Muskan Rekhani

Title: How to Grow your Growth Mindset

Started June 17, 2022

Abstract or project description

Growth mindset is the concept that intelligence and abilities are not fixed traits, but they are something that can be grown through running towards difficulty and challenging yourself. In her work, Carol Dweck, a Stanford University psychologist and the founder of the concept of growth mindset, has shown that growth mindset is applicable to a variety of contexts, such as school, work, sport, and arts. Growth mindset has been extensively explored in laboratory contents, for example through games, stories, lectures, and workshops. However, these materials often never leave the lab setting and are not created with the purpose of use in the real world. Given the known value of developing a growth mindset, there is a need to create research-backed stories, games, and other materials that can be used in children’s day-to-day lives. The creation of these materials also provides the opportunity to weave in concepts related to growth mindset. For example, cultural intelligence is the measure of a person’s ability to adapt to settings with people from different cultures to be able to communicate and collaborate efficiently with one another.

For this project, I will create a book full of stories utilizing metaphors about growth mindset to help children develop their own growth mindset and therefore improve outcomes in their life. The final stories have not been decided yet, but a possible story would be a child challenging themselves throughout the span of a week and as he or she challenges themselves something grows (e.g., plant, height, muscles) to represent the growth of their growth mindset as well as their cultural intelligence. I will also create an accompanying one pager about the research motivating these stories as well as a lesson plan with potential discussion questions for teachers to discuss with their students. The ultimate goal for this project is the use of these stories in schools.