Fixed Mindset can be detrimental in a learner’s progress. “I don’t have it in me” or “I can’t do it” or other such jeopardizing beliefs can be very harmful. It is very important to encourage or incorporate growth mindset messages into chess lectures. In fact, changing a student’s mindset itself can help them to boost their game performance. Let’s see six simple ways to cultivate growth mindsets to our students.
Here are few among the many important ways trainers can nurture a growth mindset among students:
1.Positions with errors: Engaging them with a set of worked out problems that have output errors or step wise errors are a good strategy. This gives them a chance to think out of the box to find out what went wrong and they would come up with better solutions. Giving them such chances to think critically would foster a growth mindset when approaching the subject.
2.Solve positions independently: In most of the chess classes, the usual practice is demonstrating the way of solving a problem at first and asking the students to solve a similar problem with different variables. This gives them minimal chances for thinking more about the problem solving as they just replicate what you demonstrated at first. Change your approach to the subject and give them chances to solve the problems independently and then correct their mistakes if any.
3.Productive feedback: Human brains are programmed to pay more attention to the negative signals. So it is important to give them feedback in the most positive way to help the students to get a growth mindset. A productive feedback with constructive criticism can play the trick rather than pointing out their mistakes in an unfriendly way that causes them to fear the subject.
4.Prepare every student: When we talk about growth mindset, the main target is on students who are performing weak. In fact, equal importance should be given on students who excel now also. This is important to help them perform better every time than living with a mindset that they are masters of the subject. Give them chances to struggle with the subject with some difficult problems and let them face failures once in a while. This works better than facing failure in crucial tournament games.
5.Value the learning process: Trainer should convey the message very clearly to the students that grades and ranks are not just the mere motive behind learning. Or else the self perceptions of aptitude injects them a fixed mindset. So it is important to make them understand that the learning process should be valued more than the success achieved temporarily. Prioritizing the learning process over results boost their growth mindset.
6.Praise student’s efforts: It is not advisable to praise the intelligence part of a student in their success. Trainer should actually praise their effort on the way to their success. If intelligence is praised over effort, students would lack self motivation in case of a failure in future and they easily get depressed causing repeated failures. But if their effort is praised instead, they would continue to make efforts despite the success or failure
Written by Priyadharshan
