Mindset Maths
Topic outline
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Growth mindset: do you really understand it?
"Students have such strong and often negative ideas about maths that they can develop a growth mindset about everything else in their life but still believe that you can either achieve highly in maths or you can't. To change these damaging beliefs, students need to develop mathematical mindsets"Jo Boaler
In this unit we're going to focus on a key critical question - how well do you really understand growth mindset?
In order to move forward effectively with developing a growth mindset culture, it’s important that you as a leader and your team have a deep understanding of the concepts and methodologies which can be deployed.
Within this unit we'll examine how, as leaders, we can develop and exemplify the knowledge and skills base needed to build a growth mindset culture. We'll signpost some of the resources you can use to facilitate this process. We'll also examine how growth mindset fits with some of the key policies driving Scottish Education and how growth mindset can be a major driver in delivering the Scottish Government's stated aim of ‘excellence and equity’ for children, young people and families across the country.
Within this unit we will focus on the following learning intention:
- Demonstrate a critical understanding of growth mindset principles, concepts and theories, and the impact on national policy priorities, ensuring excellence and equity for all children, young people and families across Scotland.
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Activity 2
Growth mindset behaviours
When there is a belief that a person’s level of ability is limited (fixed mindset) this can undermine their resolve, resilience and learning. But when they have a growth mindset and believe that their abilities can be developed, people show perseverance and willingness to learn - what’s more, they achieve remarkable results even in the face of hardship and difficulties.
No one’s mindset is totally of one type or the other. There may be a few extreme cases, but most people lie somewhere in between both. Mindsets do not always remain constant. People show different mindsets in different situations, depending on how they formed a belief about their abilities. The first step in changing from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset is to recognise fixed / growth mindset behaviours.
Understanding the behaviours associated with mindset allows you to recognise the characteristics pupils may display in your classroom and, crucially, understand why they may react the way they do in particular situations. Click on the characters below to identify how the same scenario may be dealt with by different mindset behaviours.
Unit 1: Activity 2 reflection
Having read through the scenarios with James and Carol think about your own teaching. Can you identify times when you have experienced some of the behaviours highlighted?
How did you deal with the situation?
Have the scenarios with James and Carol helped you understand the behaviours of pupils you teach?
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Activity 3
How can you get pupils to work a little bit harder? What impact does the student next to them have on how hard they work? And if they are working hard, does that encourage others to do the same?
Recent research has highlighted the impact of who sits near a young person as they learn. The research had thirty eight students perform a reaction time game on a computer in pairs. Sometimes the tasks were on the same screen, sometimes they were on different screens next to each other. Some of the time they could see what their partner was doing and sometimes they couldn’t.
The researchers manipulated the game so that one of the pair had a harder task, which forced them to work harder. They then measured what impact this had on the other member of the pair.
The main findings:
- students were more likely to work harder on a task if the person next to them is working hard
- it did not matter if students were working on different tasks, the effect of working harder was still apparent
- it did not matter if students couldn't see what task the other person was working on; if they're working hard it'll encourage them to do so as well.
Why was this the case?
It may be due to the bandwagon effect, where people adopt the behaviours of those around them. Another reason may be due to our more automatic need to imitate those around us (i.e. if someone next to you yawns, you are probably likely to do the same). Another reason may be that as human beings, we are very aware of other people’s thoughts about us and want to make a good impression.
Classroom implications
Other research has emerged that suggests that when given the choice, people will choose environments that do not require them putting in high levels of effort. Our default setting seems to be one of preserving energy, not expanding it.
This has some interesting implications for where pupils sit in the classroom. This means not letting students always choose who they sit next to, but instead pairing students with someone who will encourage them to work hard. The person they like the most may not be the person who helps them work at their best. As the authors of the study succinctly put in their conclusion, 'simply performing a task next to a person who exerts a lot of effort in a task will make you do the same'.
Read the full research article here .
Unit 1: Activity 3 reflection
Take some time to reflect on your own work behaviour - what makes you work harder, are these different from the strategies you use to encourage pupils to work harder / show more effort?