.This past year I had a student who always said, “Mrs. Van Blair, I am no good at math.” I am positive that you can relate. Why? Because every year I have a student who believes that math skills come naturally and are not developed. The danger with this thinking is that these unchallenged thoughts become personal beliefs. Our students will carry these thoughts with them throughout their entire lives.

Want to know something scarier? When they become parents and their child struggles in math, that parent will say. “You’re just like me. We aren’t good at math.” So, what can we do foster a math growth mindset in our students?

How do your respond to a fixed math mindset?

Thinking back to my student this past year, I would always take out my white board pen and write an addition problem on her desk and walk away.  She knew what to do. We had done this so many times in the two months and I responded the same way each and every time. 

I would walk around the room and help other students, and then come back and see that she had solved it accurately.

“Thought you said you were not good at math?” I would reply, “What’s this?”

“Mrs. Van Blair, this is easy math,” she would say back to me.

“See, you are good at math, but there are some holes in your boat that are making it difficult for you to stay afloat. It’s hard to do multiplication with decimals when you don’t have a strategy to find the answer to basic multiplication facts, or how to multiply multi-digit numbers together. We need to work on developing a growth math mindset”

The problem this student had was not that she wasn’t good at math, she was just missing some skills. She equated her lack of skills to her ability to solve math problems. She saw her ability as something she could not change, but as fixed.

What if you don’t challenge this thinking?

Here’s the real heartbreaking part of this situation. She had stunted her math growth mindset because of these struggles. Her lack of understanding was now equated to her ability to understand math. You can read more about this situation here.

I know so many of you can relate because you have told me that YOU have students that are below level. You said that you need to invest time developing previous grade level skills so that your students can understand the content in your classroom.

But, aren’t we to blame?

How many of us focus on student success, especially those students that demonstrate mastery with either perfect or near perfect scores?

I know I have fallen into that trap again. It’s been difficult to realize that the teacher I was five years ago was actually better than I am today. Why? Because I focused on developing growth math mindsets over perfection or overall mastery.

Change Starts With Us

I lost that thought process somewhere along the way which is why I believe I was a better teacher then. I am so glad that in the process of reflecting on my teaching year, I came to see that I know what good teaching looks like. One of my goals going into every school year is to break down the barriers to student achievement, and one of those barriers is me. My thinking that success is 70% or higher on a summative assessment is preventing me from helping my students develop confidence and math growth mindsets.

If I am measuring their growth on reaching an end of unit benchmark instead of focusing on how much my students grew, then I am reinforcing these thoughts that they are not good at math. I have to change MY mindset so that they can change their own.

I reflect on this every time I clip into my Peloton and do a power zone ride through the Build Your Power Zones Program. This program begins with a pre-assessment of your Functional Threshold Power (FTP), or total output of power based on how fast you pedal and how much resistance there is on the bike. After you know your level, you launch into a 5 week training program that trains you below, at, and above your current level. After the 5 weeks, you test again to measure your growth.

I recently took the test for a third time and have improved my FTP 29 points in the 10 weeks between the first and third test. I am improving. Did I score 100% on that benchmark? NO, I am similar to one of my students who grew from 6% mastery to 31%. I am proud of that growth and celebrate it.

Without this program, I wouldn’t know how to move from where I am to where I want to be. We need to do the same in our classroom and help our students set goals, measure success, and celebrate growth over perfection. 

How does this translate to a growth math mindset in my classroom?

Here are the practices that I use in my classroom to transform my students’ fixed mindsets to growth math mindsets:

1. Pre-assessing students on previous grade level content so that they can set goals and measure growth over time (and so you can plan instructional levels)
2. Differentiating instruction so that students can work within their challenge zones, knowing that it is important to train below their comfort zone and above it as well
3.  Building consistent strategies and procedures to scaffold understanding.
4. Celebrating growth rather than perfection and helping students see that as success.
5. Conduct routine check-ins on student progress developing a math growth mindset. 

In doing so, I know that I will begin to help my students BELIEVE that they are in fact GOOD at math.

How are you fostering a growth math mindset in your students? Share in the comments below. Not sure how to start? Get started by downloading this FREE differentiated instruction guide.