I [read](https://pedagoguepadawan.net/291/summer-reading-2/) Mindset by Dr. Carol Dweck and The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle this summer. The three of us teaching Honors Physics this year agreed that we should share the concepts of mindset and deep practice with out students, emphasize them throughout the year, and measure how our students mindsets change throughout the year.
Inspired by the efforts of [John Burk](http://quantumprogress.wordpress.com/?s=mindset) and [Mylène](http://shiftingphases.com/2013/01/13/growth-mindset-resource/). I put together some materials that focus on mindset and learning attitudes. There are a coupe of surveys, some in-class activities, and some readings for homework and in-class discussion. I think focusing on these concepts can have a significant impact on our students. I also wanted to collect some data that measures the impact of [our new approach](https://pedagoguepadawan.net/286/honors-physics-changes/) to Honors Physics.
We started with John Burk’s [intelligence survey](http://quantumprogress.wordpress.com/2011/09/10/measuring-mindset-in-my-classes/) which is a short survey to be administered before discussing mindset and deep practice. We assigned this survey for homework and captured the data in Canvas.
Some results were quite promising and indicative of more of a growth mindset than I expected:
*You can greatly change how intelligent you are.*
*You can greatly change your ability to understand science.*
And some indicate that there is plenty of room to change attitudes about learning and physics:
*How well you can memorize mostly determines how well you can do in science.*
*Watching an instructor do examples is the best way to learn new material.*
After students completed the intelligence survey, we introduced the concepts of growth vs. fixed mindset and performed activities from *The Talent Code* to demonstrate deep practice and chunking. At home they watched Angela Duckworth’s [TED talk on grit](http://www.ted.com/talks/angela_lee_duckworth_the_key_to_success_grit.html). Here are the slides:
We then assigned [*The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids*](http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/) a New York Magazine article for reading at home. We also distributed copies of [Diana Hestwood’s slides](https://sites.google.com/site/dianahestwood/) about how the brain learns.
The next day in class, we had a great discussion about this article and the slides. Several students really identified with the boy Thomas in the New York Magazine article.
The final piece as to administer the [Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS)](http://www.colorado.edu/sei/class/) which was developed by the PER group at Colorado Boulder. We wanted to administer this at the start of the year to capture student expectations and then again at the end of the year to capture how student attitudes have changed. Administering this survey was a bit tricky since these students don’t have a previous experience with a physics class. So, we encouraged them to complete the survey based on their expectations.
To achieve our goal of having a significant impact on our students, these activities must only be the beginning. We will have to make a concerted effort to reinforce growth mindsets explicitly throughout the year and implicitly with a culture in which a growth mindset can flourish. While I fear that the traditional school environment fosters a fixed mindset, I hope that at least our classroom (especially with standards-based grading) can provide a refuge for the growth mindset.