Beyond Content: Strategies for Fostering Effective “Learning Mindsets” Among Students

This web site explains “learning mindsets” as powerful determinants of:

• How individuals approach learning situations
• How they act as learners in the midst of learning situations
• What ultimately they take away from a learning situation

Seen from this perspective, faculty don’t just support student mastery of discipline-based content, but influence — whether purposefully or not…and for better or worse! — the learning mindsets that their students practice and come to develop over time. These learning mindsets, in turn, influence, more or less effectively, the kind of lifelong learners RIT graduates become.

This website presents:

• A brief explication and some guiding assumptions about learning mindsets
• A link to an article providing an in-depth orientation to the concept of learning mindsets, with supporting research
• The output of a Faculty Discussion Series sponsored by Teaching & Learning Services, including a sampling of instructional strategies used by faculty of various disciplines throughout RIT to foster effective learning mindsets in their students

Introduction

The disciplines we teach — the content areas we expect our students to master — often become barriers among faculty at RIT. Even though we all share the role of teacher and hold a deep commitment to supporting studentlearning, our specializations and academic preparation can easily cause us, as a group, to develop very different approaches to teaching, whether that group means faculty throughout campus, members of our own department, or our colleagues next door.

The premise of learning mindsets is simple: whether we teach textiles or engineering, English or ASL, genetics or philosophy, our instructional goals for students encompass not only helping students master the content of our particular disciplines, but also helping students practice and develop skills and attitudes that will enable them to become more effective learners.

This notion of faculty helping students become more effective learners in ways that will help them succeed not only in our courses but in their careers and lives beyond RIT is captured here as faculty helping students develop more effective "Learning Mindsets".

A Learning Mindset refers to an individual’s basic orientation towards the act of learning. It is an attribute more fundamental than whether a person is a "visual" or "tactile" learner, what kind of study techniques a person uses when reading an assigned chapter, or the well-honed nature (or not!) of a person’s time management skills (see Dweck and Sorich, 1999).

Aspects of a person’s Learning Mindset include:

• The attitudes, values, and motivations a person demonstrates about learning
• How a person understands the role of learner
• How a person views challenges and deals with adversity in learning situations
• Whether a person views "intelligence" as an entity that is relatively fixed, or a capacity that can be incrementally developed
• The overall meaning of learning in a person’s life

Assumptions about Learning Mindsets

The content presented here makes these assumptions about Learning Mindsets:

One PerspectiveOne way to look at more vs. less effective Learning Mindsets is through the prism of "mastery-oriented" learning vs. "helpless-oriented" learning*.

*from Dweck and Sorich, 1999.

During the 2006-07 academic year, Susan Donovan, Marie Giardino, Jeff Porter, Sid Roepke, and John Weas conducted a four-part discussion series, "It’s Not What You’re Teaching… It’s What They’re Learning,” sponsored by Teaching and Learning Services. The series included twenty-two faculty and staff participants from colleges and programs throughout RIT.

The series focused on the concept of Learning Mindsets and instructional strategies for fostering those Learning Mindset characteristics that teachers view as desirable, and produced these results:

Ideal Learning Mindset Characteristics

Faculty identified these characteristics and indicative behaviors as demonstrating ideal Learning Mindsets.

Real Learning Mindset Characteristics

Faculty identified these characteristics of positive and negative learning mindsets from their own experiences.

Classroom Strategies

During the workshop, faculty identified classroom strategies that support the development of positive learning mindsets in students.

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