The growth mindset permeates Comprendio’s teaching and learning platform. Even when they were high school math teachers, the co-founders (Sean Ho’okano Briel and Dan Nash) have believed in the power of a growth mindset. Coined by Stanford professor Carol Dweck in 2006, the growth mindset is based on the idea that every person lies somewhere on a continuum according to where they believe individual ability comes from. Those who believe that individual ability and success is innate (e.g., I’m an amazing ping pong player because everyone on my dad’s side of the family has been amazing ping pong players — I didn’t earn my abilities, I was given them) are said to have a fixed theory of intelligence, also known as a fixed mindset. On the other hand, those who believe that individual ability and success is based on learning and working hard (e.g., I’m an amazing ping pong player because I have been practicing five hours a day since I was eight years old) have an incremental theory of intelligence, or a growth mindset. This article highlights how Comprendio can leverage the power of the growth mindset to support students and teachers as they positively transform their teaching and learning practices.
“When you enter a mindset, you enter a new world. In one world — the world of fixed traits — success is about proving you’re smart or talented. Validating yourself. In another — the world of changing qualities — it’s about stretching yourself to learn something new. Developing yourself.” (Dweck, p. 15).
The data that Comprendio provides to students can allow them to stretch themselves, but it is important that students develop a growth mindset via the support from their teachers. When students are given the opportunity to see how they are doing in class with the click of a mouse, it can be either empowering if they have a growth mindset, or dangerous if they have a fixed mindset. As Dweck points out, “as soon as children become able to evaluate themselves, some of them become afraid of challenges. They become afraid of not being smart” (p. 16).
As educators, as parents, as anyone who works with children, it is our duty to guide them to become the best “grown ups” that they can be. To do that, we must not only instill in them the value of success, but they should also understand how to deal with failures… to turn them into challenges… to have grit… to seek opportunities… to move out of their comfort zones… to have a growth mindset.
Here’s an example: everyday in class Comprendio shows Laura exactly what she needs to work on and what she’s mastered. The color feedback for content mastery goes from gray (no content mastery) — purple — blue — green (full content mastery). It’s easy for Laura to see that she’s mastered all that she needs to know about the concept “cold-blooded”. It is also just as easy for Laura to see that she still needs to focus on learning more about amphibians. When students like Laura start using Comprendio, we want them to feel empowered by the data that Comprendio provides. We don’t want Laura to feel discouraged because she hasn’t yet mastered “amphibians”, we want Laura to feel excited to be challenged, ready to learn more, and continue to develop as the bright student that she (and every other student on the planet) is!
While Comprendio provides this instant feedback to Laura, it is important for the teacher to ensure that Laura understands what this data means, while also being there to guide her to improve her understanding in the areas where she needs support. As students continue to receive the constant feedback from Comprendio, Laura and students like her will start to develop deeper growth mindsets. As deeper growth mindsets develop, students naturally start turning into more self-directed learners. The learning environment will change from the antiquated 20th century classroom setting where students largely rely on the teacher to direct the teaching and learning process in class…
…to the 21st century self-directed blended learning environment that’s needed to effectively support, engage, and challenge our students today.
It is important to note that a growth mindset isn’t just about changing students’ mindsets, it’s also about changing the mindsets of those who guide the learning process — their teachers. Eduwardo Briceño reminds us that “If we don’t work to shift our own mindset about ourselves and our students, then we won’t work to change many other important things in the system necessary to improve education… this means authentically working to become better at what we do throughout our lives, including how we teach and how we create contexts that help students thrive”.
Teachers have the opportunity to stretch and challenge themselves to be the most effective educators that they can be for their students with the real-time feedback that Comprendio provides, too. Teachers can instantly see which instructional strategies are working and which ones aren’t. The beauty of it all is that teachers aren’t spending any time grading quizzes or inputting scores to do so — Comprendio’s text analysis feature does all of this for them. With a growth mindset (and a huge chunk of assessment time saved via Comprendio’s platform), a teacher quickly could look at the data below on opinion writing, see that his class lecture wasn’t nearly as effective at improving his students’ understanding compared to the group research activity, and challenge himself to improve his lecture abilities.
“The teacher can coach the student to try different approaches to working, studying, and learning, so that she is thinking more deeply (i.e. mentally working harder) to become a better learner, and of course the teacher should do the same: reflect on how to adjust instruction” (Briceño). Comprendio was built upon the principles of a growth mindset, and we know that our platform can help guide and support teachers and students on the pathway to becoming more effective and efficient educators and learners. Want to learn more about Comprendio? Click here to let us know and we will get back to you soon! If you’re a teacher, you could qualify to get enrolled in our teacher pilot program for the rest of the ’15 — ’16 SY.
Lizzy Schiller is the author and serves as Comprendio’s Director of Community Operations.
