“We Can!” Reaching Our True Potential Anna Bowden September 16 th 2015.

“We Can!”

Reaching Our True Potential

Anna BowdenSeptember 16th 2015

Why are we here?

Growth and Fixed Mindsets Developing Growth Mindset Language

Mindsets – Dr Carol DweckNature vs Nurture debateIs it the natural ‘gift’ or ability that leads people to be great or the

endless curiosity and challenge seeking that feeds the ability ?

Research shows that people have more capacity for lifelong learning and brain development than ever before

Robert Sternberg – ‘it is not some prior fixed ability but purposeful engagement that makes pupils reach their potential.’

Binet – ‘it is not always the people who start out the smartest who end up the smartest’

DIGIT SPAN TEST

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The Growth Mindset• Intelligence, gifts, talents &

qualities are fixed traits which cannot be changed

• Creates a need for them to prove themselves and look clever

• Shy away from risk, effort or challenge as it may reveal inadequacies

• Misestimate their performance & ability

• Intelligence, gifts, talents & qualities can be cultivated through effort

• The belief that qualities can be developed creates a passion for learning

• Risk takers – recognise the value of challenging themselves and the importance of effort

• Have a realistic understanding of their strengths and weaknesses

The Fixed Mindset

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The Growth Mindset• Do not take criticism of any sort

very well

• Success is about proving you are smart and talented – validating yourself

• To be clever or successful you must not make mistakes – they make sure they succeed

• Seek perfection – lots of success and validation

• Expect success with little effort or work – High effort is a risk

• Act upon and learn from constructive criticism

• Success is about stretching & developing yourself to learn new things

• People who believe they can develop know they learn from mistakes

• Low effort is a risk as you may not learn something new

The Fixed Mindset

As soon as children become able to evaluate themselves, some of them become afraid of challenges and afraid of not being "smart".

Example of mindsets in action: Dweck studied Year 6 pupils completing puzzles

Fixed Mindset – enjoyment plunged and they changed their minds about taking the puzzles home. Even the best puzzle solvers started to give up.

Growth Mindset – couldn’t tear them away from the more complex puzzles. The harder puzzles were their favourites. Asked to take them home.

Dweck studied pupil's responses to test results

Fixed Mindset – Less likely to study hard after a poor score. More likely to cheat.

Growth Mindset – Studied harder for the next test after a poor score.

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Rather than trying to learn from their

mistakes, pupils with a fixed mindset try to repair their self-esteem as opposed to fixing the difficulty.

“I knew I wasn’t going to be able to.”“I don’t need to do that anyway

because…”

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‘Just because some people can do something with little or no training, it does not mean that others can’t do it with training.’

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Artistic talent is often regarded as a natural gift which many fixed mindset people believe cannot be changed.

This is important as pupils with a fixed mindset believe that their early performance sets out their talent and their future.

Dweck worked with a teacher called Marva Collins. They found that high expectations and promotion of growth mindsets led to phenomenal results.

Developing The Growth Mindset at Long Crendon School

“Everything you want is on the other side of fear” Jack

Canfield

What are most children afraid of?

FAILING

“Failure is the seasoning that gives success its flavour.” Truman Capote

What are the behavioural consequences of being scared to

fail or believing you cannot do something?

Self-handicappingGiving yourself an alternative reason for failure

A person does not want to leave their ego vulnerable

Take away the fear of failure

We want the children to understand that FAILING is ok and even necessary to learn.

High quality learning involves more failure than low quality learning

The Learning Pit

Don’t celebrate effortless successLived on Silverdale Road in Reading and all played table tennis - look at

their achievements!

Matthew Syed - British Number 1 player in 1995

3x Commonwealth Champion 1x olympian

Andrew Syed – 3 national junior titles

Karen Witt – Commonwealth Champion, junior & senior titles

Andy Welman - won series of national doubles titles

Paul Trott - leading national junior player

Keith Hodder – outstanding county player

Jimmy Stokes – England Junior Champion

Paul Savins - Junior International title holder

Alison Gordon - 4x England Senior Champion

Paul Andrews - top national player

Sue Collier – England Schools Champion

“Talent is vastly over-rated” Matthew Syed

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Praise & Positive LabelsChildren need praise to foster their confidence, self-esteem & achievement but …

What kind of praise ?

A study was carried out on hundreds of pupils in which pupils were given 10 fairly difficult IQ questions - the average score across the pupils was high.

Praise was given to 2 different groups:Group 1 was praised on their ability:

‘Well done you are clever at this’Group 2 was praised on their effort:

‘Well done you worked really hard’

A more challenging set of questions was then offered.Group 1 were far less likely to take up the challenge for fear of

failure but 90% of Group 2 wanted to learn from the harder task.18

Both groups were exactly matched to begin with, but right after the praise they began to differ:

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Group 2Praised for effort

• Pushed into a fixed mindset.

• They rejected the chance to try the challenging task as they did not want to expose any flaws or call into question their talent.

• After a second round of harder questions these pupils now believed they were not as clever as before and their enjoyment of the task disappeared.

• Pushed into a growth mindset – through effort they can improve.

• Happy to try the harder questions and did not experience failure when they found them difficult and did not see it as a reflection on their intellect.

• The effort praised students still loved the problems and some reported that the hardest questions were the most fun.

Group 1Praised for ability

Growth Mindset Language

En route..... Nearly there..... Got it!

Notice the children’s mistakes“I noticed today you found … really difficult. You are not quite there yet, but you will be soon.”“You did really well to put so much effort in to … but you didn’t get it right.”

Encouragement“Don’t give up on it, remember you are in the pit and you CAN find a way out.”“You will be able to, you just don’t know how…YET.”

Explain the praise“Well done for getting that all right – you tried really hard.”“You persevered and worked hard to get to that answer.”

Language is KeyAVOID

Should… ‘e.g you should have done this’ puts pressure on = Fixed Mindset

Too hard / easy… ‘e.g. that one is too easy / hard for you’ makes a child feel the pressure

= Fixed Mindset

You’re so clever / smart… ‘e.g. well done for that score, you’re so clever’ makes a child think they don’t’ need to put the effort in or that next time if they don’t succeed they have lost their cleverness = Fixed Mindset

You’re so talented… ‘e.g. you’re the next Messi, you’ve got the talent’ makes children think that it is in them and they don’t need to learn anymore = Fixed Mindset

I expected that… ‘e.g. I expected that of you – you’re always doing that’ children will meet your expectation = Fixed Mindset

Please read the excerpt from Carol Dweck’s Mindset book for more on Growth Mindset language.

In short…

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• Everyone needs to develop a belief that they can achieve things with effort

• We can improve and become good at things we may find difficult at first

• You learn by challenging yourself

• Foster a passion for learning

• Have high expectations of yourself and others

• The right language will promote Growth Mindsets