Do All Benefit From a Growth Mindset?
Before I could even start reading Carol Dweck’s Mindset book, I simply mentioned the title to my wife.[1] She, an educator, replied that is the big buzz word in education, everyone knows that book, there are lesson plans and bulletin board, etc. all focused around Dweck’s mindset theory. This statement was verified by the bulletin board I saw in our high school’s hallway during parent teacher conferences. Saundra Yancy McGuire, Director Emerita of the Center for Academic Success, at LSU begins her chapter “Why Your Mindset About Intelligence Matters” with the following statement.[2] “This chapter is based on the work of Carol Dweck (2006), a professor of psychology at Stanford University. Her book Mindset has proved so important and the ideas within it so useful that they deserve their own chapter”[3] Even before Dweck officially coined the term mindset the principles have existed for millennia. Joseph Campbell in A Hero with a Thousand Faces took ideas found in almost every culture, studied the similarities, and developed the hero’s journey.[4] Likewise, Dweck took the beliefs that people have expressed about human traits in one form or another, researched their impact and presented them in a format that allowed people to understand the “threshold concepts.”[5] Once you have experienced the threshold concept of mindsets you can go back through books, movies, even your own life and see how people expressed a fixed or growth mindset.
I want to return to McGuire’s book chapter on mindset, this is a chapter that all freshman at Mount Vernon Nazarene University (MVNU) are reading this year. As I prepared to teach this class knowing I have a student with an intellectual disability (ID) in my class, I began to wonder in what ways does having a growth or fixed mindset impact her?
According to Dweck, a person’s mindset refers to their beliefs that things such as “intelligence, personality, or character are determined at birth or can grow and develop over time.[6] Verberg et al. state that most research on mindset has not included youth with ID.[7] In their study, Verberg et al. found that when compared to students without an ID, students with ID had a fixed mindset related to their emotions and behaviors. Interestingly, there was not a statistically significant difference in their belief as to whether their intelligence was fixed.
I did not personally ask the student what her mindset is, but after having this student in class for several weeks, I see her as having a growth mindset. She is at MVNU as part of a new program called IGNITE.[8] She is taking three traditional academic classes; she has a modified syllabus but is being supportively challenged. Let’s be honest, I struggle to fully understand C. S. Lewis’ writings, so some modifications are appropriate for these students, and I don’t consider it an example of lowering standards that Dweck discusses.[9] Dweck discusses in Chapter 7 how parents, teachers and coaches impact children’s mindsets.[10] For this student to be where she is at today had to have some excellent parents and teachers that created for her an atmosphere where she could develop a growth mindset. This student learns and understands things differently than I or most of my students do. As an instructor, I need to keep that in mind and remember to explain things in a variety of ways that will allow her and some other students to understand the concepts being taught. Dweck gave a TedTalk in 2014 where she discussed a high school in Chicago that rather than assigning a failing grade, assigned students the grade of Not Yet.[11] The idea is that these students simply have not mastered the concept yet, but have the ability to do so (growth mindset). This idea was presented in the movie The Blind Side where Michael’s tutor tells him he hasn’t understood the concept yet.[12] I like this idea of Not Yet as it helps prevent me as an instructor, leader, etc. from putting people in boxes based on their perceived abilities.
As mentioned earlier Verberg et al.’s studied showed no statistically significant differences between students with and without ID and their view of whether or not intelligence is fixed. Dweck discusses in her book how IQ tests were developed to identify children who were not succeeding in Paris’ current educational programs and worked to develop new programs to benefit them.[13] I would love to look more at this concept of intelligence and how the general population defines it so that people can have more of a growth mindset related to it. I truly believe that while the student in my class has an ID she is capable of growing in her intelligence related to a variety of topics.
[1] Carol Dweck, Mindset: Changing the Way You Think to Fulfil Your Potential, (Great Britian: Robinson, 2017).
[2] LSU.edu, “Sandra McGuire, accessed on September 14, 2024,https://faculty.lsu.edu/smcgui1/.
[3] Saundra Yancy McGuire, Teach Yourself How to Learn, (London, UK: Taylor and Francis, 2023), 59.
[4] Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces 2 ed. (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1973),
[5] Jan H Meyer and Ray Land, eds. Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding: Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge (New York: Routledge, 2006).
[6] Dweck, 6-7.
[7] Fenneke Verberg, Petra Helmond, Roy Otten, and Geertjan Overbeek, “Mindset and Perseverance of Adolescents with Intellectual Disabilities: Associations with empowerment, mental health problems, and self-esteem,” Research in Developmental Disabilities, (91) 2019, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ridd.2019.103426.
[8] Shameless plug, if you know anyone that might benefit from this program let them know it exists. https://mvnu.edu/academics/on-campus/undergraduate/ignite/
[9] Dweck, 196.
