“Teaching is a very noble profession that shapes the character, calibre, and future of an individual.” – A. P. J. Abdul Kalam.
Teachers work towards preparing their students to take on the challenges of their future with confidence and skills. These skills consist of both life skills and academic skills. Developing a growth mindset in students is crucial in cultivating these skills.
In this article, I will share a list of questions that will help you to gradually cultivate a growth mindset culture in your classroom. You can use these questions as the cheatsheet to guide your conversations with your students.
Use the questions below appropriately at different situations inside and outside the classroom.
Don’t forget to check the two handy infographics at the end of this article.
1. What did you learn from that session?
You can use this question to let your students know that learning is a part of every experience. Do not forget to ask this question even after the students faces a negative outcome.
Takeaways: Learning, Self-learning
2. What are the steps you took to achieve a favorable outcome today?
A successful outcome deserves a growth-oriented praise. However, you should not forget to help your student reflect on the process he/she adopted that made this success possible. Acknowledgment of the process helps them to repeat the processes and steps that worked.
Takeaways: Reflect and acknowledge steps that led to success
3. What are the things you learned from that disappointment?
A failure is not just time for disappointment. Failure can teach your students valuable lessons and to step up their performance in the future. Cultivating a habit of learning from failures will help your students to be prepared better the next time.
Takeaway: Failure is a great teacher
4. What are the other strategies you could have used to do this?
There are times when one question has multiple answers. Then there are other times when multiple routes lead to the same answer. When your students look at alternate strategies, it will lead them to develop their critical thinking.
Takeaways: Having a strategy is good. Identifying a better strategy is even better.
5. What did you do when you faced difficulties and challenges?
It is crucial for your students to know that coming across difficulties and roadblocks is part of success. It is even more important for them to know that facing such situations head on enhances their chances of future successes.
Takeaway: Perseverance
6. What did you learn from others in the game?
Learning from others helps to reduce the learning curve. We can learn directly from others or we can learn by observing others. We can learn from people who perform better than us or worse than us. Let your students realise they can learn from their teammates and competitors and learning from others is an important part of every activity.
Takeaway: Learn from others
7. What are the preparations you did to achieve this result?
Making the right preparations is part of working towards a goal. This preparations could be in the form of prioritising, managing time, learning new skills to learn and so on. If your students realise the preparations that led to an outcome, they can fine tune it.
Takeaway: Planning
8. How did you work for this?
Efforts pave way to results. Not just the efforts, the right kind of efforts pave way to excellence.
Takeaways: Hard work is important. Working hard the right way is essential.
9. How often did you practice before the test/game?
Having a regular practice schedule helps to make the neural connections stronger.
Takeaways: Practice and revision help the brain to make its connection stronger.
10. How did you keep motivating yourself when things were going bad?
Having the belief in our ability to learn and apply new things help us to persist at times of difficulty. Other than that, people use many techniques such as stress-release techniques, approaching mentors, self-coaching etc. to keep the vigour and passion up.
Takeaways: Self-belief, self-motivating
11. How would you give yourself a challenge?
Being in the comfort zone does not add value to the progress of your students. They need to learn to stretch their comfort zones and to do things they are not comfortable with. Success usually happens when we venture outside our comfort zones. Remind your students to find things outside their comfort zones to try on.
Takeaway: Get out of your comfort zone to breakthrough to your success
Don’t forget to read these articles too on growth mindset
5 Strategies Good Teachers Adopt to Provide Effective Feedback to Students
The secret ingredient that makes our children future-ready
14 things a teacher with a growth mindset doesn’t do
Shooting in the self created darkness: A growth mindset story
How To Boost Academics By Growing Growth Mindset
Have you read my latest book Infinite Possibilities: Unlock your real potential with the secret recipes from superachievers? It comes with 10 case studies, 11 manifestos and 55 steps to unleash your own real potential by boosting your growth mindset. Furthermore, it will show you how you can apply Infinite Possibilities in your personal, professional and academic lives. You can get a copy of it here or at Amazon for yourself, your team, your student or child.
After reading this article, could you please do the three simple steps below?
- Share this article with your friends and colleagues, so that they too are aware of this amidst their busy schedules.
- Have you written an article that complements this article? Please share it in the comment section below with one or two lines explaining what that is about.
- Do you have any insights or tips that you use? Would you like to share that? Please use the comments section below and let me know!
You can find another version of this article here.
Have you read Sindu Sreebhavan’s latest book Infinite Possibilities? You can find it here.
Share this article with your friends and colleagues, so that they too are aware of this amidst their busy schedules.
Do you have any insights or tips that you use? Would you like to share that? Please use the comments section below and let us know!
© 2019, Sindu Sreebhavan. All rights reserved.
About Sindu Sreebhavan
Sindu Sreebhavan is the founder of As Many Minds Minds Pte Ltd and the founding Chief Editor of The Kidz Parade Edutainment magazine, Asia's premium publication for cultivating creativity and creative writing in children. Sindu is also the founder and the Chairperson of International Youth Leadership and Innovation Forum (IYLIF). Sindu is the author of 'Infinite Possibilities' and the lead co-author of Amazon bestseller 'Breakthrough'. With a passion to infuse innovation in education and inject growth mindset and innovative mindset in people and organisations, Sindu writes, speaks and consults on innovation and creativity in business and education. She says innovation does not start with invention, it starts with a mindset. “The best gift you can give a child is the power of Confidence, Creativity and Communication” is her tagline. She is passionate about educating educators, parents and children about youth development, youth leadership, education innovation and 21st century education. She supports children, parents, schools and several organisations in these areas.
