Growth Mindset Plan

My plan to implement a growth mindset into my personal life and my classroom will begin with the “power of yet”. I truly believe my fifth graders need to master that concept with my guidance before they can truly be willing to focus on their learning and not their grades. I will admit I am guilty of promoting my students to focus on their grades and one of the times where I have shown I am not on the growth mindset path completely either.

In my personal life, I will be adding small reminders in signs in my office and on the mirror in my bathroom to help me remember when my fixed mindset “voice” shows up, I will talk back with my growth mindset (Dweck, n.d.). In my classroom, I will use signs as well, but also help the students see the idea behind the mindset with videos and other resources as well. Our faculty is doing a book study this summer on “The Leader in Me” by Stephen Covey, and I truly believe the growth mindset and the 7 habits that are described in the book go hand in hand for my students and myself. The ability to incorporate the 7 habits will be a huge step in accepting the growth mindset as well. (Covey, S. R., 2014).

My plan of action to implement this Growth Mindset Plan in my classroom will be a fluid and ever-changing process, but the beginning will take place in the first week of school.

• During the first day of school activities, I will be incorporating an intro video (Class Dojo, n.d.) that gets the students asking themselves whether they can build their brain like a muscle.

• Introducing myself as I always do will take a slight detour to include details of how I am “taking classes” just like my students to get my Masters degree. I hope to create some immediate and meaningful connections with my students by doing this.

• Throughout the school year, I will use these exit tickets from Kirsten’s Kaboodle resource page (Kaboodle, n.d.) to promote reflection and growth in the students daily learning. Using these exit tickets can help students continually see their growth and help their mindset as well.

• Over the past couple of years, I have incorporated Digital Data Notebooks in my classroom. Students are asked to set a goal before assessments and then reflect on their result to promote improvement and growth. This school year I will do a similar task but will be focusing more on the growth of the student since the last assessment and not the grade or result of their assessment.

• I believe during the duration of the school year, I will be helping my students “recognize they have a choice” as Carol Dweck stated in the four steps (Dweck, n.d.). Many fifth graders are set in their ways and would tell you that they do not have a choice when faced with certain situations. Implementing the growth mindset will be the first step to combating that thought.
  

As I continue to research and investigate ways to introduce my students to the growth mindset, I find myself questioning what I normally would think about a situation or problem. Focusing on the notion; what if I tried to do that and just see what happens? This mindset is going to definitely give me the drive and focus to succeed in this class and Masters program no matter what happens. All my worries about time management that I mentioned in the first weekly video conference have disappeared and I now believe nothing can stand in my way to achieving my goal. 

Wondering about my progress so far? Check it out here.

References

Class Dojo (n.d.). Retrieved from https://ideas.classdojo.com/b/growth-mindset

Covey, S. R. (2014). The leader in me: How schools around the world are inspiring greatness, one child at a time. Simon & Schuster.

MINDSET. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://mindsetonline.com/changeyourmindset/firststeps/index.html

Protected: Resource Library. (2017, July 28). Retrieved from https://www.kirstenskaboodle.com/freebies/