Chapter 5 Lesson
Learning Objectives
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to do the following:
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to do the following:
- Describe the difference between a “fixed mindset” and a “growth mindset.”
- Summarize the importance of relationship building between instructor and student.
- Discuss the relationship between one-on-one interaction with creative writing students and how the “fixed mindset” is particularly dangerous in this discipline.
Chapter Summary
Chapter 5 of Terry Doyle’s Learner-Centered Teaching (2011) is concerned with the need for instructors to relate to their students. The first way this can be accomplished is by gauging what the students’ mindsets are.
The text (Doyle, 2011) cites research by Carol Dweck, which describes the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. A fixed mindset is one in which students believe they have a finite amount of intelligence. For high-achieving students, this can cause an overreliance on talent at the expense of working harder to achieve better results. For low-achieving students, this can cause the appearance of laziness, but in fact this is due to a belief in a lack of intelligence, which students believe is a fixed condition that cannot be improved upon.
Conversely, a growth mindset is a healthier acknowledgement that intelligence is not fixed, and therefore hard work can result in greater and greater outcomes, regardless of natural ability. Doyle (2011) advocates for ways in which instructors can engender a growth mindset in their students, even if the students come to them with a fixed mindset.
The second way instructors can relate to their students is through simple relationship building (Doyle, 2011). While Doyle enumerates a variety of ways this can be accomplished, the principle he returns to again and again is to engage in one-on-one interactions with students whenever possible. Relating to students has human beings—and being clearly concerned with their performance, safety, and mindset development—can help to reduce the perception that the classroom relationship must by necessity be adversarial. Though instructors do grade students, they should also clearly demonstrate that they care about and want success for them.
Chapter 5 of Terry Doyle’s Learner-Centered Teaching (2011) is concerned with the need for instructors to relate to their students. The first way this can be accomplished is by gauging what the students’ mindsets are.
The text (Doyle, 2011) cites research by Carol Dweck, which describes the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. A fixed mindset is one in which students believe they have a finite amount of intelligence. For high-achieving students, this can cause an overreliance on talent at the expense of working harder to achieve better results. For low-achieving students, this can cause the appearance of laziness, but in fact this is due to a belief in a lack of intelligence, which students believe is a fixed condition that cannot be improved upon.
Conversely, a growth mindset is a healthier acknowledgement that intelligence is not fixed, and therefore hard work can result in greater and greater outcomes, regardless of natural ability. Doyle (2011) advocates for ways in which instructors can engender a growth mindset in their students, even if the students come to them with a fixed mindset.
The second way instructors can relate to their students is through simple relationship building (Doyle, 2011). While Doyle enumerates a variety of ways this can be accomplished, the principle he returns to again and again is to engage in one-on-one interactions with students whenever possible. Relating to students has human beings—and being clearly concerned with their performance, safety, and mindset development—can help to reduce the perception that the classroom relationship must by necessity be adversarial. Though instructors do grade students, they should also clearly demonstrate that they care about and want success for them.
Suggestions for Implementation in Creative Writing Instruction
The Teaching Perspectives Inventory (2017) describes and tests users on finding the combination of strategies they most often use and value in the practice of teaching. One of the perspectives the test discusses is Apprenticeship, wherein teachers and students engage in a one-on-one mentoring relationship with a dimension very much like authentic assessment as described in Doyle (2011).
For creative writing instruction, working one-on-one with students in order to build relationships and to employ the Apprenticeship perspective through authentic learning situations and LCT usage is an often-employed mode of instruction. Particularly in graduate creative writing programs, students are frequently assigned a mentor or advisor. If acting in this capacity, then, a mentoring instructor could—and should—assess where the student’s mindset is. Is it fixed? Is it a growth mindset? For a creative writing student, a fixed mindset can be particularly dangerous; students may think that if they’ve been consistently praised for their writing abilities in the past that to work their way through a creative writing course or program is simply affirming what they think they already know about the craft and their abilities. However, students with a growth mindset will be unperturbed by a mentor pointing out areas that still need improvement; they will understand that to take their work to the next level, they must continue to work on it. Changing a fixed-mindset writing student to one with a growth mindset is best handled through effective mentoring, encouragement, and revealing the mentor’s own struggles to get better at their work, too. If fixed-mindset students think they are apprentices to writers with natural talent who never received criticism and never worked at their craft, they will bristle at the first suggestion that their work is less than perfect. To give accurate feedback in a nurturing way—and to help their shift their mindset—should be the goals of the mentor.
The Teaching Perspectives Inventory (2017) describes and tests users on finding the combination of strategies they most often use and value in the practice of teaching. One of the perspectives the test discusses is Apprenticeship, wherein teachers and students engage in a one-on-one mentoring relationship with a dimension very much like authentic assessment as described in Doyle (2011).
For creative writing instruction, working one-on-one with students in order to build relationships and to employ the Apprenticeship perspective through authentic learning situations and LCT usage is an often-employed mode of instruction. Particularly in graduate creative writing programs, students are frequently assigned a mentor or advisor. If acting in this capacity, then, a mentoring instructor could—and should—assess where the student’s mindset is. Is it fixed? Is it a growth mindset? For a creative writing student, a fixed mindset can be particularly dangerous; students may think that if they’ve been consistently praised for their writing abilities in the past that to work their way through a creative writing course or program is simply affirming what they think they already know about the craft and their abilities. However, students with a growth mindset will be unperturbed by a mentor pointing out areas that still need improvement; they will understand that to take their work to the next level, they must continue to work on it. Changing a fixed-mindset writing student to one with a growth mindset is best handled through effective mentoring, encouragement, and revealing the mentor’s own struggles to get better at their work, too. If fixed-mindset students think they are apprentices to writers with natural talent who never received criticism and never worked at their craft, they will bristle at the first suggestion that their work is less than perfect. To give accurate feedback in a nurturing way—and to help their shift their mindset—should be the goals of the mentor.
References
- Doyle, T. (2011). Learner-centered teaching: putting the research on learning into practice. Sterling, Va.: Stylus Pub.
- Teaching Perspectives Inventory. Retrieved September 7, 2014.
