Title: Growth Mindset and Student Achievement and Success
Headings: The Impact of a Growth Mindset on Student Achievement and Success
The Impact of a Growth Mindset on Student Achievement and Success
What is a Growth Mindset and Why Does It Matter?
A Growth Mindset and Student Success
The Educator’s Role in Growth Mindset
Speaking to Students: The Words We Say and How They Support, or Inhibit, Student Learning

Content: Students with a fixed mindset think that if a task is too hard it must mean they do not have the natural talent to succeed. We must help students realize that errors, misconceptions, and questions, if analyzed constructively, help us deepen our knowledge and understanding.” The Educator’s Role in Growth Mindset
When educators approach teaching and learning with a growth mindset, they enable their students to grow and become deeper learners. Teachers who have a growth mindset believe in the potential of each and every one of their students. They help each student grow as a learner by understanding that with effort and perseverance, all students can succeed. Isbell pulls an example of the power of growth mindset in teaching from how many educators approach math teaching. “In math, we traditionally provide students a strategy to solve a problem with no awareness or recognition of their own intuitive strategies for solving the problem,” Isbell said. “ When we do this, we unknowingly tell the student, ‘your ideas do not really matter, just do it the way the teacher is telling you how to do it.’” Approaching math teaching with a growth mindset, Isbell instead encouraged her students to find their own strategies to solve a problem. By beginning each of her math lessons with an open-ended problem, Isbell’s students were given the opportunity to take risks, face the challenges of failure or frustration, and overcome by realizing failure opens doors to new opportunities and deeper learning.