Dr Udaramati Pope Centre for Professional Learning and Development

1. Learning to fail for success: tutor language to promote resilience, tenacity and effective learning Dr Udaramati Pope Centre for Professional Learning and Development

2. Workshop outcomes By the end of this session you should be able to: • explain the principles of Dweck’s Mindset theory • identify ways you can use language to support growth mindsets in your learners

3. What are ‘Mindsets’? • Beliefs we all hold about our ability to learn and develop our skills • What stories do we tell ourselves about our abilities when we are in learning situations? • Carol Dweck characterises two Mindsets: • Fixed Mindset • Growth Mindset • They operate as ends of a continuum, rather than either/or

4. Personalisation and Mindsets • Helping students to develop Growth Mindsets helps them to have agency of their learning, and their responses to failure • To encourage Growth Mindsets, students need • to know their tutors believe in them • to know their tutors expect them to get things wrong • their tutors to express these beliefs and expectations regularly • their tutors to model the language of Growth Mindsets, so they can develop this language, and way of thinking, about their own learning

5. Dweck on the benefits of a Growth Mindset https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arCdzdBhCcc

7. Activity: How do Mindsets appear in your learners’ behaviours?

8. Mindset misconceptions • Not saying everyone can be a genius – but everyone can be better than they are currently. And you don’t know you are a genius until you become one! • Not saying that everyone has skills and talents at everything – but you can develop and improve any of them. • It is not saying work harder work harder work harder and you will get there – but is it saying you will get better. • Not a panacea for success at anything. But for improvement, yes.

9. Student responsibility, or tutor? • Both!

10. The importance of the tutor in developing growth mindsets • The onus for developing a Growth Mindset is often placed on the learner • The tutor’s role is just as important • Learners need to know • That you believe they can improve • That you know they will fail, and expect them to, if they are to learn effectively • That you will help them to know, completely honestly, what they can do, and what they can’t do yet • That you will help them to find strategies to develop more of a growth mindset as they undertake their studies

11. One strategy: the language of growth mindsets • The power of ‘yet’ • What you expect – mistakes, and often! • That work is set to help them to develop, not to show what they can or can’t do • That you believe they can improve; that you are going to push them, challenge them • Feedback on work submitted focuses on the process and effort, not ability • Support learners when they are disappointed by showing the opportunities for learning • Feedback when you feel they were not challenged, and that you will raise the level of challenge

12. Activity: What can you change about the language you use with your learners? • When can you use language to support Growth Mindsets? • What kind of language will you use to support this?

13. Activity: What can you change about the language you use with your learners? • When can you use language to support Growth Mindsets? • Beginning of the academic year • At the start of each teaching session – and again within it • When you give feedback • When students succeed • When students fail • What kind of language will you use to support this? • Expect to fail in order to learn – no-one learns by doing what they can already do! • I’m going to give honest, critical feedback so that you are very clear about what you need to develop further/haven’t understood yet… • This is challenging, keep working on it, and identify where you are unclear, because that is the learning point we need to get to • You are going to take a test which will enable you to know what you need to work on further. • I understand this mark is disappointing. So what are the learning points from this piece? What do you need to work on next in order to improve?

14. Current applications of Mindset theory at NTU • Students taking Maths on computing degrees offered optional rather than compulsory tests – more took them! • Students in Business explicitly developed growth mindsets and impact on their work placements has been immense; they also now mentor newer students • Impact on staff – less afraid of formative assessment, more aware of their own mindsets when teaching • Used with students in secondary schools in our Widening Participation programmes • Used with colleagues taking the Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice course so that they are aware of their own Mindsets when creating learning and teaching sessions and materials

15. Please share how you support your learners to develop growth mindsets! • Email Udaramati.pope@NTU.ac.uk • NTU Mindset Symposium: 12th December 2016 1-4pm

16. Resources • Dweck, C. (2006). Mindset: how you can fulfil your potential. New York: Ballantyne Books • Dweck, C. (2000). Self Theories: their role in motivation, personality, and development. Psychology Press, • The Power of Yet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyAde4nIIm8 • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-swZaKN2Ic