Banner: How to Develop a Growth Mindset in Your Students.

How to Develop a Growth Mindset in your Students

The term growth mindset can be used in many contexts including industry, mental health, and education. This is because a growth mindset will not only serve you in your academic career, but also in your working career and in your daily life; so, what is a growth mindset? A growth mindset, to put it simply, is the belief that one continues to grow and improve over time – that learning never stops.

This way of thinking promotes lifelong learning and is a sign of strong emotional intelligence; a growth mindset is also key in developing an innovation mindset – a mindset of constant improvement and constant development. As such, when developing soft-skills like communication and critical thinking, it is crucial to consider how you can help to foster this kind of thinking with your students.

It is important to consider how you approach mistakes and feedback for your students. It is important that they learn to feel unafraid of making mistakes and are able to confidently take responsibility for their errors and learn from them. Work to eliminate the fear of failure and to encourage people to try new things and learn from them when they don’t work out by acknowledging and embracing imperfection. Approach feedback positively and see the gift in criticism.

Photo: student writing in notebook.

Teach your students to not solely seek approval from others – feedback is helpful but it is important to also look within for approval and to develop a sense of good-enough from within. Individual goals and self-assessments are really important.

Also, place value in the learning process and teach students to do the same by making the process of learning exciting and engaging. The journey matters just as much as the destination and by helping students to learn to love learning you are building life-long learners and fostering a mindset of continual growth.

Finally, acknowledge that we all have our own strengths and weaknesses – don’t moralise intelligence. Instead, seek to understand individual strengths and how these can be fostered while working to improve weaknesses on an individual level that matches with the student’s abilities.

Looking to build your students’ soft skills?

Prepare your students for the future of work with hands-on, collaborative learning. Learn more about Prepr’s remote learning programs for educators.

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Dayna Lang
dayna@prepr.org