The project focused on a group of pre-school children who had missed a significant amount of time from early years provision due to Covid-19 and had been deferred. We wanted to help the children build a better understanding of how their brain works and to discover that challenging themselves can grow their brains. We used the book ‘My Fantastic Elastic Brain’ to introduce the children to the different parts of their brain and what each does. We observed the children taking part in learning challenges to monitor/track their levels of engagement and mindset throughout. By involving the children’s families in the project, we wanted parents to also understand the importance of nurturing a growth mindset from an early age and that through their daily conversations they could support embedding some of the key messages with their children.
Overall, we were really pleased with how the project progressed. The only factor that we hadn’t considered was that the children’s attendance patterns caused some difficultly. As not each child attended nursery each day, the group changed day to day and for some of the children this caused some unsettlement.
The most effective part of the project was getting together with the group every day and talking about what we had learned the previous day. It was wonderful to see how much the children retained and how confident and excited they were to share what they knew about how to stretch their brain. We regularly used the analogy of learning to swim or learning to ride our bike as all the children could relate to these experiences. The children were able to discuss that it would be impossible to jump into a pool/or onto a bike and just do it, it takes time to learn the skills, time to learn what doesn’t work and every time we flounder/fall we get back up and have another go. This was what we came back to most days - we can’t just fall off our bike and lay down on the pavement, we must get up, learn from it and try again.
It was very interesting to compare how the children tackled each learning challenge. We observed whether they could remain on task, how they worked independently compared to with a partner and heard from their parents of their reflections at home. After each challenge, we discussed how we felt we had done - did we stick at it, did we help our partner, was it tricky, was it too easy? It was wonderful to hear the children start to use growth mindset language - ‘my brain was stretching!’
For nursery age children, reading fictional stories was another useful way of putting growth mindset into context in a way they could understand. Reading sessions provided great opportunities for us to talk about growth mindset and the impact it can have on your life. It helped us to think about how other people’s mindset can affect us too and talk about ways to combat that.
The children loved completing their journal at night and rushed in the next morning to tell us what they had written and the emoji they had chosen. This was trickier for the children who did not attend nursery each day to do and follow. If we repeated the project, we would meet the parents before the project start to share the aims and what the home learning journal would involve.
Using the growth mindset journals made it straightforward to stick to the timeline. The children had a reflection to do each day that corresponded to the experience that we had in nursery. Absence and staff shortages did make it more challenging to stick to the timeline. This made it difficult to take time away for the group and we had to be flexible to ensure adequate time was had. The rigidity of the journal, on reflection, also meant that we didn’t have the option of extending learning experiences over more than one day. If we were to repeat the project, we would use Seesaw (our online learning journal) to send the journal reflection each day to the children who were involved.
A couple of changes were made to the project after it started. Initially, the intention was for the project to run for two weeks, focusing on the learning challenges during the first week and story-based learning during the second week. It quickly became apparent that it would be incredibly useful to revisit the learning challenges a second time after the children had developed their understanding of growth mindset and the importance of seeing mistakes as opportunities for learning. The children were keen to have another chance to complete some of the challenges - especially, making their own play dough.
We had also intended to host a meeting with the parents of the children that were involved in the project to gather their feedback and reflections on how the project had gone. Unfortunately, it proved very difficult to find a time in December to get all the parents together, so we used a short Google survey instead. We felt that this might also have enabled the parents to be more honest in their feedback.
Through the project, my own knowledge and understanding of growth mindset and its impact on teaching and learning has improved. Before the course, I had some understanding of growth mindset and the idea of multiple intelligences but had never thought to apply this knowledge to practice at early level. During the project, it has been clear that the ideas of growth mindset fit perfectly with a playful pedagogy and are incredibly helpful for our children. Reflecting on the power of struggle has been crucial and that “Knowledge is less important than a mindset of discovery and curiosity”. We cannot achieve anything creative without being comfortable with mistakes and struggle. Throughout the project, we let the children have the chance to struggle, instead of being quick to help.
The children involved in the project all gained in some way from their participation. All the children gained a basic understanding of the idea of growth mindset, that our brains stretch and grow when we try new things and challenge ourselves and that mistakes are opportunities to learn. Through daily reinforcement, the children all remembered and understood the basic principles of growth mindset. Initially, some of the children were reluctant to have a go at some of the learning challenges, some were even put off by the word ‘challenge’. As the project progressed, the children were desperate to find out what the new challenge was each day and would say things like, ‘It sounds hard, but I can’t wait to get started’ or ‘It’ll make my brain stretch’. It was wonderful to hear them so keen to be challenged. At times some of the children would become distracted, but when asked ‘Have you given up?, the response was always a resounding, ‘No way!’. There was also a knock-on effect to other children in the setting, who would shout ‘I want a challenge too!’
Many of the parents were keen to take the principles of growth mindset on board. They feel they are easy to talk to the children about and feel that they have a basic understanding of what it means to have a bubble gum brain!
Before the project started, we completed short questionnaires with the children to assess their feelings about learning, making mistakes and sticking at things until they are finished. The responses from the children were very mixed. The questionnaire itself, was quite challenging for some of the children because they had little context for the meaning of some of the statements and found it difficult to decide what they felt. The more meaningful measure was probably from conversations and interactions with the children, where we could see their attitude changing as the project progressed.
The most useful learning challenge we undertook with the children appeared to be the least successful at the time. We asked the children to make their own play dough. The children were read out the recipe, but after that were not allowed to ask for help. They were to work independently. None of the children made anything close to play dough. However, this gave us the ideal opportunity to talk about learning from our mistakes. The children identified that no-one read the recipe or measured their ingredients. Straightaway, they all wanted the chance to have another go and we did the following week. The next time, we reflected on our prior learning and identified our mistakes during the first week. During the second attempt, every child created their own dough. Their sense of accomplishment and pride was palpable - we turned our biggest flop into our biggest success.
