Designing for Resilience

Research has shown that students' mindset--what they believe about their intelligence and abilities--impacts their achievement, persistence, motivation, and resilience. Students who believe they have the capacity to take on a difficult task and are offered the strategies and resources to tackle it, demonstrate higher levels of engagement. Conversely, students who view failure as a threat to their identity are more likely to panic, give up, or cheat when the work is harder than anticipated.

What is a growth mindset?

Growth mindset, a concept developed by cognitive psychologist Carol Dweck, describes an individual's stance toward intelligence. People who adopt a growth mindset believe that their most basic abilities can be developed and improved through effort and intentional feedback.

Hear Carol Dweck discuss growth mindset in this 9.38 minute video.

Small Interventions - Big Impacts

One way to build a growth mindset with students is to help them understand the brain's plasticity and how they can exercise that plasticity. The following research-based interventions demonstrate how to teach growth mindset and explain why the intervention works. Each has proven positive effects that snowballed rather than diminished over time.

Attributions

Attributions interventions focus on changing how students view academic struggle.

Intervention: First year college students watch videos of seniors describing how their grades in college were low at first but improved over time. The videos helped first year students gain confidence in their ability to improve.

Why it works: When students attribute their struggles to fixed qualities, it contributes to low resilience. But when they see that other students also struggle, overcome those struggles, and go on to succeed, it helps them adjust their attributions, moving from “I’m not good enough” to “It’s hard. Struggles are normal. If they can do it, so can I.”

Malleability of intelligence

Malleability of intelligence interventions focus on changing students’ beliefs about intelligence.

Intervention: Students write letters to middle schoolers explaining that intelligence is malleable and grows as we flex the brain’s “muscle.”

Why it works: When students persuade themselves (in this case by persuading others) that intelligence is not innate but developed through effort, their orientation toward academic challenges changes. Struggle becomes something productive, and not an indictment of their capacities.

Affirmations

Affirmation interventions refocus students’ attention on their own goals and values.

Intervention: Students write about their personal values for 15-20 minutes.

Why it works: When students focus on their core values and goals, it bolsters their sense of identity and helps to inoculate them against stereotype threats. It also contributes to a growth mindset by reminding students why struggling to attain goals they value is worthwhile.

Belonging

Belonging interventions show students that feelings of not belonging are widely shared.

Intervention: Students reflect on survey results revealing that many college students initially feel that they don’t belong in college but develop a stronger sense of belonging over time. They then write an essay and prepare a presentation for incoming students about how their own feelings of not belonging changed.

Why it works: When students who are vulnerable to imposter syndrome realize how common those feelings are among their peers, they reassign attributions, linking the feeling of not-belonging to being new, rather than linking it to some aspect of their social identity.

You can read more about the research behind these interventions in the article, "Mindset and Stereotype Threat: Small Interventions That Make a Big Difference," Marie K. Norman and Michael Bridges at https://docslib.org/doc/13204767/mindset-and-stereotype-threat-small-interventions-that-make-a-big-difference.

Growth Mindset Habits

You can incorporate habits for growth into your regular teaching practice. These habits for growth include reframing setbacks, normalizing effort, giving detailed feedback, commenting wisely, and focusing on process and mastery.

Reframe setbacks

We know that learning usually occurs through trial and error. How can we help students to regard their errors as important moments for learning?

To reframe setbacks:

Describe situations when mistakes, missteps, and wrong turns have led to discovery and innovation in your field, including in your own work. One study found that learning about struggles faced by accomplished scientists increased students’ interest in science and problem solving.
Prompt students to reflect on their work by asking questions such as “Who made an interesting mistake today?” or “Did you find any stumbling blocks or places where you struggled when you were writing this paper? How did you work through those difficulties?”
If a student contributes an answer that is incorrect, follow up with questions that will help the student explain their rationale and identify any “wrong turns” or missteps.
Communicate often with your students about the usefulness of wrong answers—they help us to illuminate incomplete understanding and spur us on to learn more. Sometimes what appears to be a wrong answer turns out to be an alternative way of correctly solving a problem or answering a question.

Normalize effort

Fixed mindset thinking equates intelligence and ability with how quickly or easily we learn something. Consequently, if something feels hard, then it must mean that we just aren't good at it. This way of thinking forecloses a willingness to take on difficult or challenging academic problems. What we need to do instead is normalize effort.

