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Academic Mindsets and the Difference They Make by WKCD| APRIL 1, 2014
What motivates students to stretch academically and expend the energy to master core academic content? New research suggests that one of the best ways to increase students’ perseverance and improve their academic behaviors is by supporting the development of "academic mindsets": the psychological and social beliefs one has about oneself in relation to academic work. Students with positive academic mindsets work harder, engage in more productive academic behaviors, and persevere to overcome obstacles to success, the research says. Conversely, students with negative mindsets about school or about themselves as learners are likely to withdraw from the behaviors essential for academic success and to give up easily when they encounter setbacks or difficulty. Students can learn positive academic mindsets, we also know. The concept of "growth mindset," upon which this new research stands, underscores the malleability of our attitudes about our ability to learn. Several months ago, WKCD.org assembled for teachers and students five short videos that provide a lively introduction to growth mindset and why it matters. Below we present research, articles, and resources that help enlarge the understanding of academic mindsets and the difference they make.
Listen first as five thoughtful high school students talk about tuning their own mindsets and pushing their limits. Their reflections are from WKCD’s “Just Listen” series of over 300 short video clips in which youth in four cities talk about teaching and learning.
ACADEMIC MINDSETS AS A CRITICAL COMPONENT OF DEEPER LEARNING
In a 2013 white paper for the Hewlett Foundation, University of Chicago reseacher Camille Farrington describes four key academic mindsets, each of which is independently associated with increased perseverance, better academic behaviors, and higher grades. Expressed in the first person, from the point of view of the learner, they are:
These four mindsets, Farrington argues, are critical levers for increasing the student engagement and the persistence necessary for students to achieve mastery. And research across a range of studies suggests that educators play a key role in building positive mindsets. Students’ academic identities and attitudes and beliefs about schooling are strongly influenced by the school and classroom environment in which learning is situated; the structure of academic work, goals, support, and feedback in that environment; and the implicit and explicit messages conveyed to students about themselves in relation to that academic work. Increasing student motivation to learn is ultimately contingent upon “creat[ing] a set of circumstances in which students take pleasure in learning and come to believe that the information and skills they are being asked to learn are important and meaningful for them and worth their effort, and that they can reasonably expect to be able to learn the material.” Download the full report.
FOSTERING ACADEMIC MINDSETS
In a recent blogpost on Mindshift.org, journalist Katrina Schwartz describes some of the ways schools can encourage students to develop the academic mindsets described by Chicago researcher Farrington—while cautioning that it requires an intentional focus. Schools can celebrate students who take risks and fail and then learn from those failures, she notes. They can structure failure into the school culture. To help students see learning as a process, their assessments need to reflect the same ethos, including lots of informal feedback so students can improve on their work. To make assessment feel worthwhile to students, and progressive in nature, educators can allow students to show their learning in multiple ways and at multiple stages in the learning process. Allowing students to assess themselves as part of the process creates a thoughtful, recurring time for them to look at their own growth and set new goals. It also helps to give very specific feedback using behavior language. There’s a big difference between, “good job, you got the right answer,” and feedback that points out specific qualities in the work that were well done and how that connects to one of the academic mindsets being fostered or to the student’s stated learning goals. Fostering academic mindsets is a two-way street and requires teachers to listen to students. “If we’re thinking about what’s required of us as teachers to foster academic mindsets in classroom—and thereby foster student development and growth—it’s a mindset in and of itself,” said Rob Riordan, co-founder of High Tech High and President of its Graduate School of Education. Read more.
DEEPER LEARNING MOOC ARCHIVES
For nine weeks in early 2014, the “Deeper Learning MOOC” (short for “massive open online course”) brought together teachers, school leaders, and other educators interested in encouraging “deeper learning” in their schools and classrooms. A term put forward by the Hewlett Foundation, deeper learning encompasses the skills and knowledge that students require to succeed in 21st century jobs and civic life. At its heart are six competencies that deepen students’ understanding of what they learn. The “deeper learner” must:
The Deeper Learning MOOC—a collaboration between High Tech High Graduate School of Education, MIT Media Lab, Peer 2 Peer University, and the Deeper Learning Community of Practice—ended March 21, 2014. However, the website includes an archive of the nine-week course complete with reading, resources, and videos. See the archive.
ADAPTIVE MINDSETS ASSESSMENT
You are a teacher working hard to bring out the best in your students and help them stretch academically. What attitudes do your students hold about learning and their own ability to learn, you wonder—about belonging in an academic community, succeeding, building competency through effort, valuing the work they are being asked to do? As part of the Deeper Learning MOOC, researchers at Stanford (PERTS, an applied research center) and at the University of Chicago (Chicago Consortium on School Research) developed a ten-minute online assessment to gauge students’ academic mindsets (referred to here as adaptive mindsets). Anyone can use it. The above video offers a 55-second introduction. Learn more. See also WKCD's How Youth Learn, a portfolio of research and resources on adolescent learning, and Learning by Heart, a portfolio of the power of social and emotional learning in secondary schools.
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