My Teacher Has A Growth Mindset Teaching Style

The fourth grade was a very traumatic year for me. My only sister went to middle school, my mom who always was at home across the street from school got a job, and I didn’t know one person in my class. For the first time in my life I was on my own and I was frightened even by the idea of it. During that year my grades dropped and I wasn’t social with my classmates. I started to fail in my favorite class, math. The work became pointless to me and I started to neglect my work. One day, after I failed another one of those math tests, my teacher asked to talk to me after class. Due to the already annoying grade I had received, my teacher punished me with a detention. Confusion and frustration flooded my body and I just wanted to give up. But,

Carol S. Dweck's article “Brainology – Transforming Student's Motivation to Learn” offers insights about student's mentality at school and why some students are better off than others. The article claims directly that students generally have two mindsets when it comes to learning; one is “fixed mindset,” a negative trait, and the other is “growth mindset,” a positive trait. Both of these traits contradict each other in terms of meaning. These two mindsets impact students on whether or not they will be successful on their academic road. In “Brainology – Transforming Student's Motivation to Learn,” Dweck explains how these two traits influence the outcome of having one of these two mindsets through

For years, there have been many theorists who have shared their views on how individuals learn. Such research has determined that individuals have different learning styles. It is important for teacher to understand the learning styles of both themselves and their students because it helps them to relay the subject knowledge to the students. The teacher is in a position where they must be able to assess the learning styles of their students. This means that the students and teachers are both in a process of learning.

There’s a saying that everyone’s said at least once in their lifetime, I’m sure. It’s so cliché, but now I know that there is so much truth behind it. “Believe in yourself.” Rather than giving up on yourself, use your failures to make you better. Learn how to bounce back from adversity and learn from those experiences. This is called using your growth mindset. According to Carol Dweck, research psychologist, in her book Mindset, “In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.” It wasn’t until the summer between my junior and senior year of high school that I learned this and of course I learned it the hard way. I had played club basketball for four summers in a row with the Longmont Rush basketball club. I loved the game of basketball and I had spent countless hours working on my skills on the court. I even wanted to play in college. I already had schools scouting me. Unfortunately, in my final season, just before my senior year, my biggest fear came true.

They’re two different beliefs the author focus on, the fixed mindset, and the growth mindset. Fixed mindset students avoid challenges, and ignoring useful feedbacks to improve certain skills. People who are fixed mindset gives up easily or pursue less challenges. While students with a growth mindset accept challenges, learns from criticism, and sees failure as an opportunity to get better. On the two faces of efforts article, it states “students with growth mindset out preforms their classmates with fixed mindsets.” Especially when the article compared two different students confronting algebra for the first time. While the student with a fixed mindset barely pays attention in class, the student with a growth mindset puts the effort to learn the topic.

Basically, individuals with a fixed mindset often feel measured by a failure, sometimes permanently. Unfortunately, failed attempts are viewed as a label rather than an opportunity to plan a new path of succes. On the other hand, an individual with a growth mindset views a failed attempt as an opportunity to take action, to confront obstacles, to keep up with their schoolwork, and/or to better manage and organize their time. Growth mindset individuals believe that qualities can be developed, expanded, and eventually result in a successful outcome. A second lesson learned is the power of labels and the stereotype of ability; this lesson is undoubtedly one of the most enlightening. Dweck discovered in one of her studies that, “... ability praise often pushed students right into a fixed mindset, and they showed all the signs of it too. When we gave them a choice, they rejected a challenging new task that they could learn from. They didn’t want to do anything that could expose their flaws and call into question their talent” (72). One’s mindset determines their reaction to labels and stereotypes. An individual with a fixed mindset will settle for a positive label and chose stagnation and permanent inferiority rather than risk losing the label; whereas,

Students have their own best way in effectively learning the lesson. With the diversity of students, the problem is each student has a preferred learning style. It becomes undeniably one of the reasons that make it difficult to achieve the best expected outcome out of teachers’ effort. However, teachers try to incorporate various teaching techniques to make every learning opportunity become productive, meaningful, and relevant for the learners.

