Today we're going to talk about having a Growth Mindset (the G in GRIT). By the end of this lesson, students will understand:
- The brain is malleable
- Using strategies and help from others will help us change brain pathways for growth and brain strength
- Doing hard work is the best way to make the brain stronger and smarter
Watch “Neuroplasticity” by Sentis (2:03). This is a good visual introduction to the concept of
how the brain can be rewired as we learn and think differently.
(If that link doesn't work, please copy and paste THIS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELpfYCZa87g into your web browser.)
After the video:
1. Please share a personal story about a time you had to work hard to get better at something and relate it to the video. In this story, highlight:
- Hard work
- Strategies
- Help from others
OR you can share this story:
"When I was in middle school, I remember struggling with adding negative numbers. I had a hard time figuring out what a ‘negative’ even meant when talking about a number - how can you have less than nothing? I ended up going through many practice problems and continuing to get many of them wrong. I was a very shy kid, so I didn’t ask my teacher many questions. My thought was that I had reached ‘the peak’ of my math talent, and it was all downhill from here. I eventually asked my mom about this topic and she explained to me the basic concept of negative numbers. This helped me understand it a little, but it was still fuzzy to me. I then researched online for some real-life contexts to show what these mysterious numbers represented outside of some abstract universe. Some of them made sense, and others didn’t. I still didn’t entirely get it and I was so frustrated that I wanted to just give up (or continue hoping that negative numbers were not going to appear in math class ever again). I started to dislike math simply because I couldn’t understand it anymore. Instead of entirely giving up on my academic career, I eventually mustered up the courage to ask my teacher for help as well. She explained it in a few different ways, and gave me new strategies to try out. After some practice with these new strategies, I started to solidify my understanding of negatives which allowed me to quickly pick up basic algebra afterwards. While it was a lot of work and I wanted to give up at many points during my journey, I eventually was able to ‘rewire’ my brain so that negative numbers actually made sense to me."
2. Ask students to share a story about a time that they made their brains smarter. This leads to a discussion about how working hard, taking on challenges, and finding the right strategy can make people smarter.
3. While students are sharing, you can make a two-column list on the whiteboard about the beliefs and behaviors of a growth mindset and how it compares to a fixed mindset. Urge students to map out how beliefs influence behaviors which ultimately lead to results.
Sample:
