I first read Carol Dweck’s book outlining her groundbreaking research on “Growth Mindset” shortly after its release. Today, more than ever, her groundbreaking work is influencing K-12 leaders world-wide. An Education Week article written by Carol one year ago today remains their most popular article over the last six months. That’s like being #1 on the New York Times bestseller list one year after your book’s release.
Growth Mindset continues to gather momentum and for good reason. This article reminds me of how Carol’s work continues to influence what we do here at Ascend Education.
In the article Carol says “So a few years back, I published my book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success to share these discoveries with educators. And many educators have applied the mindset principles in spectacular ways with tremendously gratifying results.”
Based on Carol’s research, in the spring of 2014 we added Growth Mindset concepts and feedback for students to Ascend Math.
I also love the way she describes the paradigm change.
“Recently, someone asked what keeps me up at night. It’s the fear that the mindset concepts, which grew up to counter the failed self-esteem movement, will be used to perpetuate that movement. In other words, if you want to make students feel good, even if they’re not learning, just praise their effort! Want to hide learning gaps from them? Just tell them, “Everyone is smart!” The growth mindset was intended to help close achievement gaps, not hide them. It is about telling the truth about a student’s current achievement and then, together, doing something about it, helping him or her become smarter.”
At Ascend Education, we work hard every day to help students close learning gaps showing them their current achievement level and then, together with their teachers, helping them become smarter.
Here is this week’s communication from Education Week about their fine article.
