Approaches to teaching and learning aimed at creating ‘growth mindsets’ have developed from the research by Carol Dweck, which shows that teacher and student beliefs about intelligence impact on learning. Where students believed intelligence was innate they were less likely to persist in the face of challenge, where they believed ability on a task could be improved, they saw difficulty as a natural part of learning and persevered with tasks. Strategies for developing growth mindsets include:
asking open-ended questions to solve a problem
using specific feedback to identify what the student has accomplished
encouraging students to take a risk
teachers modelling persistence themselves
emphasising the learning to be gained from mistakes and when things don’t go well.
