Written by Growth Mindset in Math – Post Assessment Discussions
Last week, my grade 11 math studies students wrote a test. This test was on problem-solving and functions. While students were reviewing for the test, things seemed to be running pretty smoothly. They had small hiccups here and there, but ultimately things were looking good. My brain was thinking, “YES! This test is going to be GREAT!”. Right? Wrong! The questions I thought were presents wrapped in a bow for students were left blank, students solved for x when there was no x to solve for. BEDMAS was completely just out of the question!
This was the second test we have had so far. The first test, also did not go so well. After that test I really framed my class discussion as, “Look everyone, we really have to pull up our socks here. There is no other math course in the diploma programme for you to turn to. This is it. It is time to start working”. Maybe this was a little too threatening for a group of students who have just started in the diploma programme, but it did seem to turn student behaviour and work ethic around at that time.
But this test was different. I watched with my own eyeballs, the students study for this test. This is a group of students that I can assure you have done very little studying for math on their own time in the past. But I saw them after school and during their study halls studying for their math test. I know that my post-test discussion would have to be very different. I decided I need to focus my post-test discussion with this group around “Growth Mindset in Math”.
I started class by playing the following video Growth Mindset in Math. I then asked the class to discuss with each other why I would select a video like that to start the class. After a minute or so I asked students to share. The first thoughts shared were “because we all failed the test”. The class all chuckled and I showed no response to this. And I just kept asking, “Why else?”. The responses started to shape into, “because we aren’t good at math”, “we’ve built up large barriers for ourselves learning math”, “we don’t give ourselves a chance to be good at math”, “we are setting low expectations and low goals for ourselves in math”. As the conversation progressed, students were becoming more and more invested and engaged in the discussion.
We then together sat as a class and discussed the importance of our mindset in our overall success. I let them know that I truly believed that each person in the class is capable of being good at math, but they had to start by being okay with themselves for making mistakes and be comfortable with learning from their mistakes. I let the class know I was proud of their efforts that they put into their studying and that I knew those efforts would pay off long-term, even if this test didn’t quite show that.
I think this put a lot of the student’s minds at ease. My goal was to keep the students motivated, despite lower than expected results. I followed this up by having the students work in pairs to answer one of the questions that no one was able to answer on the test. The students we able to fully complete this question with minimal guidance. I think this really helped to rebuild confidence within this group of students.
I think this process overall, helped me see the role that teachers play in maintaining motivation and morale among students. We’ll just have to wait and see how it upholds for our next assessment.
@sregli I loved this video and your choice to share it with your students. I hope you don’t mind but I embedded it into your blog so you can play it along side the text. This is a fantastic example of supporting student “approaches to learning” with explicit attention to mindset. As a action plan it will be great to get their feedback at the end of the year to see if their perception of themselves at math students had changed. How will you build in more checkpoints where they can practice?
@rutheichholtz @lmiller @amacrae @jmoodey @gadams @clovrics What do you do in your classrooms to foster growth mindset?
@lmcbeth @gnichols @ddoucet
This post points out for me how important it is for students to have those safe moments of failure in classes…I don’t think your students would have engaged so fully with learning the concepts in your class if they didn’t have the first setback to learn from.
I wonder if you have considered documenting their growth and attitudes in math through the year? Even through a Google Form or a running Google Doc to capture their reflections post assessment and their journeys towards adopting a growth mindset could be an interesting piece. Seesaw is another documentation / portfolio program that might be handy with this.
@ckirsh great suggestion to try and capture their reflections post assessment! I am definitely trying to consider the best ways to do this pre and post January exams that are coming up! I’ll look into Seesaw and see if this could work! Thanks for your comment!
I agree with @jmedved – great choice in sharing this video with your students! I was just thinking today that it is about time for me to watch a similar video with my grade 11 Math Studies class. Sounds like we are facing some of the same challenges!
Keeping their mindset positive and their motivation going despite poor test results is one of the challenges of teaching this course. Students are grateful to be learning and understanding math, and many of them are working at it *for the first time ever*. The results, unfortunately, take longer than just one or two test cycles to start showing up. This is where resilience and grit play a big role, and where we as teachers have an important part in student learning. If we believe in them, they will learn to believe in themselves. Patience, constancy, and positivity (and a lot of hard work) will eventually pay off!
@lmiller how do you help students stick with the growth mindset in grade 12? I know you’ve done a lot in that area…
Wow @sregli – this is a really great result and speaks clearly to the triangulation of Product, Observations and Conversations when checking for student understanding.
A few teachers at my school have had students work in groups after a test (without knowing their result) they work through problems together and then students are given back their tests to make any changes they need to make. It’s slightly modified from the idea that came from a university physics professor who does it with his students at Stanford, here’s the link https://teachingcommons.stanford.edu/teaching-talk/turn-exam-learning-experience-two-stage-exams
You’ve hit on something special with your Ss and empowering them and challenging them to change their mindset. I find that math and languages are the same in this regard, and @rutheichholtz and I have discussed the similarities. I agree with @ckirsh in documenting their reflections or even having them do a visible thinking routine called – I Used to Think, Now I Think here is the website with a description of the routine. http://www.visiblethinkingpz.org/VisibleThinking_html_files/03_ThinkingRoutines/03c_Core_routines/Core_pdfs/VT_Usedtothink.pdf
Thanks for the great video – I just shared it with all of my colleagues via our Edsby Teaching and Learning page. You should touch base with @danielleganley & @brenthurley who’ve both done extensive work with building growth mindsets with students.
I’m really looking forward to seeing where this goes and how your students react!
What a fantastic post – the mindset video is bang on. I’m sure many can relate to the feelings and message in that video! My goal is to show this today and have a quick discussion with my class. I am taking a course at Stanford right now and it might be worth looking into – ‘How to Learn Math: For Teachers’ by Professor Jo Boaler. She highlights and discusses much of this through the introduction to the course (http://online.stanford.edu/course/how-learn-math-teachers). I’ve really been thinking about the myths and messages that students hear that change their mindset at a young age and trying to tackle how I help modify this when they come into grade 10 with a fixed mindset on who they are as a math student? Thanks for inspiring some action in my class, Sara!