The Leuven Scale of Active Engagement was used throughout the learning challenges. All children scored between 3 and 5 on the scale, with their engagement levels influenced by the type of challenge, whether they were working independently or in a group, where the task took place and the level of difficulty. Overall, the group were very keen to be involved and showed high levels of engagement throughout the project.
Overall, based on observations in the playroom and feedback from the families, the project can be seen as a really positive experience for all the children that were involved. We hope that they have developed their understanding and that their mindsets have started to move towards a growth mindset. The great feedback from the children’s learning journey and parents is captured below.
Feedback from the children in their journals:
‘Making mistakes makes your brain grow and stretch. I was happy because I got it right but when I got it wrong that was all part of the fun.’
‘I learned from the last time and I was proud of myself.”
‘I remembered how to do it, it was easier this time, my brain was thinking.’
Feedback from parents as they shared the children’s journal entries was a great way to check in and assess their understanding. Many of the parents commented that the children loved the chance to complete the journal and enjoyed the chance to reflect and chat about their experiences:
‘Was very engaged, very expressive, articulate and detailed about their feelings through each session’.
‘He was a bit put off initially by the thought of “homework” but came round as he realised it was mostly just chats with him!’
‘She really enjoyed doing it. Liked having homework like her sister.’
‘Loved the daily journal. He thought he was a big boy doing homework.’
‘He liked telling me about his challenges and seemed to understand it all well. The emojis also made him talk about feelings about some situations that we hadn't suspected.’
‘He enjoyed getting to share more of what he had been learning in nursery and he seemed to look forward to completing his journal each night.’
Upon completion, parents where asked whether the project was beneficial, what was helpful and what could have made it better. Some of the responses below illustrate the impact of the project:
‘Yes, MH often gets frustrated trying new things or if he finds things difficult he gives up. With the elastic brain concept he is now willing to try new things and less frustrated when he can’t do something.’
‘Yes very. And undertaking the same process (play dough) at a later stage was key to the learning. More of the same tasks at later points to embed the learnings further would be really useful.’
‘Yes. Even just to give MT a bit of time with the older group of children and better prepare him for what school will be like. But also for him to understand the principles. I said to him last night that I wasn’t as good as him at playing a game and he said “it’s ok mummy, you’re just learning’
‘We think EM got a great variety of mental stimulation and taught her you don’t always get things right.’
‘I think it was beneficial. CG, seeing his brother who was getting frustrated about not managing to do something, told him it was OK to make mistakes and that it made him learn things! So he can spot the situations when it's easier to give up but now knows to keep trying.’
‘Although MW wasn’t able to participate in the whole project …I still feel it was valuable and MW was able to grasp the core principals. Allowing MW to understand that mistakes can lead to growth and be part of problem solving is a really important life lesson. At points in the past he has shown frustration if his results weren’t as good as he’d have liked. I feel participating in this has enabled him to have an alternative, more rounded perspective.’
We also asked parents of the children’s feelings about mistakes or tackling tricky problems changed at all and we got the following responses:
‘Yes, more positive about trying new things and when he makes mistakes.’
‘Yes. MM gets easily frustrated and put off in situations where things don’t come easily, so this is a good learning experience to support his personal stretch and growth.’
‘’Yes, MT definitely realised it was easier second time round to make the dough and to build the bridge even though it was different. He talks about his brain thinking and his brain learning.’
‘Not sure yet but would like to think it will for the better. She seemed to grasp the concept.’
‘I think it has changed slightly but we'll need to reinforce it regularly.’
‘Yes…I think MW feels as though mistakes are part of a bigger process and no longer feels as disheartened by them.’
Professional dialogue with colleagues, has highlighted the continuity and additional time for reflection that was offered by the children completing their daily journal, as one of the most beneficial aspects of the project. By giving the children time to digest what they have been thinking about and then revisit the ideas/experiences later with their parent/carer, they were able to develop a deeper understanding of the concepts. For some of the children, they were also more comfortable having those conversations at home and were able to be honest about how they felt their day had gone.
Colleagues also highlighted the ability to be flexible and responsive to children during the project as another important aspect. Changing the project plan to allow time to revisit some of the learning challenges and letting the children take on board what they had learned during the first attempt, turned out to be one of the most valuable aspects of the project. This cemented the children’s understanding of using mistakes as an opportunity to learn.
On reflection, it would have been useful to have a meeting with the families involved at the project outset, to give them a basic understanding of the principles of growth mindset, what the journal would entail and to identify useful language. In the future, we think it would be beneficial for all our nursery families to be offered a growth mindset workshop where they could learn the basic principles.
We want to create a growth mindset community in our school, where children (and staff) embrace challenge, learn from their mistakes and demonstrate resilience. Our growth mindset team will lead a staff meeting to share some of the important things that we have learned through the project and the Mindset course. This will, hopefully, develop staff understanding and belief in growth mindset and the impact it can have in the classroom. We will share the impact of each of our projects and the lessons that we learned along the way. We will create a shared drive of resources which staff can be signposted to, as well as, identifying useful books that can be used to support mindset lessons.
Our role as mindset champions will be to support staff and listen to them if they have any concerns or questions relating to planning and conducting their own growth mindset project. We hope that many staff will be inspired to incorporate a growth mindset ethos into their classrooms during this academic year, however, our aim is to build this into our School Improvement Plan for next year.