Building a growth mindset at King

Sometimes as adults we can spend too much time focusing on “wins” and “losses.” This is true in education as well.

Many times as educators we focus so much on our percentage of proficient students that we forget to celebrate the other types of “wins” occuring at our schools in terms of academic growth. At King, we focus on both proficiency and growth allowing not only a celebration of our proficient students but also the growth that students achieve on their way to proficiency.

One of the first things that we tell students at King is that it doesn’t matter where you start, it matters where you finish. This is the growth mindset that we are trying to instill in our students.

This week we will kick off our Winter MAP Assessment. This is a state assessment given three times a year in reading and math that allows schools to track both proficiency and growth. With the help of our friends at Boulder Dam Credit Union we are celebrating student growth in a big way. Thanks to our partnership with Boulder Dam Credit Union we are offering students who meet their projected growth goal a BDCU Gift Card in the amount of $5.

Leading up to the MAP Assessment teachers met with their students to set a goal for their score on the upcoming test. This goal-setting process is key to developing a growth mindset as it empowers students by providing them with the knowledge of how they can reach a greater level of growth and proficiency. During that goal setting meeting teachers discuss strategies of how students can improve their scores by focusing on particular skills or standards where they were weak on the previous MAP assessment.

Students are then assigned activities to help them grow in those identified areas. This allows us to make the entire teaching process much more individual to each student. With the help of a growth mindset we continue to see increases in proficiency as small gains turn into larger “wins” for the entire school.

We want to thank our friends at Boulder Dam Credit Union for supporting us as we celebrate both growth and achievement at King.