 Missed from drama school with a note that read, wasting her time, but she's too shy to put her best foot forward. Down by the DECA recording company who said, we don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out. A failed soldier, farmer, and real estate agent. At 38 years old, he went to work for his father as a handyman. From the high school basketball team, he went home, locked himself in his room, and cried. The teacher told him he was too stupid to learn anything, and he should go into a field where he might succeed by virtue of his pleasant personality. Fired from a newspaper because he lacked imagination and had no original ideas. His fiance died. He failed in business twice. He had a nervous breakdown, and he was defeated in eight elections. If you've never failed, you've never lived. Look at this poster. It's a definition of the word fail. Do any of you have any strong feelings that maybe this definition of fail is not a very strong or good definition of the word fail? Or are there others of you that believe, finally, somebody got it right, that fail actually means first attempt in learning? There are great differences between the way both groups think. Those that think the definition is incorrect and those that believe that the definition has its own merits. Both groups think, respond, and act only not only in this situation, but in other situations as well. Now, these differences are called mindsets. And mindsets are identified and defined in two ways, the fixed mindset and the growth mindset. The most widely accepted definitions of fixed and growth mindsets in education are those of Dr. Carol Dweck. Dr. Dweck is an educational researcher at California's Stanford University. She and her research team have been setting how mindsets affect a student's performance in the class and in the acquisition of their knowledge and skills and the attitudes and beliefs they have in regard to their learning. Dr. Dweck defines the two types of mindsets as in a fixed mindset, students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents are just fixed traits. They have a certain amount and that's that. And then their goal becomes to look smart all the time and never look done. In a growth mindset, students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching and persistence. They don't necessarily think everyone's the same or anyone can be Einstein, but they believe everyone can get smarter if they work at it. If you have the wrong mindset, either as an instructor or as a student, you might be afraid of these three qualities. You might be afraid of any challenges that you are placed before you because you might believe or feel or believe that you don't have enough knowledge or enough insight onto this or you don't have enough skills in order to be able to even work at this. How do I know if I've done this challenge correctly? And you might also question about whether it's worth it or not to put forth any type of effort that you do anything. If you don't know how to do something, you're just gonna go ahead and do it right away. And the third thing is that you might be afraid about any setbacks that you might have in either accomplishing the task or even putting the task into your mind as to how you're going to work forward with it and attack its needs. She also tells us that a fixed mindset can zap any motivation that you might have for reaching out and expanding your knowledge and your skills. She says that if you feel very comfortable and believe that only what you know is what you need to know, then you're not going to be brave or you're not going to have a mental culture of the idea that you want to expand your learning. She says that because you don't wanna expand your learning or the ways in which you learn, it often stunts your mind. And then you believe that there are only certain ways in order to reach the ends or the means of any task or problem that you might be given. We hear a lot in education these days through journals and videos in professional development about student engagement. Right now here's a definition of student engagement and it reads this way. In education, student engagement refers to the degree of attention, curiosity, interest, optimism and passion that students show when they are learning or being taught which extends to the level of motivation they have to learn and progress in their education. So the definition needs to be coupled with the definitions of fixed and growth mindsets because if our students are in a fixed mindset, they're not going to have that curiosity, that optimism. They're only gonna look for what is concrete and what is readily available and observable or as in a growth mindset, they're gonna have more of a motivation to be able to learn and know what they've progressed forward without having to be prodded or coaxed into doing that particular learning. What is a growth mindset? We can liken the theory of growth and fixed mindset to the story of the tortoise and the hare. To have a fixed mindset means to believe one's basic abilities, intelligence and talents are just fixed traits. A growth mindset means that you understand that talents and abilities can be developed through effort, practicing persistence. People with a fixed mindset often develop and peak before their peers appearing to be more intelligent and successful than everyone else. However, this is a dangerous trap to fall into. The moment we believe that success is determined by an ingrained level of ability, we will be brittle in the face of adversity. This is what happens to the hare. The tortoise however, with a growth mindset continues to power through and work hard overtaking the hare eventually and winning the race. Nice one Terry. Thanks narrator. You're welcome Terry. How many of us think ourselves as not mass people or creative or sociable or athletic? If we are to fulfill our potentials we have to start thinking differently. We are not chained or bound to our current abilities. Take this tree for example, it needs to be fed with lots of minerals and food for it to grow just like you do. By continuing to nurture and care for this tree it can grow taller and stronger than other trees. The trunk and branches will literally explode with growth just like your brain. Your brain is malleable and physically can change, size and grow. Even more so at a young age the activity and growth of the brain during your short teenage years is phenomenal. So how do you do this? Well there's no shortcut or secret solution. It's as simple as hard work, commitment and perseverance. In any chosen field or career path you are certain to have some level of failure at one point. But at each pitfall we come across you must learn to overcome it. There was a popular movie quote that goes like this. Why do we fall Bruce? So we can learn to pick ourselves back up. That man wasn't born with any superpowers, abilities or talents. And just as Gotham's Dark Knight understood he had to train relentlessly to succeed. So must you. Right now these fixed mindset learners might be ahead of others but they are afraid of failure. And when they reach the peak that they're comfortable with they'll just stay there. They will never reach their full potential. Failure is almost a sexual step to success. And as the growth mindset continues to improve they will overtake the rest. If you feel like you're in a fixed mindset don't lose hope because there is a lot we can do to change that. But start by listening to our fixed mindset voice and when you hear it talk back with the growth mindset voice. If you hear I can't do it add yet. Fixed mindsets can change. So what mindset are you in? So which are you? A fixed mindset or a growth mindset? A fixed mindset or a growth mindset? A fixed mindset or a growth mindset? A fixed mindset or a growth mindset? A fixed mindset or a growth mindset? A fixed mindset or a growth mindset? Did you find yourself choosing from both types of mindset as you looked at the pairs. You're entirely normal if you did that. We move from a fixed to a growth mindset all the time. It depends upon the purpose and the need of the task at hand. But we want to spend as much time as we possibly can in a growth mindset. Now in mindset, there are also problems, pitfalls, and miscommunication. In Education Week publication for March 21, 2016, Dr. DeWack shared this article in which she revisits the growth mindset. You, the Google address there, will take you to the complete article that you might be able to read it. But I'd like to read a portion of that article to you that talks about some of the problems, pitfalls, and miscommunications of the growth mindset. A growth mindset isn't just about effort. Perhaps the most common misconception is simply equating the growth mindset with effort. Certainly effort is key for students' achievement, but it's not the only thing. Students need to try new strategies and seek input from others when they're stuck. They need this repertoire of approaches, not just sheer effort, to learn and improve. We also need to remember that effort is a means to an end to the goal of learning and improving. Too often nowadays, praise is given to students who are put forth but are not learning in order to make them feel good in the moment. You might hear this, great effort, you tried your best. It's good for that the student tried, but it's not good that they're not learning. The growth mindset approach helps students feel good in the short and long terms. By helping them thrive on challenges and setbacks on their way to learning. When they're stuck, teachers can appreciate their work so far, but add, oh, let's talk about what you've tried and what you can try next. Recently, someone asked what keeps me up at night. It's the fear that the mindset concepts, which grew up to counter the failed self-esteem movement, will be used to perpetuate that movement. In other words, if you want to make a student feel good, even if they're not learning, just praise their effort. Want to hide learning gaps from them? Just tell them, ah, everyone's smart. The growth mindset was intended to help close achievement gaps, not hide them. It's about telling the truth about a student's current achievement and then to debt-gather doing something about it, helping him or her become smarter. She was on to say, I also fear that the mindset work is sometimes used to justify what some students aren't learning. You might hear a teacher say, oh, he has just a fixed mindset. Think about that. We used to blame the child's environment or ability. Now are we blaming mindsets? Must always come back to finding a reason why some children just can't learn, as opposing to find a way to help them learn. Teachers who understand the growth mindset do everything in their power to unlock that learning. Thank you for joining me.