12 Ways Math Teachers Can Instill a Growth Mindset in Students

Most math educators find it challenging to instill growth mindset in students. Once students enter their school life, they are bombarded by multiple thoughts that make them think they are either made for this subject or not. For some students math is a fun subject, but most of them find it difficult to grasp certain concepts of the subject. Teachers should create a growth mindset for students to relate to the subject and master it. In this article, we will go through

12 ways that can instill a growth mindset in students

1. Use of Diverse Teaching Strategies 

As a teacher, you can use various tactics and principles and elaborate on the topic you will make them do.

Whenever necessary, feel free to use videos, and present some slides based on various math theories.

Try to explain them with more and more real-life examples. This would also help you to make the maximum out of your students.

Give your students a chance to work in groups for a project or an assignment that will let their brains interpret the different ideologies of different people.

Let the students make you understand their work by presenting different forms of assignments, projects, or presentations.

By expanding your teaching practice, students can easily master any skills. Through these ways, students can approach different learning methods easily.

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2. Teach Students To Think Differently

The first thing that we need to do is to change the way kids think about math. There are a lot of kids thinking that no matter how hard they try, they are just never going to be good at math.

But by showing them how their brain works, we may give them some hope to change their way of thinking about the subject as they continue to look forward to it and explore it more often.

Some activities that would help to do so are discussed below:

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• For older ones, show them a brief clip of the life of any hard-working mathematician or a documentary that they can relate to.
• For the younger ones, show them some fun interacting videos on youtube like Vsauce or anything related to the subject.
• Take them through any highly valued free online course. These courses will interestingly present math. In addition, research has shown that students who take the courses have more positive thoughts about math. They are found to be more engaging in math and also perform better in math classes.

3. Have Open-ended Math Classes 

Although changing kids’ attitudes toward math is important, there is no real progress until it is taught easily.

Most of the time, math is taught as a closed, fixed subject, which has the only motive to find an answer, and for this, kids face many difficulties and are only taught to find a solution.

Instead of memorizing the steps or the solution, the parents or the teachers need to give them rich and meaningful tasks which could challenge them to think out of the box. 

Jo Boaler says these tasks include the 5C’s; 

1. Curiosity, 
2. Connection Making
3. Challenge 
4. Creativity 
5. Collaboration

Challenging kids to think about what they are doing is much more productive than completing ten problems from a textbook.

Some suggested activities that you can perform are as follows: 

• Take traditional problems and turn them into challenges. Suppose kids are working on the problem: 15 times 8. This is a straightforward problem. Instead of asking them to solve this problem simply, ask them to solve it in two different ways or tell them to give visual proof of their solution. 
• Raise the kids’ thinking level once they finish it by challenging them to create their problems. Ask them to write a similar kind of problem. This allows kids to change their thinking and makes them more creative. 

4. Don’t Emphasize Speed

Most of the impression among students is that math is only about getting right answers. However, math is much more than just finding the right answers.

It helps in building critical thinking, problem-solving skills and much more. A few relevant studies show that doing math with a time constraint  increases student’s anxiety, and it becomes stressful for them.

So instead of focusing on speed, focus on the process. Here are some suggested activities:  

• Teaching students to use strategies and letting them share their views about the big mathematical idea are more important than the final answer. Encourage them by telling about the world’s leading mathematicians who spend years just focusing on one problem. 
• Let them think about the process rather than just knowing the solution and moving on.

Build your problem-solving skills by attempting this Math worksheet

5. Be Mindful of Your Attitude Towards Math

Teachers need to be mindful of their views of math. Students learn and watch from your examples; even some fixed messages might come across to students.

Parents and teachers should start by changing their mindset toward math. You can do it by continuing to grow the right mindset for yourself, spending time with them and trying to discuss open math tasks, and so on. 

6. Introducing Simple Games to Improve Their Thinking 

Certain gamification aspects include applying video game elements to your class to highlight your students instead of understating their problems.

Try these Fun Math Problems!

Give their scores on par with the video games like in XP (experience points). Award XP while completing any problems.

Students can also actively participate in extracurricular work, similar to how they complete missions on video games.

Instead of going down fully, tell them that they are going up from 0 XP. This steady improvement is the heart of successfully growing the right mindset. 

7. Teach Your Students the Importance of Challenges 

Explaining the benefits of overcoming challenges can help them to develop a growth mindset.

Studies by Dweck have shown that Middle school students in a control group that learned a lesson about facing off challenges have easily increased their math scores over two years.

Check out these challenging Math Problems!

Always recommend teaching about the effect of the brain when people are pushing out of their comfort zones to grasp difficult concepts.

By doing these, the neurons present in the brain form strong connections, thus leading to improved intelligence over time.

Therefore, the roadblock to being smarter is the effort and the difficult path. Those who limit themselves and think their intelligence is always fixed significantly have lower grades.

Simply teaching this can have a huge impact on the life of students. 

8. Explain the Purpose of Using Different Skills and Concepts 

Instilling a growth mindset in students may need some more work because if the maximum number of your students struggle to determine its real-world application, then they may not see a way of improving their knowledge of that concept.

Like in the case of learning Pythagoras theorem, they need not only to remember the formula; instead, they should think of how to use it in real-world applications like measuring the angle of a shadow with a lamp post down the road. 

By doing so, most of them will be interested in the concept, which will make them understand it much deeper.

Thus it becomes easier to instill the mindset. It is done by doing experiential learning activities and using the active mind more often, which would help to fill the gap between the bridges and put the students in the center of the learning process, allowing them to build a more meaningful understanding of the different skills that you are incorporating in them. 

Can you solve this Math Problem?

9. Allow the Student to Set Goals for Themselves 

Ask your students to set learning goals for themselves and discuss the report after ending those goals.

Like a student must fix goals to complete a particular theory or topic or do some problem sums or for any upcoming event.

To accomplish it, the students must write all the measures they are taking to complete it. No matter what, a student should do the smart work, ensuring it doesn’t become too hectic.

The goal should be more specific, measurable, time-based, and, last but not least, realistic. Students are working to improve by thinking their skills and traits are fixed.

After completing their goals, they can find confidence while doing math and will know that growth is always possible if you try with a proper plan. 

10. Praise Your Students for Their Efforts

When they solve some math problems, they might find it difficult to get the required solution. Tell your students to just keep trying when their hard work doesn’t show any results.

This is a situation where they may feel low and may feel incompetent. Be with them and make them understand the importance of trying.

Make them understand that they should not focus on the result but the process. Praise and feedback can change the whole viewpoint of the student’s learning process.

Your approach as a math teacher can either push them towards or away from establishing a growth mindset.

Want to improve Mathematical concepts? Try these Math Problems!

11. Avoid Comparing One Student With the Another 

Although competition is sometimes a good thing, it usually affects both sides, winning or losing.

If a student cannot solve a math equation and instead asks his friend to compete with him and then he or she does it, then it creates a sense of lower confidence for the former student.

Apart from having a demoralizing effect, their friendship can also be hampered. Thus, you should avoid comparisons. 

12. Demonstrate Mistakes and Celebrate Corrections

Mistakes should be viewed as learning opportunities, not as scolding. Teachers should organize classes where different students discuss their mistakes in a particular concept.

Teachers should remove the feeling of fear, and these sessions can effectively do so. Teachers should make students understand that it’s just fine to make mistakes, but the main thing is to correct them.

Never oversimplify a problem just to increase your students’ hardships or show off your skills. 

Check this interesting Math Worksheet

Why is Having a Growth Mindset Towards Math so Important? 

Various research and studies across the globe show that the liking and understanding of a concept for a student are proportional to how the students perceive it.

If the teachers like it, the students find it easier to grasp a problem, and if not, it becomes their worst nightmare. So it’s been seen that the way of teaching shows a direct link between a growth mindset and math success. We all want the students to be confident and successful while they learn math. 

The students with a growth mindset about their math abilities tend to perform much better on tests and thus are more engaged in the classroom. 

Also read: 10 Key Qualities of a Good Math Teacher

Takeaway 

Most children will face difficulty with the concepts of math at some point in their life, and preparing them is the right way to grow their mindset and have a healthy attitude toward math, thus giving them the confidence to preserve and overcome the upcoming challenges. To make math fun, friendly and forgiving for your students, check out ByteLearn. Visit www.bytelearn.com to know more.