1.3 Learning Mindsets

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  Posted by CUNY Mindset Initiative on March 11, 2024 at 11:02 am

  💬  Reflection/Discussion:

  • How does cultivating a growth mindset benefit educators in their professional development and teaching practices? Why is it important to you as an educator to learn about and growth mindsets and apply that knowledge in your teaching?

• Markela Khosrowshahi (she/he/hers)

  Member

  March 21, 2024 at 4:01 pm

  Cultivating a growth mind set benefit all educators in their professional development and teaching because they will constantly push themselves to new challenges. Therefore, they are not afraid of failure, because they know that failure is an opportunity to grow, learn and keep moving forward to improve themselves.
  Markela Khosrowshahi (she/he/hers)

  Member

  March 21, 2024 at 4:15 pm

  It is important that educators learn about growth mindset and apply the knowledge in their teaching because they could create a ripple effect to positively impact their students. Bringing the growth mind set to their classrooms will encourage their students to keep trying and working, helping them to define their academic goals and eventually find their career path.

   
  Carrie Gheith (she/her)

  Member

  March 25, 2024 at 12:38 pm

  Cultivating a growth mindset as an educator seems to be a great tool to model that the educator is a human being wiht flaws that can learn from others. Educators who present with an “I am always right” mentality may hinder students’ opportunities to share in the classroom if they are questioning or in oppostition to the Eductor.
  Jean-Yves Plaisir (He/him/and/his)

  Participant

  March 29, 2024 at 3:33 pm

  Cultivating a growth mindset and teaching with intentionality enable educators to challenge themselves to learn new skills, use multimodality in their teaching, and value student efforts and learning outcomes as processes rather than products.
  Jean-Yves Plaisir (He/him/and/his)

  Participant

  March 29, 2024 at 3:40 pm

  I like the idea of envisioning the learner as “someone who has not yet” learned a skill but will acquire it through time and effort. This view of teaching/learning couples optimism coupled with work.
  Danesh

  Participant

  April 1, 2024 at 11:49 am

  It is important for educators to implement pedagogy inspired by growth mindset research, because when this pedagogy is employed, students are more likely to succeed in the classroom.

  In an ideal scenario, students will perform better, allowing them to meet the goals and objectives of a given course.
  Seth Lehman

  Member

  April 2, 2024 at 2:01 pm

  I remember when I first had the realization that promoting growth mindset for my students meant that I needed to embrace it for myself as an educator. This gave me a framework for pushing myself to not be stagnant in my teaching, but to invest time to learn about and experiment with new approaches and pedagogies. Embracing growth mindset also helps me to be patient with myself! It is easy to get overwhelmed by all of the changes that an educator could make in their teaching; it might be more practical to focus on implementing one or two small changes each semester and give yourself time to grow and become the educator you wish to be.
  Seth Lehman

  Member

  April 2, 2024 at 2:02 pm

  That is a great choice of words! How do you communicate that “not-yet” concept to your struggling students?
  Seth Lehman

  Member

  April 2, 2024 at 2:04 pm

  Yes, I really like this! We might have more knowledge about a particular topic than our students, but we are in the larger learning process right along with them. Do you have any ideas/suggestions for ways that educators can publicly demonstrate to their students that they are also learning and don’t have all the answers?
  Casandra Silva Sibilin (she/her/hers)

  Member

  April 5, 2024 at 5:27 pm

  I love the power of transforming “not” by adding the “yet.”

  e.g. “I’m not good at writing/math/x” becomes “I’m not good at writing/math/x yet.”

  I like to ask students to write an introduction letter summarizing their hopes and concerns for the course. Here, if they express doubts about the subject matter or skills involved with a fixed mindset/self-limiting statement… this could be a good opportunity to offer a possible “not yet.”
  Casandra Silva Sibilin (she/her/hers)

  Member

  April 5, 2024 at 5:32 pm

  I definitely identify with getting overwhelmed with all the potential changes – sometimes it’s like the more we want to grow, the more we get overwhelmed…and this becomes counterproductive. Focusing on just one or two small changes sounds like a very encouraging strategy. Thank you!
  Tim Leonard (he/him/his)

  Participant

  April 6, 2024 at 8:39 pm

  Hi Casandra,

  Thank you for sharing this. I love the use of “yet” as it allows students to know that they will be able to get to a specific point as part of a growth-minded process.

  I am wondering about the use of the word good in this context. Does it send the message that the student is bad at math or English?

  Perhaps we can have students simply identify one skill or strategy they feel confident in / good about and one that they are working on?

   
  Deborah Greenblatt, Ph.D. (she/her)

  Participant

  April 7, 2024 at 12:05 pm

  Yes! This is the work of Friere. The students are the teachers and the teachers are the students. We all learn from each other. Cultivating this environment is key to a growth mindset. Here is an excerpt: http://faculty.webster.edu/corbetre/philosophy/education/freire/freire-2.html
  Deborah Greenblatt, Ph.D. (she/her)

  Participant

  April 7, 2024 at 12:13 pm

  Along these lines, we cannot mistake grit for a growth mindset. Although the message of working hard to achieve is important, we want to be thoughtful about also including the societal barriers people must overcome which leads to some efforts not resulting in the same rewards. It is important to acknowledge these and support students with tools to overcome them (and abolish them. You can find more about this work at https://abolitionistteachingnetwork.org/)

   
  Deborah Greenblatt, Ph.D. (she/her)

  Participant

  April 7, 2024 at 12:18 pm

  Agreed! Share this with your students. Let them know that you are working to improve your craft and that it is overwhelming to you. Students often think that if they were actually “smart” they wouldn’t be overwhelmed. Society places a false stereotype that “smart people” find things “easy” when we know that is not the case. I was going to add my “because” and start listing, but I would love to read what others think is the because  here. 🙂