Building and fostering a "Growth Mindset" doesn't happen overnight. The year began with several activities to help inspire the idea that "intelligence can be developed" and that "you can learn anything through hard work and effort!"On the first day of school we watched this video created by the Kahn Academy titled "You Can Learn Anything!"
The video really resonated with many students because they could directly relate to it. Students posted their thoughts on a sticky note which were displayed in the classroom.
Take a minute to watch the Khan Academy video to see what positive message you take away from it.
The following video was shared at another time. From this video we talked about the idea of "Training Our Brain" to accomplish things we want to learn. This happened to coincide with International Dot Day so we completed an activity where we drew on a dot something we wanted to learn.
For the first school assembly we decided to share some words that will help change your mindset. It was inspired by this TeachersPayTeachers bulletin board by Pinkadots Elementary. For the lesson students were given the Fixed mindset statements (I give Up; I'm not Good at this; This is too hard, etc) and asked to replace them with positive statements (I'll try my best; I'll keep working on this; With some effort I'll get this; etc). Then students carouselled around the room and added more statements to each others' posters.
The final step in this process was to select some phrases that would be added to some homemade speech bubbles, which would then be presented to the school during the assembly. Students worked hard and did a fabulous job presenting.
Training your brain doesn't happen overnight so we will continue the process of working towards a "Growth Mindset" throughout the year! The ultimate goal is about 'Learning' and how we can do that best!
Here are some other resources about Mindsets:
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