Developing Growth Mindsets: Principles and Practices for Maximizing Students' Potential

Human beings have tremendous potential to acquire new knowledge, develop new skills, and improve their brains throughout life. By explicitly teaching learners about brain plasticity and malleable intelligence (the idea that they can become functionally smarter through effort) and by modeling and teaching specific learning strategies, teachers can help students experience higher levels of success as they develop a growth mindset.

Discovering that learning changes their brains helps students d...