To normalize effort:

Avoid conflating students’ performance on an exam or assignment with evidence of “natural” ability or lack thereof. When speaking with students who are not performing well in the course, avoid statements such as “some people have trouble with math [or writing] [or critical thinking]” because these statements communicate the idea that intelligence is fixed.
Instead, work with the student to identify areas of struggle and present one or two new strategies for improving those areas.
Improve students’ sense of social belonging, and, by extension, their persistence. Share narratives written by students who overcome their lack of confidence once they learn new study strategies.
Ask your current students to write their own narratives about a time when they have experienced academic challenges and ask them if you can share this narrative with future students in the course. The act of writing about their struggles and perseverance can help them internalize the message that academic struggle is common, but not insurmountable.

Give detailed feedback

A positive frame of mind is not enough to turn a challenge into a productive learning experience. Students need a plan for how to proceed. Detailed feedback provides a way forward.

To give detailed feedback:

Articulate and share with all students the criteria used to evaluate their work. When appropriate, grade with rubrics or answer keys that promote fairness and transparency. Explain to students the rationale behind these criteria. For example, is the course designed to help students learn more advanced modes of thinking, problem-solving, or writing that are crucial to success in future courses, graduate-school entrance exams, or professional careers?
Combine these high standards with opportunities for support that can help students when they transition into more challenging curricula. Keep in mind that all students will not be equally aware of—or comfortable in seeking out—campus resources. Therefore, set aside time in class to talk about these resources during the first week of class, describe them on the course syllabus, and—when needed—in individual conversations with students.
Provide students with feedback that identify areas for improvement. Express your confidence that they can learn new strategies for studying, writing, or solving problems. Trying to comfort students by telling them that you will give them easier problems, or call on them less often, has been shown to de-motivate students and tends to further a fixed mindset. Conversely, “strategy feedback” has been shown to increase students’ motivation.

Comment wisely

Wise feedback combines the following elements:

Assurance that you are providing critical feedback because you have high standards.
Specific commentary about where and why the work does or does not meet the standards.
Confidence that students can meet those standards.
Includes wise praise where the focus is on process and effort over innate qualities.

Focus on process and mastery

Learning is a process and achieving mastery of content or of a skill requires time and practice. Whenever possible, we should avoid penalizing students when their efforts have not yet achieved their goals.

To focus on process and mastery:

Incorporate “low-stakes” quizzes, homework, and shorter papers as a balance to higher-stakes tests, papers, or projects.
Allow revisions so that students can receive feedback on their performance and then apply that feedback to building knowledge and skills over time.
Help students learn from one another, and trust in their own processes. Here's two examples for student collaboration:
- Note-taking pairs: Periodically pause class to ask students to compare their notes with those of a couple of other students. Encourage students to talk about both the content and the format of their notes. Ask volunteers to show (and discuss the merits of) different note-taking approaches.
- Structuring groups to support all students: Assign students to groups and help them establish relationships within groups by keeping the same group for at least a few weeks and including activities that encourage group bonding. Structure group interactions by having well-defined roles that rotate among group members. Assign complex and open-ended challenges. Explain why you are using groups, and what you want students to learn from the group process.

Productive persistence interventions for Math and Test Taking

Growth mindset habits are applicable across disciplines. However, studies have shown that students are most likely to demonstrate fixed mindset thinking around test-taking and math. One of the biggest predictors of students' success in mathematics is their degree of "productive persistence"--a combination of learning mindset and skills. If students enter a mathematics classroom with negative beliefs about their ability to learn the subject, others' acceptance of them, and the value of mathematics in their lives, they are more likely to feel anxious and withdraw their efforts.

The Carnegie Foundation, in collaboration with faculty from 90 institutions, designed and implemented Productive Persistence Interventions that seek to improve students' confidence as learners, reduce anxiety, increase their sense of belonging, and ultimately achieve higher course completion rates.

The Growth Mindset Writing Activity

Students independently read an article on growth mindset in class.
They then write a summary of the article in their own words.
They also write about personal learning experiences outside of mathematics.
And then they write a letter to a future student sharing the growth message of the article.
After completing these steps, they independently engage in a challenging math problem.

Course Commitments Activity

The instructor shares a starter list of course commitments.
Students review the list and determine what they are prepared to commit to, and where they might need help.
In small groups, they discuss the commitments they may struggle with and brainstorm strategies for succeeding.
The instructor then leads a full-class discussion for a shared understanding of course commitments and strategies.
After reaching a common understanding, students sign the contract.

Learn more about the Carnegie Math Pathways Productive Persistence.

Take a Deeper Dive into Growth Mindset Research

Visit the Student Experience Research Network.