[10] Dweck, 176-222.
[11] Carol Dweck, The Power of Yet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-swZaKN2Ic
[12] The Blind Side, directed by John Lee Hancock, Alcon Entertainment, 2009, DVD, Warner Bros Pictures, 2010.
[13] Dweck, 5.
About the Author
Jeff Styer
Jeff Styer lives in Northeast Ohio's Amish Country. He has degrees in Social Work and Psychology and currently works as a professor of social work at Mount Vernon Nazarene University. Jeff is married to his wife, Veronica, 25+ years. Together they have 4 beautiful children (to be honest, Jeff has 4 kids, Veronica says she is raising 5). Jeff loves the outdoors, including biking, hiking, camping, birding, and recently picked up disc golf.11 responses to “Do All Benefit From a Growth Mindset?”
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Hi Jeff, Thanks for your post. Do you see areas in your teaching where you see a teacher or coach as someone who can help a young person realize greater potential through or higher than expected graders his current drive
Yes,
I try to encourage my students to not sell themselves short when they seem to struggle academically. We try to point out the areas where students are doing well. We also try to help students find areas/populations where they thrive and are excited by the thought of working in this setting after graduation. This can help stimulate them to do better in their classes since they have more motivation to succeed, a new goal.
Hi Jeff, thanks for your post. Do you see any ways that your student with ID can show their classmates how to have a growth mindset?
Also, you said, “Verberg et al. found that when compared to students without an ID, students with ID had a fixed mindset related to their emotions and behaviors.” Can you unpack this a little bit more? Does this mean that students with ID were more likely to believe that they couldn’t mature in their emotions and behaviors but that they could with their intelligence?
Christy,
Reading through the study again, it appears that some of the explanation for mindset related to intelligence may be attributed to the education setting they are in. For example, in the Netherlands students with ID are encouraged to seek internships and attempt to integrate into a traditional classroom facilitating a growth mindset. Another explanation may be that in some classrooms youths are not academically challenged so their mindset isn’t really challenged. Some of the explanation of the fixed mindset related to behaviors and emotions is that youth with ID tend to have intense emotional experiences and more negative life events than peers without ID.
Jeff, I love the idea of “not yet.” Brilliant, actually.
And I am eager to get “Teach Yourself How to Learn.” It’s something I’ve been doing for years; so I’d love to learn another strategy or two that might help me do it even better! (See what I did there? 😉 )
Personally, where do you find your greatest growth and fixed mindsets coming into play?
Jeff and Debbie,
I’m going to jump in here. I understand the idea of “not yet” but I also see the challenges of not holding students accountable to a higher standard. In our Rochester schools during Covid the schools decided not to allow any child a lower grade while doing school online than they had before going online. They also removed the grade “F” and gave those students a “non-complete.” This was carried on for a few years. Just this year, they determined that as a school district this had serious detrimental effects to the overall learning of all the students based on consecutive testing scores. Rather than rising to the occasion and not getting an F, kids are submitting themselves to the lowest expectation and not being challenged. So, in the end, it did not give the kids a growth mindset at all but rather a lazy one.
Adam,
I too am aware of districts where you are not allowed to give students a zero, but the lowest they can get is something like a 50%. I do not agree with this and think this is different than the “not yet” approach. I think the not yet approach works well when you really know your students and what they are or are not capable of. If a student flat out did not complete an assignment, they get a 0 and it does and should impact their overall grade. When you are not allowed to give 0’s even when they do not submit assignments you are not doing the student any favors toward their future.
I have no problem giving students 0’s when they don’t submit something, or as has been the case twice so far this semester, a 0 for submitting work done by AI.
Adam, I agree. There is a difference between lazy and struggling. If I’m a student and have worked hard and STILL DON’T GET IT, I would love a “not yet” as I keep working to learn.
If I’m lazy, I deserve a 0, as Jeff says.
I think doing this program is improving my growth mindset. My fixed mindset can come into play in the classroom when I am teaching. I know that not everyone is excited about the material, but when students talk to each other or fall asleep, it is easy to start doubting yourself and your abilities as a teacher. Sometimes it seems no matter how much I tweak and update the material some students show no interest.
Hi Jeff, I appreciate your example of a current student with an ID, and how curriculum is being adjusted to help her thrive. I keep thinking how important it is for both teacher and student to have a growth mindset. I am interested to know how this has looked for you as an educator. Have you always approached teaching with a growth mindset or has it progressed over time? What has this looked like for you?
Elysse,
You would think that as a mental health professional, I would have come into education with a growth mindset. However, I think I became frustrated with students and have developed more of a fixed mindset over the first few years of teaching. I am working to develop more of a growth mindset with my students. I do believe that they can change their attitudes, behaviors and worldviews. I just need to be patient and work to prod them along. I personally think that we are still seeing side effects of COIVD on student learners