Developing Independent Thinkers with a Growth Mindset

Over 30 years ago, Carol Dweck and her colleagues became interested in students' attitudes about failure. They noticed that some students rebounded while other students seemed devastated by even the smallest setbacks. After studying the behaviour of thousands of children, Dr Dweck coined the terms fixed mindset and growth mindset to describe the underlying beliefs people have about learning and intelligence.

When students believe they can get smarter, they understand that effort makes them stronger. Therefore, they put in extra time and effort, and that leads to higher achievement.

This course is designed to take a detailed look at how to develop a growth mindset culture in your school. We take the time to explore what growth mindset looks like and how it can be employed most effectively.

The fundamental purpose of developing a growth mindset culture is to create independent learners. During this course, we unpick a variety of techniques to ensure a full understanding of how a growth mindset can be purposefully implemented across a range of settings. We will dissect its impact on the school environment and explore pivotal examples of good practice.

The Impact of Praise and Feedback:

The feedback teachers give students can influence their mindsets in surprising ways. For example, while praise for intelligence, such as "You're so smart!" is considered by some to be motivating, research demonstrates that it can actually have a negative impact on student motivation and achievement. With this in mind we explore:

  • Who is the child we want to produce at the end of our education system and how does this fit with our curriculum and whole school ethos?
  • What does growth mindset look like currently in your school?
  • What does growth mindset really mean?
  • Techniques for developing a positive and engaging growth mindset culture.
  • Creating independent learning: For pupils, For staff, For parents

The Impact of Teacher Mindsets:

Studies have shown that educators with a fixed mindset about a pupil’s ability were more likely to judge students as having low potential than their growth-minded counterparts. Additionally, educators with a fixed mindset were more likely to comfort students about their perceived low abilities and apply kind strategies. They used “comfort-oriented” feedback, in which they told their students that their inability to succeed is okay and attempted to make work easier by lowering expectations.

In a separate study, this comfort-oriented feedback was linked to lower motivation in students, as well as lower expectations for their own performance when compared with “strategy-oriented” feedback.

With this in mind, we consider how to best approach interaction with children of all abilities to help them realise their potential.

Understanding further strategies to use in school:

We also address the following issues and snapshot strategies:

  • Metacognition
  • Executive functioning skills
  • Emotional control
  • Impulse control
  • Working memory
  • Self-monitoring
  • Planning and preparation
  • Task initiation
  • Organisation
  • Resilience and risk-taking

Roundup:

Thinking about the future. Reflections on growth mindset. How does this ultimately impact the children in our school? What are our next steps?

This course is suitable for senior leadership team members and subject teachers of all key stages.

Presenter Profile

Presenter Cath Bufton-Green
Cath Bufton-Green has over 20 years of experience in the education sector as a teacher, senior leader and Head Teacher. She has worked in both the maintained and independent sectors and is passionate about helping leaders to prepare children, holistically, for their futures.
Cath is passionate about staff development and has enjoyed coaching and shaping teachers and leaders to be their very best. She coaches on a one-to-one basis, for individual leadership development and works with leadership teams and schools on creating high performing teams for the effective deployment of duties and impact on school development. Her approach is very personal, treating each new assignment as unique and provides a bespoke service. She aims to inspire, challenge and empower those that she works with, to make a positive difference for themselves, their schools and their pupils.

Cost: £250 per delegate which includes lunch and resources; £299 for 2 teachers from the same school booking on this course

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