How to build your child’s Growth Mindset?

What are Mindsets? Mindsets are the assumptions and expectations we hold for ourselves and others, these beliefs guide our interactions and the views we have about ourselves. The Mindset approach provides us with a way of viewing intelligence that has the potential to foster educational growth for all children.

Psychologist Carol Dweck developed the Mindset Theory Model as a result of years of research about motivation and learning. From this research two types of Mindsets were established, a Fixed and a Growth Mindset. A Fixed Mindset is based on the belief that our intelligence is innate and does not develop a great deal with effort and practice. Whereas a Growth Mindset is based on the assumption that intelligence is malleable and can improve over time with effort and persistence.

There is a spectrum of Mindsets and we can hold both Fixed and Growth Mindsets depending on the particular activity that we are engaging in. Students with Growth Mindsets tend to be more motivated to work hard, they put more effort into their schoolwork and show increased academic achievement.

Key Benefits

• High expectations of students of all abilities.
• Creates an environment that promotes risk and embraces challenges.
• Provides feedback focused on processes such as effort rather than intelligence.
• Motivates students as learning can be developed through effort and perseverance.
• Students are encouraged to learn from each other through mixed ability groupings.

How do we at Regent International School implement it in the classroom?

Classroom practices are adapted to frame students’ intellectual abilities as improvable through effort and practice. The aim is to increase students’ engagement in problem-solving and encourage students to recognise the value of failure as well as success for learning. Children who are not recognised as the highest achievers benefit considerably from a Growth Mindset approach as they are consistently acknowledged and praised for their work and continual growth.

Teaching principles that promote a Growth Mindset will support students to develop and achieve long, medium and short term goals, praise effort not intelligence, encourage students to value the process of learning and to develop classroom practices that promote collaboration rather than competition.

You may notice posters and key phrases around our classrooms at Regent International School that acknowledge and promote the Growth Mindset.

For more information and resources on Growth Mindset, click here.