conclusion that accomplishments are typically the result of years of passion and dedication and not something that flows naturally from a gift. American Idol’s Jennifer Hudson, Thomas Edison, Jerry Rice, and Mozart were not simply born with talent; they cultivated it through tremendous and sustained effort. Consequently, if we foster development of a growth mindset, we can empower youth to love challenges and believe in effort, thereby helping them to achieve their full potential.9
Implications for Practice {Good Habit forming}
“Such lessons apply to almost every human endeavor. For instance, many young athletes value talent more than hard work and have consequently become unteachable.” Similarly, many youth accomplish little in their work without constant encouragement to maintain their motivation. Adult guides can help youth develop a growth mindset to increase a youth’s motivation to reach goals, with tactics that include:
MINDSET
“Believing talents can be developed allows people to fulfill their potential.” Dr. Dweck
“Simply learning about the growth mindset seems to mobilize people for meeting challenges and persevering.” Dr. Dweck3
Here are some habits you may want to work on for the new school year. I think you’ll find that applying this research will be a good habit you’ll want to keep:
- Teaching youth about growth versus fixed mindsets through self-assessment and discussion.
- Discouraging labels (such as “smart” or “dumb”) that convey intelligence as a fixed ability.
- Praising effort, strategies and progress, not intelligence or abilities.
- Presenting youth with opportunities to be challenged, conveying that challenging activities are fun, and that mistakes help them learn and improve.10
4 References
1. Blackwell, L., Trzesniewski, K., & Dweck, C. (2007). Implicit Theories of Intelligence Predict
Achievement Across an Adolescent Transition: A Longitudinal Study and an Intervention.
Child Development, Vol. 78, No. 1, pp. 246-263.
2. Chen, M. (2007, March 16). Smart Talking: Tell Students to Feed Their Brains. Edutopia.
Retrieved February 17, 20009 from http://www.edutopia.org/tell-students-feed-their-brains
3. Dweck, C. (2006) Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Ballantine Books.
4. Dweck, C. (2007, November 28). The Secret to Raising Smart Kids. Scientific American Mind.
Retrieved February 17, 20009 from http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-secret-toraising-
smart-kids&print=true
5. Rae-Dupree, J. (2008, July 6). If You’re Open to Growth, You Tend to Grow. New York Times.
Retrieved February 17, 20009 from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/business.
Footnotes
1. Dweck, C. (2006) Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Ballantine Books. p.
4-7.
2. Dweck, C. (2007, November 28). The Secret to Raising Smart Kids. Scientific American Mind.
3. Dweck, C. (2007, November 28). The Secret to Raising Smart Kids. Scientific American Mind.
4. Dweck, C. (2006) Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Ballantine Books. p. 11.
5. Dweck, C. (2007, November 28). The Secret to Raising Smart Kids. Scientific American Mind.
6. Dweck, C. (2007, November 28). The Secret to Raising Smart Kids. Scientific American Mind.
7. Dweck, C. (2007, November 28). The Secret to Raising Smart Kids. Scientific American Mind.
8. Dweck, C. (2007, November 28). The Secret to Raising Smart Kids. Scientific American Mind.
9. Dweck, C. (2007, November 28). The Secret to Raising Smart Kids. Scientific American Mind.
10. Chen, M. (2007, March 16). Smart Talking: Tell Students to Feed Their Brains. Eutopia.
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