Should Students Adopt A Growth Mindset? Essay

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

According to Judy Willis, “When you are experiencing highly negative emotions or severe stress, incoming information is routed to a different part of your brain”. When the high-level thinking happens, the information routed is to the reactive lower brain. When that happens, the memory is affected, all active learning stops. A fourth way is recognized and valuing incremental progress boosts a person’s motivation and enables him or her to deal effectively with setbacks. According to Dweck, “people with growth mindsets, believe their abilities can be developed though 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. Virtually all great people have these qualities.” With a growth mindset, people realized by having a failure in the past don’t mean they will in the future.

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.

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,

Intelligence can be developed through experience and learning. In Carol S. Dweck’s who is in fact a PhD expert in the field of psychology wrote an article, “Transforming Student’s Motivation to Learn,” she states, “Results showed that what students believe about their brains - whether they see their intelligence as something that’s fixed or something that can grow and change – has profound effect on their motivation, learning, and school achievement.” Essentially what this is illustrating is that having a fixed or growth mindset can minimize students from being terrified of failure and in addition faced and embrace their challenges rather than running from them. Students need to understand an intelligent mindset is a paramount pathway in becoming successful, and eventually one needs to not be easily discouraged at the first sight of a challenge, but become motivated and driven by failure, and in turn willing to work harder to accomplish something they want to succeed at. A perfect example of this is through Mike Rose’s school experiences, we can see how he demonstrates the concepts of a growth and fixed mindset.

When I first read the email about the summer reading assignment Mindset, my expectations about what the book would be about completely differed from what it actually was. My thoughts were that it would only pertain to school and how to stay positive while going through college. After just five pages, I realized this books usefulness would stay with me for my entire life. When introduced to the fixed and growth based mindsets, I felt as though the growth based mindset defined my academic career that allowed me to get into college, while the fixed mindset sadly resonates in my social life. Around the end of the first chapter, Dweck brings up four questions that pertain to how easily intelligence can be changed or if it is fixed your entire

It’s difficult to be a successful author in today’s day and age, as there is competition everywhere, and it is easy to be drowned out, no matter how hard you try to put your name out into the world. Generally we tend to think of success as how much money an author makes or how well known they are among the common populace. However, true success should be defined by the quality of the story, regardless of how many people know it, and the satisfaction of having written it, regardless of how much it made. It takes a willingness to grow and to work hard to achieve literary success and notoriety. A successful author develops a growth mindset through the education and life experience they receive from their younger years into adulthood. Carol Dweck in Ken Bain’s What the Best College Students Do, describes a growth mindset as having a mastery perspective, “they believe that they can master something and grow in their abilities if they try. If they don’t succeed, they look for new strategies rather than deciding they ‘just can’t do it.’...Mastery students think abilities can expand. The helpless they’re fixed (Bain 109).” A growth mindset and strong ethos is critical to the success of authors as is demonstrated in the lives and works of Richard Adams, Dan Abnett and Hunter S. Thompson.

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

Dweck believes that someone who possesses a “growth mindset” is almost the polar opposite of someone who has a “fixed mindset.” A person with a growth mindset is able to think positively and see the silver lining of an unfavorable situation. They are able to improve from their mistakes, and always finds a way to become better at different aspects of life. Growth mindsets come with an open mind, making these people extremely versatile in any circumstance. In addition, their mindsets increase in complexity through maturity. They believe that as long as anyone puts in the effort, they have the potential to succeed.

life” (Dweck 6). Dweck explores the how the fixed mindset can hinder a person’s learning capability, while also exploring how converting to a growth mindset can help an individual’s intellect blossom. Carol Dweck’s backing of both scientific studies and personal experiences genuinely support her main focus

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

In the article “Carol Dweck Revisits the ‘Growth Mindset’,” Carol Dweck refines her definition of growth mindset, and she explains that since many have confused the concept, it is important to clarify the idea of growth mindset before people claim that they have one. Dweck explains that, although effort is an important factor for having a growth mindset, it is just as, if not more, important to ask others for help, to test out different strategies, and to ask what needs to be done in order to succeed the next time. Instead of claiming to possess a growth mindset just because it sounds better than possessing a fixed mindset, one should accept the mindset that they actually have. This will only help to develop a growth mindset, which is

Students with growth mind-sets like challenges and work hard to get better and improve their skills and knowledge. They also honed in on the skills needed to accept challenges and confront difficulty in order to better solve their problem or problems. If they make a mistake or answer a problem wrong it drives them to want to try harder and figure out and solve the problem they were faced with. This lets them academically surpass their fellow students who have a fixed mind-set because of their hard work and drive to succeed.

Unlike, people with a growth mindset accept challenging situations in order to develop and understand from what

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