Developing Growth Mindsets: Principles and Practices for Maximizing Students’ Potential

Human beings have tremendous potential to acquire new knowledge, develop new skills, and improve their brains throughout life. By explicitly teaching learners about brain plasticity and malleable intelligence (the idea that they can become functionally smarter through effort) and by modeling and teaching specific learning strategies, teachers can help students experience higher levels of success as they develop a growth mindset.

Discovering that learning changes their brains helps students develop this growth mindset—the belief that they can improve their knowledge and skills through the use of learning strategies and with guidance and support from teachers, coaches, and mentors.

Donna Wilson and Marcus Conyers share strategies and techniques for developing growth mindsets based on their BrainSMART® program for bridging the science of learning to the practice of teaching and elaborate on their seven principles for developing and sustaining growth mindsets:

* Understand the mindsets.
* Keep plasticity front of mind.
* Learn with practical optimism.
* Set growth goals.
* Get the feedback needed.
* Improve methods.
* Focus on progress, not perfection.

By maintaining a growth mindset about your students' learning potential and applying learning strategies and techniques like those shared in this book, you can guide your students to continually develop a growth mindset—and experience a positive, upward learning spiral of success!

Donna Wilson, PhD, psychologist and author, is an international speaker on developing growth mindsets, supporting social-emotional learning, and teaching practical strategies that are essential for surviving and thriving in the world today. Growing up in rural Oklahoma, Donna was the first in her family to go to college; she went on to become the Chair of Education at the University of Detroit-Mercy and later cofounded and became president of BrainSMART®, Inc., and the nonprofit Center for Innovative Education and Prevention. With her passion for empowering all learners with the science and strategies for achieving academic and life success, Donna co-developed the world's first graduate degree programs in applied mind, brain, and education science (BrainSMART Programs) and doctoral minor in brain-based leadership. Over the past 20 years, she has shared her work with more than 60,000 participants in live events in Asia, the Middle East, Australia, Europe, Jamaica, and throughout the United States and Canada. She served on the foundation of Carl Albert State College in Oklahoma and on the Advisory Board for Portfolio School in New York City. Donna is the author of 20 books, including Teaching Students to Drive Their Brains (ASCD, 2016), Five Big Ideas for Effective Teaching (Teachers College Press, 2nd edition in press), Positively Smarter (Wiley, 2015), and Introduction to BrainSMART Teaching (HBE, 2018).

Marcus Conyers, PhD, is a research supervisor for the PhD in Professional Practice: Psychological Perspectives at the Salomons Institute for Applied Psychology with Canterbury Christ Church University and the lead developer of the BrainSMART® and Innovating Minds® programs for improving cognitive performance and creative-thinking skills. Marcus earned his doctorate with a focus on innovative applications of mind, brain, and education science from the University of Westminster. He is the lead developer of the world's first doctoral minor in brain-based leadership and the first MS and EdS degree programs focused on applied mind, brain, and education science (BrainSMART Programs). Central to Marcus's work is the belief that developing growth mindsets is key to increasing the creative and critical thinking skills that drive higher levels of human performance. Founder and CEO of BrainSMART and the nonprofit Center for Innovative Education and Prevention, Conyers is an author of 20 books who has worked in 30 countries and shared his innovative frameworks with more than 100,000 people on five continents. In addition to the ministers of education in South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, and Ontario, Canada, his audiences have included Navy Seals, Army Rangers, counterintelligence operatives, law enforcement officers, and business leaders globally. His passion is improving lives through innovative applications of the cognitive and implementation sciences, and he serves as the director of the nonprofit Center for Innovative Education and Prevention.