It is a fact that teachers have profound impact on students’ motivation but theories about the best practice and the pedagogical methods to achieve this vary. Instead of technical, teacher-centered, direct instructions that suppress inquiry-based learning, our project builds on student-centered instructions to shape the students' mindset towards the belief that their own initiatives matter - a growth mindset. By helping students to develop a growth mindset, teachers make teaching and learning more effective.
Growth mindset students request better feedback and have better learning orientation. They also show grit more often and thus persist longer. This project was an upgrade of the previous successful project MindSet Go! - where the partners developed lesson plans based on a growth mindset. This project aimed higher as we wanted to change the culture and learning environment at schools and also have an impact on parents. Teacher trainers and partner schools from Sweden, Slovenia, Spain, Romania and Reunion cooperated. The geographical, social and economic diversity provided an added value as we produced and provided material to address these factors also for social inclusion.
Recent PISA results showed that students in our target countries are below average regarding growth mindset. Our project aimed to equip teachers with the necessary tools for supporting students’ growth mindset but also to enhance the work with the entire school environment and its student support. Here, the stakeholders are principals, teachers and also parents.
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The main goal of the MindSetGo! 2.0 project was to provide better continuous in-service training opportunities for teachers to increase their competencies and develop a growth mindset of their students. Our objective was also to foster a growth mindset school culture by increasing the number of teachers and principals using growth mindset in their practice.
Moreover, focused work on a growth mindset led to higher teachers’ self-efficacy regarding their impact on students and higher students’ self-efficacy in their school work.
- In order to achieve these objectives, we ensured availability of free hands-on creative and inspiring material for developing a growth mindset of teachers, principals, students and parents.
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Finally, our objective was also increased support and involvement of parents to enhance ways to cultivate a growth mindset in the families. We addressed the need for developing students’ growth mindset holistically by offering accessible, free of charge, inspirational material in a European context:
- guidelines for a growth mindset school culture;
- a well-designed practice-driven and evidence-based MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) for teachers’ continuous professional development;
- a digital hands-on toolkit collection for cultivating a growth mindset in the classroom;
- slides and a workshop design for parents;
- community of practice compendium with a collection of growth mindset projects with students.
Impact
The Intellectual Outputs developed in the MindSetGo 2.0 project have an authentic transnational character. We built on the well-functioning network project. At least 42 teachers and teacher trainers were directly involved in transnational learning activities and contributed to the above-mentioned project outputs. Hence, all outputs are evidence based and practice driven following the bottom-up principles of innovation. Additionally, at least 60 students from 5 countries cooperated in eTwinning school projects about a growth mindset. At least 200 parents participated in growth mindset workshops for parents.
Incorporating our associated partners in the widespread dissemination on local, national, European and international levels, we have:
- raised awareness of a growth mindset,
- informed about teaching based on a growth mindset approach,
- engaged in growth mindset activities and communication,
- promoted the use of the project’s intellectual outputs.
Multiplier events involved at least 240 local and 20 foreign participants from at least 100 different organizations. Engaging social media posts, active participation at conferences and proactive media exposure reached more than 80.000 people across Europe who are key stakeholders in education.
A Pan-European Zoom conference for teachers across Europe was also organized as part of the dissemination.
The rich digital collection of high-quality growth mindset material has a sustainable impact on teachers, principals and other stakeholders involved in education. All the outputs are available for free even after the end of the project. The MOOC is part of an open education platform, hence widely exposed to our target groups, accessible and sustained in the long run. The partnership continues its work on a growth mindset with further spin-offs such as partnerships between schools and for student mobilities.
