Growth Mindset

When we look at new pedagogies and deeper learning goals across whole education systems, we look at growth mindset. What skills will our students need to leave us with? How are we instilling those skills in our students?

According to many researchers (Hindle, Hattie), having a Growth Mindset (specifically in math but not limited to math) is an approach to teaching mathematics which believes that mindset is more important than initial ability in determining the progress made by students in their mathematical understanding. 

Students with a growth mindset:

• Believe that talents can be developed and great abilities can be built over time 
• View mistakes as an opportunity to develop 
• Are resilient 
• Believe that effort creates success 
• Think about how they learn 

Students with a fixed mindset:

• Believe that talent alone creates success 
• Are reluctant to take on challenges 
• Prefer to stay in their comfort zone 
• Are fearful of making mistakes 
• Think it is important to 'look smart' in front of others 
• Believe that talents and abilities are set in stone, you either have them or you don't 

As a team we have chosen to look at growth mindset specifically around the area of math. Marilyn Kasian has shared her growth mindset student survey with our team in order for us to capture some data around growth mindset. We have decided to administer this survey to each of our students at the beginning of our learning with data management and will administer again at the end of the unit to see if and how students thinking around mindset and math has changed based on their experiences. The following is the student survey that all participating students will complete around growth mindset in math.

Completing the Survey

My students had completed the measurement previously (I highly recommend using the measurement signs and recording paper) so that they could complete the survey today. Overall, the survey was easy to access (although I would suggest using Chromebooks and not iPads as some of the questions (reaction time, memory game, and the sliding scales) are not as compatible with tablets.

I had "completing the census survey" as one of the things students could be working on today with the hope that with limited technology, students would be able to rotate through. Two things I learned about the survey:

1. It takes longer than I thought it would - allow for about 10 minutes per student
2. I wish I would have had the students go through a paper copy beforehand.

If I were to go back in time, I would have taken more time to have the students critic each question for bias and possible confusing or misleading information. There is a video (find it HERE) that student could watch if they need support. I liked the idea of having students rotate in when they had time, but students did have questions and problems completing the survey that probably could have been solved beforehand.

Two of the three classes at my school have completed the survey. The third class will be completing it next week. We should have 75-80 points of data for the grade 5 students at our school. 

First Day - planning as a team

Today we met as a team - principal, superintendent, classroom teachers, and learning connection partners. Our main goal was to choose which of the six competencies - character, citizenship, collaboration, communication, creativity, or critical thinking - our team would be focusing on over the next few months. As the school focus was on math, we decided to dig into the critical thinking competency.

The dimensions covered in this learning progression include:

• evaluating information and arguments
• making connections and identifying patterns
• meaningful knowledge construction
• experimenting, reflecting and taking action on their ideas in the real world
• collaborative knowledge construction
• leveraging digital

Our team is looking at using Census at School as a starting point for the collection of data. We plan to divide into primary and junior teams and document our journey using this blog. 

We are hoping to connect the schools to share data and collaborate to analyse the data. We are all looking forward to the partnership and this journey.