Adventures in Math: How to Level Up Your Math Game

Adventures in Math: How to Level Up Your Math Game — page 7
RESEARCH SAYS Effort Is Everything In her book Mindset psychologist Carol Dweck described two mindsets fixed and growth A fixed mindset is a belief that we are born with set abilities and talent and can't do much to change them A growth mindset is a belief that through effort and perseverance we can get better A growth mindset means that when you learn something new and don't quite understand it you say to yourself I don't understand yet This gives you the confidence to work on it to trust that it will get easier even though it's hard right now Words are important As Carol said the word yet can be very powerful Students who believed intelligence can change did better on all three areas reading science and math of an international test administered by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development How can we develop a growth mindset One way is through stories In one study researchers had two groups of students read stories about mathematicians The difference was the message in the stories One group of students read about the natural genius of mathematicians and their great achievements Afterward these students didn't think they could improve their math abilities They felt they either knew their stuff or didn't They had adopted a fixed mindset The other group of students read stories about the persistence and hard work behind mathematicians great discoveries These students adopted a growth mindset They persevered and spent more time understanding math problems The different messages of the stories led the students to approach math in different ways What stories do you tell yourself about what you can or can't do