Growth Mindset News and Tips
 Announcing Mindset Works® SchoolKit!
In our continued effort to support schools in cultivating a growth mindset culture, we are now offering the Mindset Works® SchoolKit.
The Mindset Works® SchoolKit includes a) growth mindset teacher professional development, b) the award-winning Brainology® interactive program, which teaches students a growth mindset and how to apply it to their schoolwork, and c) tools for administrators, teachers and students to use on an ongoing basis to deepen the growth mindset in their schools.
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 Developing a Growth Mindset School Culture
By Dr. Lisa Blackwell
We often speak about mindset as an attribute of a person—we say that a child “has a fixed mindset,” “I’m working to develop a growth mindset,” or even, “She has a fixed mindset about math”—and much of our research has focused on how individuals’ mindset beliefs influence their feelings, choices, and outcomes. But as we know from other research (on the impact of praise and of teaching about a growth mindset), the environment has a big impact on our mindsets too. This is no less true for adults than for kids. Try this thought experiment:
Imagine that, in your workplace, your performance is judged solely by a set of “high stakes” events: the number of sales you make, cases you win in court, or students’ scores on an annual exam. How much you have learned and improved are not considered; your helpfulness with your colleagues is irrelevant; your willingness to work hard and to learn does not matter. Furthermore, no one provides any support to help you improve; it’s “sink or swim” (really, really fast). Your colleagues are competitive and unwilling to share information and strategies, and your supervisor is remote and inflexible.
What kind of mindset are you likely to bring to your work? Will you be eager to take on challenges and work hard to improve, open to learning from your mistakes, and resilient when you don’t perform well? Or will you lapse into fixed mindset thinking, and avoid risk and learning that might expose you to failure, obsess about how your performance “measures up” to others’, and feel like quitting when you don’t succeed right away?
Take the quiz, “What’s My School Mindset?” to find out where your school stands now!
Then read more about the key features of a growth mindset school culture, and how you can promote one in your school.
FREE classroom activities to practice a growth mindset
 We are excited to announce that we have created two new group activities designed to help students practice, learn, and reinforce growth mindset concepts in a fun and interactive way: the Mindset Works Hot Potato Game and the Mindset Works Popcorn Game! And best of all, they’re free! Click here to find out more!
The Growth Minded Educator Contest
The Growth Minded Educator Contest is our way of capturing and sharing collective learning experiences, and recognizing the efforts that educators have put into instilling and cultivating a Growth Mindset in their students.
February 2012 Contest Results
  We had some terrific entries to February’ contest, so we decided to honor the entries of two educators! The Growth Minded Educators of March are: Kirk Kimbrell and Mark Carter, on behalf of the Ministry of Football!
Congratulations to our winners, and thank you to all who participated! Thank you to everyone who participated. We received some fantastic submissions, and will reach out to some of you to discuss ways to share the other entries.
Check out the winning entries to the contest question, “How have you been able to develop partnerships between teachers and parents to support growth mindset thinking in students? What specific strategies have you found to be helpful in communicating and reinforcing one another in this work?”:
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Enter the next Growth Minded Educator Contest
All contest entries have a chance to win an autographed copy of Carol Dweck''s book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.
Contest Question:
What strategies do you use to promote positive emotions, or hinder the negative ones, in learning? Please share at least one strategy or activity. (Suggested length: 150 words or less)
Email your answers to updates@mindsetworks.com by April 11th, 2012 We’ll review each answer and share the winning one(s) on a future newsletter.
If you have any questions regarding the contest, please post a comment or email us at updates@mindsetworks.com
Do you have something to say?
Please post comments at the bottom of any of the articles, and if you have more to say, consider writing a guest blog or newsletter post! Email us at updates@mindsetworks.com to share your guest post idea.
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