Mindsets in the Classroom: Chapter 5

Good Morning Everyone!

I am coming to you this morning with thoughts on Chapter 5 of Mindsets in the classroom.

This chapter is all about failure and how we handle it. If we have a growth mindset we are able to view failure as an opportunity to learn and try different strategies. If we have a fixed mindset than we view failure as a failure and make the assumption that we just can't do that activity or are not smart in that subject. 

Kids can get into the fixed mindset very early in their academic career. As teachers we need to make sure that our classrooms and the way we teach, embrace failure as a learning moment for our students. They need to feel safe and encouraged so that when they do make mistakes they know that they can turn to a peer or a teacher and they will offer encouragement and helpful strategies to face the challenge in a new way. If we have this growth mindset and view of failure in the classroom we will be teaching our students to be risk takers in their learning which can lead to great things. Walt Disney would be an excellent example of this. I love the quote Ricci used from Disney, "Around here, however, we don't look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things because we're curious, and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths." New adventures await all of us when we embrace the growth mindset and continue to take risks in our learning. 

A final thought is that we need to make sure we are motivating them correctly. We need to make sure we are focusing on intrinsic rewards for these foster the growth mindset and teach them to focus on that positive feeling we get when we accomplish something. Extrinsic rewards are temporary and they don't encourage students to keep pushing forward. It tells them that they can stop as soon as they reach the reward level that was set in place. As teachers we want them to keep moving forward and extrinsic rewards are not going to make that happen. This will be something that I need to work on this next year. I have a tendency to offer extrinsic rewards to encourage my students to reach a goal and that is not teaching them the importance of their hard work leading to accomplishments.

I enjoyed this chapter and I am looking forward to chapter 6. I hope you are able to join. Make sure to link up with us every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday at Hello Sunshine!

Ashley