Carol Dweck Brainology

803 Words2 Pages

One of the world’s leading researchers in the field of motivation, Carol Dweck, might have come up with the answer to what motivates young minds. “Brainology” suggests that there are two types of mindsets, a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. She conducts many tests around the country and comes up with the same results. Having a growth mindset and realizing that intelligence can be developed is better than having a fixed one where a child thinks they are born with intelligence. After reading this paper, you should have a better understanding of Dweck’s research, the different mindsets, and be able to form an opinion on which one you agree with. Dweck, a professor at Stanford joined forces with her graduate students and they begin to research 7th graders around the nation to see what …show more content…

As soon as the questions got harder, the confidence and enjoyment in the student went down. These students could not get out of the “fixed” mindset that they were smart and did not want to come down from that. They also started to lie about the results of their test. The exact opposite happened for the growth mindset kids, they were more eager to learn, showed signs of more confidence, and actually started to score higher on tests than the intelligence praised kids did. In Dweck’s article she is able to list several examples on how to praise children to give them more of a growth mind set versus a fixed. Examples like, “It was a hard project, but you did it one step at a time and it turned out great!” “I like how you chose the tough problems to solve. You’re really going to stretch yourself and learn new things” (Dweck, p. 3)She was able to test Brainology in 20 New York City schools and not only did the teachers love it but so did the students. The teachers reported that their students became “more active and eager learners” (Dweck, p.

Open Document