Developing students’ Growth mindset activities for students is an essential part of their social-emotional learning. As a teacher, you want your students to become well-rounded individuals. Therefore, they possess both the intellectual and emotional capabilities to succeed in life. To achieve this, you must instill in students a growth mindset. A growth mindset enables students to persevere despite obstacles and achieve difficult skills.
Elementary students should be taught how to cultivate a growth mindset no matter their age. By doing so, they are more likely to achieve their academic goals. Additionally, they will learn how to deal with difficult tasks and ideas in life.
A student who believes that their skills can be developed through hard work and perseverance has a growth mindset. When one adopts this mindset, one is open to both learning and critical feedback. Growth mindset students are also generally more willing to try new things.
What is Growth Mindset?
Growth mindsets promote a passion for learning and a willingness to take on new challenges. Growth-mindset students perform better and rebound from failures more quickly than those with fixed mindsets. A growth mindset is important to children; however, many teachers do not know how to foster this mindset in the classroom.
Mindsets are shaped by how we perceive the world and how we fit into it. Having a growth mindset means believing that we can improve our intelligence and abilities over time with the right strategies. Growth mindset activities for students are characterized by a willingness to accept challenges and embrace them, as well as a passion for learning and a view of failure as a foundation for improvement. People with a fixed mindset assume that their basic characteristics, such as intelligence or talent, are just fixed traits. In addition, they believe success can be achieved solely through talent. In fact, it couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Why Does Growth Mindset Matter?
The development of a growth mindset is a great way to equip your students with the resilience and perseverance necessary to make a positive impact on others. An adult with a growth mindset isn’t debilitated by failure and wants to learn and grow!
Now is the perfect opportunity to engage your students in Growth mindset activities that will help them transition into adulthood with positivity, flexibility, and ambition.
In order to grow, you should develop your mindset. One way to achieve this is to participate in growth mindset activities. We can still change our ways as we grow older, despite the fact that it’s better to learn and use these concepts at a young age.
List of Growth Mindset Activities For Students
Your students will benefit from the Growth Mindset Activities as they develop growth mindsets and learning strategies in preparation for the school year. The mindset activities were designed in partnership with Stanford’s PERTS center, which builds on the research of Carol Dweck, to provide students with a structured opportunity to explore the science behind “Anything is possible.”
1. Goal Posters
The ability to set reasonable and achievable goals is a key part of a growth mindset for students, and students should be taught how to do so in high school.
Creating posters with goals and steps they hope to accomplish in the near future could be a good idea. The poster could be decorated with doodles, pictures, or anything else you’d like. You can hang them in their workspaces to remind them of their goals.
2. The Paper Challenge
You can often teach a growth mindset to your teens by exposing them to challenging activities in a safe and supportive environment. One such activity is the Paper Challenge.
They must reproduce a tricky shape from a sheet of paper using only scissors and a sheet of paper. It’s more difficult than it looks! Be sure to encourage them not to give up during the activity!
3. Mantra Cards
It might seem simple, but repeating mantras to students can really help reinforce a growth mindset in them! You can give the students note cards with mantras like “keep trying”, “you are enough”, or “you can do this”. The cards should be decorated and kept somewhere they will be able to see them when they are struggling.
As an alternative, you can say the mantras together as a group in your lessons if you wanted to get the most benefit from them.
4. Changing Phrases
Another great activity to retrain your students’ minds to have a growth mindset is this one. You might also jot down several statements with a fixed mindset, such as “I give up”, “I can’t do this”, or “I’m not good at this”. For each fixed mindset statement, ask the students to come up with a new statement that reflects the growth mindset.
One of my favorite growth mindset activities is this one because it teaches them how to do the same thing independently when they possess a fixed mindset.
5. My Strengths Silhouette
Create a silhouette of the teenager’s face using a picture of the teen. Have them fill in the silhouette with words, phrases, or pictures that describe their strengths.
Share some examples or ask others to brainstorm with them if they have trouble coming up with strengths.
6. Situation Worksheets
To teach your students about the differences between fixed mindsets and growth mindsets, you might create worksheets that provide a situation and spaces to write down answers. Consider whether your students would respond differently based on their fixed mindset or growth mindset, and they can work together or individually on this.
Also read, How Boarding Schools Are Important For Student’s Mental Growth
