Do you want to improve your children’s or students’ learning abilities, and guide them towards higher achievement in school? If this is your goal, then this article is for you. Attaining higher achievement can be easily reached by nurturing a growth mindset.
How a growth mindset leads to higher achievement? A growth mindset provides the foundational mental support that has many benefits for a learner. This mental support can develop improved confidence, resilience to stereotypes/labels, able to accept failure and move on. Importantly, a growth mindset focuses the learner’s mind on striving for greater effort in their continued learning journey, which leads to higher achievement.
For teachers, understanding the growth mindset, you can cater your interactions with students to nurture their growth mindset. This creates a long-lasting basis that molds them into smarter and resilient learners eager to learn new concepts.
For parents, taking the time to learn about growth mindset, you can build a nurturing environment for your child.
Before learning how to nurture your children or students toward a growth mindset, it is important to understand the idea behind a growth mindset.
What Is A Growth Mindset?
A growth mindset refers to a state of mind that constantly motivates one to learn new concepts and become a better person. When you have a growth mindset, you are aware of your abilities, and will strive to develop them further through dedicated effort and hard work.
As a teacher or parent, you will want to nurture a growth mindset that can get your student or child to identify their full potential. By advocating for a growth mindset, they will be in a unique position to understand their basic abilities and strive to push their creative boundaries to realize their goals and objectives. This emphasizes the idea – “talent without effort won’t get you far in school or in any other areas of life”.
When you instill a growth mindset in your children or students, you simply nudge them to improve and even surpass their personal limiting beliefs.
At its core, a growth mindset is beneficial and can be nurtured. With your guidance, your students’ or children’s confidence and critical thinking skills can be harnessed through productive and continuous monitoring with evaluation strategies to nurture a growth mindset.
Why Does Growth Mindset Leads To Higher Achievement?
Having a growth mindset plays an essential role in attaining higher achievement as opposed to having a fixed mindset. It is not surprising that every individual will exhibit varying achievement level due to a difference in mindset.
Here is a breakdown of the importance of a growth mindset in obtaining a high academic achievement.
Improved Confidence
Having a growth mindset cultivates your student’s or child’s confidence in more ways than you can imagine. When you encourage a growth mindset, you instill a-never-give-up attitude in them when pursuing their academic goals.
This means that your student or child is physically and psychologically wired to handle failure with tenacity, and use each setback as learning to reach greater achievements. Rather than giving up, they will be motivated to try alternatives that might help them achieve academic excellence.
Increased Resilience To Stereotypes And Labels
When your students or children are nurtured with a growth mindset, trivial matters such as stereotypes cannot disrupt their focus and effort. Standing up to stereotypes and calling their bluff becomes much easier since they can fight back intellectually without repercussions.
Having a growth mindset can significantly assist your students in overcoming multiple misconceptions hindering their optimal performance. Often, female students might feel academically challenged to perform well in math and science courses compared to their male counterparts, because of stereotypes.
This is nothing but a misguided belief. When your students have a growth mindset, they will be resilient to overcome such limitations, put in the effort and attain excellent grades.
Letting Go Of The Need To Constantly Prove Yourself
As the teacher or parent nurturing growth mindset, you will want to encourage your student or child to make consistent effort to improve on performance. Unlike having a fixed mindset, which is often associated with attaining success as a top priority, your student or child understands the role of hard work and flexibility in achieving academic excellence.
When your student or child adopts a growth mindset, their main efforts and attention are directed toward self-improvement and growth as opposed to proving themselves to others.
Striving With Greater Effort And Time
When people are tuned to improving and learning new concepts, spending ample time studying is not a chore but meaningful and self-fulfilling. Having a growth mindset opens up students’ and children’s mind to several powerful ideas that can enhance their learning and motivation.
How To Build A Growth Mindset In Students And Children
Having a growth mindset is related with encouraging students and children to face their fears and pursue constant improvement. Remember, being good at a skill is not enough, especially when it can get them trapped in their comfort zone. If you intend in instilling a growth mindset in them, here are the general advice.
For teachers: You can read a detailed article on Implementing Growth Mindset in the Classroom
Focus On Effort Over Results
Achieving a high grade is an evidence of hard work, and your student or child could be rewarded for their effort. However, your praises should not be about the final grade. Far from it, you should focus on the effort spent in achieving the grade.
Remember that nurturing a growth mindset requires consistency. You need to encourage your student or child to keep putting in their effort, if they intend to continue achieving exceptional grades.
Encourage a Priority on the Big Picture
Achieving academic excellence is not as simple as most people might perceive it to be. The setbacks, such as failed tests, should not stopped them from reaching their ultimate goals.
Remind them of the big picture, the goal of learning to acquire more knowledge and better skills, it will help motivate them to see the main goal.
The priority on the big picture will help them realize that their current challenges are minor setbacks, they are able to put in more effort, correct their weakness, and reach their final goal.
Teach About The Difference Between A Growth And Fixed Mindset
Knowing the difference between a growth and fixed mindset can help students and children understand a better perspective. For example, when students or children understand the limiting belief of having a fixed mindset, they will naturally lean towards a growth mindset perspective for better outcome. This change can only happen if they have an awareness of the two mindsets.
Encourage Embracing Of Challenges
Embracing and thriving on challenges are no easy feat. It is crucial to inspire your student or child to embrace challenges. This will encourage them to exercise their critical skills to solve problems.
Even when faced with failure, you should encourage them to perceive failure as an opportunity to learn and grow.
Seeking Help At Critical Times
With a growth mindset students or children will be able to understand that having the answers to all problems is unrealistic. You can encourage them to view difficulties as learning experiences, and get them to seek assistance, after trying, when a problem proves too difficult to solve by themselves.
Conclusion
- Students and children brought up with a growth mindset are more attuned to preserver when trying, and most likely find solutions to their problems.
- It is essential to praise your child’s effort in attaining excellent academic performance instead on the specific grade.
Related Questions
How can I encourage my child to pursue new goals and get out of the comfort zone? It is advisable to provide positive feedback and reinforcement for your child when they take on new challenges.
How can I educate my child about the importance of a growth mindset? You can use role models as case studies to educate about growth mindset. Using them as examples of how effort never fails to get one to academic excellence. By having role models as evidence on the benefits of a growth mindset, your child will be able to relate and grasp its importance.
