Educational Psychology Blog- Julia Bordelon

    This chapter of The Growth Mindset Playbook discusses how failure leads to success. In order for one to succeed at something, they must go through multiple struggle periods and failures before they can reach the endpoint. This chapter describes how even the greatest inventors such as Albert Einstein have gone through many failed attempts before he got his invention spot on. As Chapter 5 of The Growth Mindset Playbook describes, "It is often through acts of struggle, failure, and resilience that they arrive at their greatest discoveries." In relation to having a Growth Mindset, one must be prepared that with perseverance for a task will come flaws. Things take hard, meaningful work to accomplish. This book talks about having good "If/Then" Plans set in stone before a failure comes about in order to better be prepared. That way, when failure approaches, you have a plan-of-action. One with a Growth Mindset must expect that failure will come, but with hard work an...

    This chapter of The Growth Mindset Playbook talks about Metacognition, the way of thinking about how we learn and problem solve (essentially thinking about thinking). This chapter goes to describe how many students are not very good problem solvers themselves because the answers are always given to them, so they don't have to apply any thinking through the process. If teachers don't make a habit of providing the students the easy-way-out, and they teach them to really focus on what helps them to learn, then they will become effective problem solvers. This chapter implements many useful strategies for getting students to think about their thinking. A few strategies that it provides include to have them keep a Thinking Journal where they answer questions such as "What do you do when you don't understand something?," "What could you have done better to improve your learning today?," and "How do you connect new information to what you already know...

     This chapter of The Growth Mindset Playbook focused on the brain's ability to be manipulated and learn new things over time, which is known as Brain Plasticity. Brain Plasticity is easier to understand for those with a Growth Mindset because they believe that they can improve, which is the basis for the term Brain Plasticity. It is difficult to convince those with a Fixed Mindset that they have the ability to learn new things and improve their performance, since Fixed Mindset people believe that people already have their abilities predetermined. Especially at a young age, but even into adult and elder years, our brains are able to be molded to learn new things and improve the performance of things we want to improve. The chapter mentions not the phrase "practice makes perfect," but the phrase "practice makes permanent." This is a more relevant statement in terms of Brain Plasticity. Because of this, with practice, everyone has the ability to become better ...

    In order to be an effective teacher, one must have a Growth Mindset and not a Fixed Mindset. Having a Growth Mindset means you are willing to continue forward to make changes and improvements. Essentially, it means that you are willing to grow. Having a Fixed Mindset means that you already believe that you are predetermined to fail if you have already, and you do not wish to push through to make improvements. Essentially, it means that you are already "fixed" on your destiny. In order for a teacher to be effective and teach children to have a Growth Mindset, they must first have a Growth Mindset. They must be willing to see that, even if their students have made mistakes or failed in the past, that there is always room for improvement. To promote a Growth Mindset in students, an effective teacher should praise them for when they do good or for when they succeed. Don't necessarily praise them for absolutely nothing, as that accomplishes nothing, but for when they are ...