Tips for Adopting the Student Growth Mindset Model for Community Coalitions

Posted on November 16, 2022

At Pride Surveys, our mission is driven by our commitment to work with our community partners and education coalitions to provide data, research, and resources surrounding and focusing on the issues affecting today’s youth and adolescents. This month, we are focusing on the importance of community coalitions adopting a student growth mindset model.

When community coalitions adopt pieces of the student growth mindset model, it helps them be more effective and successful. Students with a growth mindset believe that ability can change due to effort, practice, and perseverance. The “growth mindset” is increasingly common in many schools, both elementary and university and beyond, but understanding it and effectively building it into student or community coalition mindsets is the challenge.

Though it may seem clear why a growth mindset helps students understand the values of effort, persistence, and trying new methods to cultivate their talents and abilities, we’ve taken it a step further to incorporate why adopting it for community coalitions could be effective for students. In this instance, we’re looking at a coalition defined as “an alliance of individuals and/or organizations working together to achieve a common purpose to address the needs and concerns of a particular community.”

Here are tips to encourage a student growth mindset:

Encourage Building Community in Student Classrooms

Much academic growth mindset research shows the importance of feeling supported by peers or those with whom one interacts daily. Due to this, one strategy for promoting student growth mindsets in community coalitions is to prompt building community in the school and the classroom. Doing so involves cultivating a culture of cooperation rather than competition among the coalition participants and a culture of respect and inclusion for everyone, with an encouraging belief that everyone is doing their best.

Provide Mentoring for Students

In any coalition in which students are either involved or participating, an extension of the community-building effort is mentoring, which provides an opportunity for individualized experiences and networking among various parties, including students, faculty, parents, and/or the broader community.

Emphasize the Value of Challenges

Explaining the natural benefits of overcoming obstacles often helps students develop a growth mindset. Teaching about the effect on the brain when adolescents push through their comfort zones to grasp complex concepts or try new things is also effective. The neurons forming stronger connections have proven to lead to improved intelligence over time. Simply showing the massive benefits of building a growth mindset will likely positively affect students and any student-led coalitions in which they are participating.

Introduce Goal-Based Journaling

Journaling has long proven to serve different purposes in life, including encouraging students to build a growth mindset through goal setting. Whether an individual student is participating in a community coalition effort or a student-led community coalition, students should set goals for themselves and then use them to discuss and weigh their progression. No matter the goal, whether it be individual or collective, students should follow the SMART method in the growth mindset, which follows:

Specific
Measurable
Attainable and Agreed-Upon
Realistic
Time-Based

When they meet their goals, they better understand that growth is possible and attainable, thus feeding into the growth mindset.

Keep Success Folders

Adding onto the journals, it’s recommended that students keep some success folders to remember and celebrate their progress and achievements. Success folders are an excellent means for providing first-hand evidence of growth.

If you would like more information on community coalitions or helping your students and communities adopt a student growth mindset, please reach out to the Pride Surveys team. We offer a range of options to fit many needs.