Back to School Growth Mindset Activities

Back to school growth mindset activities can help your students tremendously at the start of the year...and frankly, throughout the year. Back to school can be a difficult time for students, but growth mindset activities can build persistence and perseverance!

Look, there is a key difference in students who persist compared to students who give up. And that difference is in their mindset. Fixed mindset vs. growth mindset.

In this post, I will show you activities that will create a growth mindset in students.

In this post

• What is growth mindset and why is it important?
• growth mindset question stems
• back to school ideas
• impact on learning
• benefits to students
• teaching tips
• growth mindset activity bundle

What is a Growth Mindset and Why is it Important?

Growth mindset is the belief that intelligence and abilities can be developed through hard work and effort. When students have a growth mindset, they are more likely to persist in the face of challenges, take risks, and learn from their mistakes.

Growth Mindset for Back to School

Back to school requires a focus on teaching and re-teaching behavior expectations. In older grades, you have to teach class norms and routines...not so much behavior.

Either way, the prerequisite for a growth mindset in students are valuable relationships - the ability of the teacher to exhibit empathy.

For more on behavior, read The Ultimate Classroom Management Checklist.

Without empathy and relationships, many students will likely experience the following effects:

• Feel disconnected
• Misinterpret feedback with personal criticism
• Generate beliefs of "I'm not smart enough" or "I'm just not good at __"

These effects are detrimental to a student's mindset and often results in a fixed mindset.

On the other hand, empathy allows a teacher to establish positive relationships with students that sends the message:

• You have value regardless of your score.
• You can learn, with enough effort and determination.
• I am here to help you with this.

As the year moves on, you seek to motivate and encourage students through challenges and failures. If you are successful in educating the whole student, you can shape mindsets.

Check out this monthly activity handbook.

A growth mindset will help students to view themselves as learners, doers, and hard workers.

Back to school is the perfect time to initiate this mindset! You have students' attention and there's a sense of a fresh start.

I will share growth mindset activities in a moment, but first why is a growth mindset important to learning?

Related Reading:

• Back to School Teaching Ideas
• Middle School Strategies for Habits of Mind
• Growth Mindset Activities Bundle [updated]

How Growth Mindset Benefits Students

Students who are taught the messages just mentioned in the list above have the opportunity to think differently and those thoughts can lead to effort.

These same messages are heard by successful students often. It’s what successful students find in their parents, teachers, and mentors. There’s a constant messaging that you can – if you work for it.

It primes the brain for learning.

It’s not just self-esteem or cheer-leading. It’s more than that.

A growth mindset helps students because they need less praise and attention. They realize their effort determines their outcome. A growth mindset instills the belief that basic ability can improve through hard work and determination.

It is an empowering mindset that actually produces real results.

Growth Mindset Teaching Tips

1. Be careful with praise. Praise can have hidden message that overlook the importance of the growing process. Think of affirming action more than praising attributes.
2. Create growth imagery. Use visuals to represent pride and hard work.
3. Smart is not learning. Use students that affirm effort and learning. Not just saying, “You’re so smart!”
4. Ability is not learning. When telling students they have ability, some students hear, “If I have ability, why didn’t I get an A?” Instead affirm the skills that students have mastered and show the next steps needed to grow more.

Back to School Growth Mindset Activities

You can use many common classroom activities to help student develop a growth mindset:

1. Goal-Setting tied to Learning (not just performance, grades)
2. Tracking Progress
3. Reflecting on how Effort Impacted Progress
4. Celebrating Success on Learning Goals
5. Celebrating Progress on Learning Goals

Those are really general activities, but here some specific teaching ideas for you:

1. Read aloud Your Fantastic Elastic Brain.
2. Read aloud The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes.
3. Share a video like this one from TPT, and then have students create a t-chart contrasting a fixed mindset vs. a growth mindset.
4. Ask “What did you do that made you think hard?”
5. Ask “What are you trying hard at tomorrow?”
6. Ask “What can you learn from this?”
7. Ask “What different strategy will you try next?”
8. Ask “What keeps you going when things are tough?”
9. Ask “What is your most recent mistake?”
10. Ask “What did you learn from that mistake?”
11. Create back to school growth billboards like these.
12. Hand your own growth mindset quotes such as these, and ask students to create their own sayings for their desks.