chance to revise it. He earned a B+ on the assignment (he had been getting C’s and lower).
Incidentally, teachers weren’t just trying to be nice to us by telling us what we wanted to
hear. The teachers didn’t know who was in our growth-mindset workshop. This was because we
had another workshop too. This workshop met just as many times, and taught them even more
study skills. And students got just as much personal attention from supportive tutors. But they
didn’t learn the growth mindset and how to apply it.
Teachers didn’t know which of their students went to which of the workshops, but they
still singled out Jimmy and many of the students in the growth-mindset workshop to tell us that
they’d seen real changes in their motivation to learn and improve.
Lately I have noticed that some students have a greater appreciation for improvement.... R. was
performing below standards.... He has learned to appreciate the improvement from his grades
of 52, 46, and 49 to his grades of 67 and 71.... He valued his growth in learning Mathematics.
M. was far below grade level. During the past several weeks, she has voluntarily asked for extra
help from me during her lunch period in order to improve her test-taking performance. Her
grades drastically improved from failing to an 84 on the most recent exam.
Positive changes in motivation and behavior are noticeable in K. and J. They have begun to work
hard on a consistent basis.
Several students have voluntarily participated in peer tutoring sessions during their lunch periods
or after school. Students such as N. and S. were passing when they requested the extra help and
were motivated by the prospect of sheer improvement.
We were eager to see whether the workshop affected students’ grades, so, with their
permission, we looked at students’ final marks at the end of the semester. We looked especially
at their math grades, since these reflected real learning of challenging new concepts.
Before the workshops, students’ math grades had been suffering badly. But afterward, lo
and behold, students who’d been in the growth-mindset workshop showed a jump in their grades.
They were now clearly doing better than the students who’d been in the other workshop.
The growth-mindset workshop—just eight sessions long—had a real impact. This one
adjustment of students’ beliefs seemed to unleash their brain power and inspire them to work and
achieve. Of course, they were in a school where the teachers were responsive to their outpouring
of motivation, and were willing to put in the extra work to help them learn. Even so, these
findings show the power of changing mindsets.
The students in the other workshop did not improve. Despite their eight sessions of
training in study skills and other good things, they showed no gains. Because they were not
taught to think differently about their minds, they were not motivated to put the skills into
practice.
The mindset workshop put students in charge of their brains. Freed from the vise of the
fixed mindset, Jimmy and others like him could now use their minds more freely and fully.
BRAINOLOGY
The problem with the workshop was that it required a big staff to deliver it. This
wouldn’t be feasible on a large scale. Plus, the teachers weren’t directly involved. They could be
a big factor in helping to sustain the students’ gains. So we decided to put our workshop on
interactive computer modules and have teachers guide their classes through the modules.
With the advice of educational experts, media experts, and brain experts, we developed
the “Brainology”‰ program. It presents animated figures, Chris and Dahlia—seventh graders