Growth Mindset has become such a buzzword in education circles of late that it can become difficult to know where to begin. This five-chapter series by ClassDojo, in conjunction with Stanford’s PERT Research Centre is a great place to start.
The series follows the adventures of Mojo and his friend Katie, who are friendly monsters who attend school. In the first episode, Mojo decides that because the mathematics problems are getting too hard the only option he has is to leave school forever. This is when Mojo’s friend Katie intervenes. She introduces Mojo to the growth mindset concept and helps him realise the importance of learning from his mistakes.
Each chapter in the series is less than three minutes in duration. The colourful graphics and friendly monsters will appeal to younger students and the concepts discussed in the video are covered in such a way that students will quickly relate to Mojo’s struggle. To help promote discussion with your students, ClassDojo have linked each video to some questions, and a more detailed Discussion Guide for each episode is available to download.
I have personally used the first video in the series, ‘Your brain is like a muscle’, with students from Prep to Year 2. The episode quickly identifies and explains some of the main concepts surrounding Growth Mindset, including:
- Everyone is smart
- The brain is like a muscle
- Challenging problems help to exercise the brain
After a brief discussion about these ideas I have then set the students an open-ended problem, such as Domino Patterns taking from the NRICH website. Throughout the activity, I have reminded the students of the growth mindset ideas and challenged them to continue to explore possible solutions to the problem. At the end of the lesson, as a class we have reflected, not only on the possible solutions students have discovered, but as to examples of how students have demonstrated a growth mindset. For example, a student may explain that they had a growth mindset when they kept trying even after they ran into trouble or they asked their partner for help when they were unsure. From here, during future lessons, I continue to revisit the growth mindset ideas found in the video and ask students to provide examples of how these ideas are being used within our classroom. To help celebrate our success, I have help the students create a Growth Mindset display key words, pictures and student examples can be highlighted.
Level: F-2
References:
ClassDojo – Your brain is like a muscle Activity https://ideas.classdojo.com/i/growth-mindset-1
Youtube link to video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zrtHt3bBmQ&t=1s
Domino Patterns https://nrich.maths.org/9970
NRICH website https://nrich.maths.org/
Image https://static.classdojo.com/img/ideas_platform/ideas/the_mojo_show/s01e01/cover.jpg
