The Impact and Implications of Growth Mindset in Education

Fixed versus Growth Mindset: An Essay
In this essay I would like to share my personal views on fixed vs. growth mindset as well
as the opinions that I have explored of Dr. Dweck’s. I will begin to delve into how it can
affect professional growth for myself and others. I can already see how having a growth
mindset can benefit myself and my students and will discuss how that will immediately
begin to change how I set goals for the students in my class as well as my professional
goals. I will show both the positive and negative implications that my mindset as an
educator can have on my students.
The idea of having either a fixed or growth mindset is completely new to me. This
course, while just beginning, has been very eye opening. I must admit that when I
began to look at the materials for the course I quickly felt that based on my age (56) that
I probably had a fixed mindset. I think that is true in some respects but when it comes
to my professional growth I find that I have a growth mindset. I think largely in part
because I am so new (4 years) to teaching and I am constantly learning new things
about what it means to be in this field. By default that pushes me toward a growth
mindset professionally. In this profession it seems if you do not have a growth mindset
you will be stifling both your own professional growth as well as the growth of your
current and future students.
As an educator your students' success depends on your mindset. As is shown in the
Pygmalian and Golem Effects, having a preconceived notion about a student can often
be to that student's benefit or demise depending on what you determine they are
capable of. If you set the bar low for a student based on standardized tests and
assessments then your instruction is most likely going to aim for that lower target. I
found it very interesting that in one study the students that were chosen at random but
believed to be high achievers gained two years growth because they were considered
“bloomers” by their teachers while their peers were not given those same opportunities
for growth and did not reach that level of growth.
An educator's mindset that is fixed will play into the idea that a given student is not
capable of attaining more than one academic year of growth. Given this mindset, a
student that enters second grade and tests at the level of a student consistent with
middle of kindergarten abilities then they would more than like exit second grade with
abilities similar to a student in the middle of first grade. A teacher with a growth mindset
is more likely to approach the student with the idea that they are not able to do certain
things “yet” but that does not mean that they can not achieve more than just one year of
academic growth. The teacher's mindset is projected on to the student and can either
hinder or accentuate their abilities. Dweck speaks to the “not yet” idea in her video and
how it can show students that while they may not be able to do something right now, or
“not yet”, that doesn’t mean that they can’t achieve it by challenging themselves and
working hard.
In my reading and research in the abstract by Yeager & Dweck it showed that mindset
can predict outcomes. The controversy in this study was whether or not a particular
mindset could negatively or positively affect academic outcome. In a large percent of
the students in the study there was a higher achievement is the students that had a
growth mindset. One of the exceptions to this was predominantly in mainland China. In
the study it states that this data could be skewed by the fact that students there spend
an average of 57 hours per week on academics. (Dweck, 1999) With so much
emphasis already placed on a high achievement in academics further studies would
need to be done to see if practicing a growth mindset would boost academic outcome
even higher over those with a fixed mindset.
Students who are taught early on to practice a growth mindset are more prepared to
accept challenges, work harder in the face of a struggle, and achieve more overall.
Dweck’s studies over the past 30 years have shown repeatedly that overall, those
students who possessed a fixed mindset were limited by what they felt they were
capable of and were also less likely to challenge themselves. They would settle for
accomplishing the first task given when given an opportunity to stretch themselves and
try something more challenging. Just as much as a student can be bound by their
mindset as educators we must make sure that we are projecting a mindset of growth to
them and for them. Projecting a growth mindset for students can be done in a few
ways. You must first begin by setting the bar for achievement high for each student, not
based on the status quo of one year of academic growth for each academic year. You
must also instill the idea of “not yet” in each learner so that they can reach their greatest
potential. This potential will not look the same in each student but overall the
expectation that they can individually achieve great things is an idea that you must first
embrace in order to teach them to embrace it as well. You can positively influence your
students by your attitude, expectations, and reinforcement of the fact that they are
capable of doing hard things and rising to the challenge.
In conclusion, this information is just scratching the surface of the inspiration that can be
found in researching what it means to have a fixed versus growth mindset and all the
possibilities that this brings to light. I am astounded that some of this research goes all
the way back to the year of my birth yet I am just having my mind opened to what it
means to have a growth mindset. I am excited for what changing to a growth mindset
can do for me both professionally and personally. I am even more excited at what the
implications of having a growth mindset means for the expectations I have for my
students this year and in the years to come. I can not wait to introduce the idea of “not
yet” to my classroom and watch my children “bloom”.