Encouraging Students to have a Growth Mindset

Brain bucks are a classroom incentive to encourage students to have a growth mindset which can help students to be more resilient and successful learners.

Hi Friend!

Growth mindset is surely one of the biggest trends in education right now, but I think it’s fair to say that the the impact it’s making in our classrooms is more than just a buzzword.

When students believe that dedication and hard work can change their performance in school, they grow to become more resilient, successful learners.

From a young age, it is essential for us to teach our students that their intelligence can be grown or developed with persistence, effort, and a focus on learning.🧠#GrowYourBrain

To keep students persevering through the challenges faced in the growth-minded classroom, we must consistently provide them with feedback along the way.

But as I shared in this recent blog post the feedback we give must be focused on the process not the person in order for it to be effective. Process praise acknowledges the student’s effort, strategies, or actions that contributed to the success of the task, whereas person praise focuses on the student’s individual qualities and traits, such as intelligence.

If your students are like mine, they may not be responding as enthusiastically to your praise as you would hope. It’s the middle of the year, they’ve gotten comfortable, and maybe you need a new #teachertrick to keep those undesired behaviors from popping up.

If this sounds familiar then I know you and your students will love this 🧠Brain Bucks🧠freebie.

Brain Bucks can be used as a positive incentive to reward your students for growing their brains!

They can earn them for things like:

Persisting through challenges
Being open to critique given by others
Setting goals and making progress toward them
Welcoming and embracing challenges
Not being ashamed when making a mistake
Trying new strategies after a failure

Here is the magic —> as you pass out Brain Bucks it becomes another opportunity for all your students to hear process praise. They will be reminded of growth-minded characteristics via a peer! (obviously the child who earns the brain buck will do a happy dance too! 💃🕺)

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Students can save up their Brain Bucks to earn a special prize or reward. The possibilities are endless in the ways that you choose to celebrate them (treasure box trinkets, lunch with the teacher, bring a stuffed animal to school…). Or they can simply take their Brain Bucks home with a hand written note from you on the back.

Building a growth-minded classroom requires persistence and consistency on our behalf. There are times when, despite our best efforts, our students may lose interest or need extra motivation to show growth-minded behaviors. I hope that the use of Brain Bucks in your classroom will be an easy and fun way to reinvigorate your students’ desires to grow their brains!