A fixed mindset is when someone believes the abilities you are born with are the ones you will always have, and they cannot be changed. Children who possess a fixed mindset are likely to attribute their success to pure luck and their failures to ability or lack thereof. This is also known as learned helplessness. Children with a growth mindset, however, have a contrasting perspective. They believe abilities can be improved over time with an input of effort. They attribute their success to their abilities and their failures to variables that can be easily altered. As I have mentioned in the past, I fall under the authoritative parenting style. Because an authoritative parenting style is firm but caring and encouraging, I have cultivated a growth

Heather Landers argues in her article “Help Your Students Develop a Growth Mindset” she declares “Talk about adopting a growth mindset in class—tell stories about former students who thought they would never learn the subject but who, with persistence and effort, ended up being successful in the course” (6). Landers point is by clarifying that by giving students examples which could give the students a chance to see what could happen if they took on a growth mindset. Another way students at Mount Miguel can thrive to get a growth mindset is surround themselves with growth mindset people. The people students hang around with reflects who they are. As Tim Elmore put it's in his article “Four Ways to Develop a Growth Mindset in Students” he clarifies “Growing people determine to surround themselves with growth mindset people, who become contagious with others. You will reflect the books you read and the people you position next to you” (4). Elmore is insisting the people students hang around reflects on the choices they make and what mindset they will have. However, students must recognize that they have a choice in choosing a fixed or growth mindset. Terry Waghorn in his article “Are You Trapped In A Fixed Mindset? Fix it!” agrees when he

To compare and contrast the two is very easy because they are very alike yet very different. A fixed mindset is wanting to look smart without doing the work like avoiding challenges , giving up easily and not getting things your full effort they also hate constructive criticism which leads them to feel threatened by others success. A growth mindset is someone who want to learn and challenge themselves and over come all setbacks so that they can master what they are learning they take constructive criticism very well which leads them to become happy at the success of others.

Students with a “fixed” mindset believe that they are born with a specific set of talent and they are limited by those talents. They will fell that they reached their expected ability, consequently stop trying. If the student has a “growth mindset”, they believe that if a concept is challenging, it will provide them an opportunity to learn a new concept. They also believe that there are no restrictions due to inherited ability.

People who have a fixed mindset usually want something easy and not challenging; they feel scared to lose while growth mindset people tend to love challenges and making mistakes lives within their body as a trait. The author proves when she said that students with fixed mindset will never showed any interest when they found difficulties in completing those assignment. Only when they did well right away, they will feel the enjoyment. In contrast, the harder it gets, the more urges for the growth mindset to grab the knowledge and feel excited to learn something. Carol Dweck also gives an example in Columbia where she met a lot of intelligent med students who always get A’s in their test. It only took a day to make them a failure, when they said

Traditional teaching styles use teacher-centered approach. It includes a teacher that stands at the front and tells students step by step instructions. The teacher decides what is learned, when it is learned, how it is learned, and how learning is evaluated. In a nutshell, the teacher is an information giver and evaluator. The students are just there to learn through lessons and direct instructions. Their attention is mainly focused on passing tests, assessments, and evaluations.

In fact, I realized, as I continued to read, my teachers did a lot of modeling and demonstrations on completing a task. In addition, they had the ability to adjust learning to their students learning need and style, even though learning styles were not part of the system yet (Hamond et al., n.d.). Therefore, much of my teaching mimics how I learned from those teachers. I believe in guiding my students toward discovery on their own; therefore, my lessons were thought out, so they encompassed each student’s learning style. I taught 6th-grade social studies, not an exhilarating course to garner excitement.

One way growth mindset is more superior than a fixed mindset is due to the ability to develop and adapt the intelligence of a person. A fixed mindset will lock you down to the "now". A study done by Dweck tested ten-year-olds with problems that were beyond their reach of knowledge. Many of the kids were excited to learn and do better the next time, but a few were upset. They felt like testing their knowledge defeated them. "In one study, after a failure on a test, they said they'll cheat next time instead of study more. In another study, they found someone who did worse than they did so they could feel better, and in