4 for Friday: Growth Mindset

Just one more week to go and summer school will be finished and I can finally REST... I'm just going to pretend my principal didn't email me yesterday and tell me my room was ready whenever I wanted to come in, get unpacked and set up!
Back in June I had the honor of attending a professional development in which my good friend Adrienne was presenting how she cultivates a Growth Mindset in her first grade classroom. Which got me to thinking about what I've done and can do in my own classroom. This week I want to focus on developing a Growth Mindset in the classroom.
Growth Mindset in the Classroom
1. Learning Environment- My go to resource for teaching this is the Mindsets in the Classroom book and their Resource book. Here's what it says about the learning environment:

• Teacher believes that all students can achieve at high levels.
• Deliberate instruction of perseverance, resiliency, grit and persistence. 
• Teacher feedback/praise is based on effort, process and strategies used. 
• Students are given opportunities to safely struggle. 
• Failure is looked at in a positive light. 
• Grades and scores are not emphasized. 
• Students are saying "I don't understand this yet. I'm am not going to give up. If I practice, I will get it."
• Teacher is saying "Let's think of a new strategy. Yet. I can see the effort you have put into this. Keep Trying."

2. Parent Communication- It is very important to communicate growth mindset to parents so that they understand and support this mindset at home as well. I give out this newsletter to my parents at Back to School Night. I also cover it in my presentation. This can be downloaded for free from Teachers Pay Teachers. 

3. Literature- There are so many books that can be aligned to growth mindset. I like to read them during morning meeting. A few of my favorites are:

• Bubble Gum Brain by Julia Cook
• Not Yet by Lisa Cox
• The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes by Mark Pett
• The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires
• Someday by Eileen Spinelli

4. Activities- There are tons of resources available for teaching growth mindset, some free... some paid. Here are the links to my favorites:

• Growth Mindset Flip Flap Book
• Mindset Sort
• Growth Mindset Exit Tickets
• Not Yet But I Will
• Growth Mindset Activity Poster
• Growth Mindset Word Search
• Making Your Mindset PBL
• Mindset Messages (I highly recommend doing a monthly mindset message in your classroom!)

Do you think you could implement any of these ideas in your classroom? Have an idea to help cultivate a growth mindset in your students? Leave a comment here or hop on over to our Facebook page and leave a comment.