MATHS

GROWTH MINDSET IN MATHS

Over the last couple of weeks, the year 8 and 9 students at East campus have been exploring the idea of a ‘growth mindset in Maths’. A growth mindset is where you believe that your abilities and intelligence grows through hard work and learning, while a fixed mindset thinks that qualities you are born with determines your capacity to achieve in school and elsewhere and you cannot change this.

The students were asked to give statements on how they feel about maths now. They took part in 5 sessions around how the brain grows and changes, how mistakes develop our thinking and then looked at famous failures and how those successful people bounced back again.

There was a powerful session discussing the misconception of being ‘born with a math’s brain’. Students gave their opinion on “some people are born with a maths brain”. They stood at four corners of the room- Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly Disagree. They then  discussed with peers the reasons for their choice. 

Afterwards, they watched a short video on the science behind the brain growing and changing. This produced many conversations and challenged some of the student’s initial ideas and position.

We will be continuing the work on a growth mindset to allow our amazing McKinnon students to reach above and beyond their current skills and knowledge to become the best version of themselves.

Year 8 and 9 Mathematics Department