Carol Dweck’s famous book, “Mindset”, was one that was (is) hugely popular with educators, not only in helping shape their work and thoughts on students, but also pushing learning in educator with their peers. There were two simple concepts shared that resonated with many readers; the “fixed” mindset and the “growth” mindset.
Here is how the two differ according to Dweck:
“In a fixed mindset students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits. They have a certain amount and that’s that, and then their goal becomes to look smart all the time and never look dumb. In a growth mindset students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching and persistence. They don’t necessarily think everyone’s the same or anyone can be Einstein, but they believe everyone can get smarter if they work at it.”
The great thing about Dweck’s work is that she found that you can move from one to the other. You may have a fixed mindset, but it is not necessarily a permanent thing. The other aspect is that you do not necessarily have a “fixed” or “growth” mindset and fall into one of those two categories in all elements. I have a growth mindset on (most things) education, but have a fixed mindset on fixing things around my house.
So what I have been thinking about lately is the notion of the “innovator’s mindset”. This would actually go one step past the notion of a growth mindset and is looking at what you are creating with your learning. SImply it would go look this:
Fixed Mindset –> Growth Mindset –> Innovator Mindset
The “Innovator Mindset” looks at all of their learning (in any given area), and they look at what ideas can come out of this. It is not simply about being open to growth, but focusing on what new knowledge you can create with that growth. If I think about how this “Innovator’s Mindset” would work with students, it would always start with the question, “what is best for this student?” Because of your willingness to learn and have a growth mindset, you would be able to take that knowledge and implement or create something for that student. You would try different ideas and create different things to help that child to be successful. No matter the area, the innovator’s mindset would always start with a question, and then from what you know, creating either a singular or myriad of solutions.
I am not sure if this is something that has already been said or shared, but I think it is important to look at how many educators have adopted that “growth” mindset and have learned so much from it. What we have to develop next is what people do with all of this new knowledge to help their students.
Update
(Here is a picture I put remixed with the idea of the “Innovator’s Mindset”)