{"id":39294,"date":"2024-11-04T14:18:44","date_gmt":"2024-11-04T22:18:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=39294"},"modified":"2024-11-04T14:18:44","modified_gmt":"2024-11-04T22:18:44","slug":"do-all-benefit-from-a-growth-mindset","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/do-all-benefit-from-a-growth-mindset\/","title":{"rendered":"Do All Benefit From a Growth Mindset?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before I could even start reading Carol Dweck\u2019s Mindset<\/em> book, I simply mentioned the title to my wife.[1]<\/a>\u00a0 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\u2019s mindset theory.\u00a0 This statement was verified by the bulletin board I saw in our high school\u2019s hallway during parent teacher conferences. \u00a0\u00a0Saundra Yancy McGuire, Director Emerita of the Center for Academic Success, at LSU begins her chapter \u201cWhy Your Mindset About Intelligence Matters\u201d with the following statement.[2]<\/a> \u201cThis chapter is based on the work of Carol Dweck (2006), a professor of psychology at Stanford University.\u00a0 Her book Mindset<\/em> has proved so important and the ideas within it so useful that they deserve their own chapter\u201d[3]<\/a> Even before Dweck officially coined the term mindset the principles have existed for millennia.\u00a0 Joseph Campbell in A Hero with a Thousand Faces<\/em> took ideas found in almost every culture, studied the similarities, and developed the hero\u2019s journey.[4]<\/a>\u00a0 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 \u201cthreshold concepts.\u201d[5]<\/a>\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

I want to return to McGuire\u2019s book chapter on mindset, this is a chapter that all freshman at Mount Vernon Nazarene University (MVNU) are reading this year.\u00a0 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?<\/p>\n

According to Dweck, a person\u2019s mindset refers to their beliefs that things such as \u201cintelligence, personality, or character are determined at birth or can grow and develop over time.[6]<\/a> Verberg et al. state that most research on mindset has not included youth with ID.[7]<\/a>\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Interestingly, there was not a statistically significant difference in their belief as to whether their intelligence was fixed.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 She is at MVNU as part of a new program called IGNITE.[8]<\/a>\u00a0 She is taking three traditional academic classes; she has a modified syllabus but is being supportively challenged.\u00a0 Let\u2019s be honest, I struggle to fully understand C. S. Lewis\u2019 writings, so some modifications are appropriate for these students, and I don\u2019t consider it an example of lowering standards that Dweck discusses.[9]<\/a>\u00a0 Dweck discusses in Chapter 7 how parents, teachers and coaches impact children\u2019s mindsets.[10]<\/a>\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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]<\/a> The idea is that these students simply have not mastered the concept yet, but have the ability to do so (growth mindset).\u00a0 This idea was presented in the movie The Blind Side<\/em> where Michael\u2019s tutor tells him he hasn\u2019t understood the concept yet.[12]<\/a>\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

As mentioned earlier Verberg et al.\u2019s studied showed no statistically significant differences between students with and without ID and their view of whether or not intelligence is fixed.\u00a0 Dweck discusses in her book how IQ tests were developed to identify children who were not succeeding in Paris\u2019 current educational programs and worked to develop new programs to benefit them.[13]<\/a>\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Carol Dweck, Mindset: Changing the Way You Think to Fulfil Your Potential<\/em>, (Great Britian: Robinson, 2017).<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> LSU.edu,\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cSandra McGuire, \u00a0accessed on September 14, 2024,https:\/\/faculty.lsu.edu\/smcgui1\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Saundra Yancy McGuire, Teach Yourself How to Learn<\/em>, (London, UK: Taylor and Francis, 2023), 59.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces<\/em> 2 ed. (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1973),<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Jan H Meyer and Ray Land, eds.\u00a0 Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding: Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge<\/em> (New York: Routledge, 2006).<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Dweck, 6-7.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Fenneke Verberg, Petra Helmond, Roy Otten, and Geertjan Overbeek, \u201cMindset and Perseverance of Adolescents with Intellectual Disabilities: Associations with empowerment, mental health problems, and self-esteem,\u201d Research in Developmental Disabilities, (91) 2019, <\/em>https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.ridd.2019.103426<\/em><\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Shameless plug, if you know anyone that might benefit from this program let them know it exists.\u00a0 https:\/\/mvnu.edu\/academics\/on-campus\/undergraduate\/ignite\/<\/a><\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> Dweck, 196.<\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> Dweck, 176-222.<\/p>\n

[11]<\/a> Carol Dweck, The Power of Yet. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=J-swZaKN2Ic<\/a><\/p>\n

[12]<\/a> The Blind Side<\/em>, directed by John Lee Hancock, Alcon Entertainment, 2009, DVD, Warner Bros Pictures, 2010.<\/p>\n

[13]<\/a> Dweck, 5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before I could even start reading Carol Dweck\u2019s Mindset book, I simply mentioned the title to my wife.[1]\u00a0 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\u2019s mindset theory.\u00a0 This statement was verified by the bulletin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":200,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2967,2328],"class_list":["post-39294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp03","tag-dweck","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/200"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39294"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39295,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39294\/revisions\/39295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}