July 31, 2025 • 42 mins
Almost 20 years ago, Carol Dweck's work on mindsets set the education world ablaze. Not long after that, the field started using Dweck's work in some helpful and not-so-helpful ways.
In this episode, Zac and Stephanie sit down with Cathy Williams of Stanford University's You Cubed to talk about the impact of growth and fixed mindset and how people learn better when they believe they can...well, learn.
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Episode Transcript
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Zac (00:00):
Hi, I'm Zac Chase.
Stephanie (00:02):
And I'm Stephanie Melville.
Zac (00:04):
And this is Academic Distinctions.
Stephanie (00:06):
In 2006, a researcher named Carol Dweck published a
book that would soon be on theshelves in e-readers of
educators across the world whowere dedicated to getting
students to learn.
The book?
Mindset, The New Psychology ofSuccess.
It's got a ring to it, doesn'tit?
Zac (00:22):
It does.
In her book, Dweck highlightedan important idea, something the
research was telling her andher colleagues could make the
difference in moving learnersfrom not learning to, well,
learning.
Stephanie (00:33):
Dweck, it won't surprise you to learn, called
this factor growth mindset.
Zac (00:37):
Growth mindset stands across the room and makes
self-satisfied faces at its eviltwin, fixed mindset.
Stephanie (00:44):
At its core, growth mindset is the belief that even
if we can't do something ordon't know something now, we
have the capacity to do or learnthat thing in the future.
Zac (00:53):
It's the difference between I can't do a somersault and I
can't do a somersault yet.
Stephanie (01:00):
Not long after Dweck's work was published, it
started getting misused.
Zac (01:04):
This is the way.
Stephanie (01:05):
Folks mistakenly thought all students needed was
a yet at the end of theirsentences to make progress in
school.
Zac (01:12):
And yets are powerful things, but they aren't
necessarily more powerful thanshowing up to school hungry or
living in poverty orhomelessness or having a
disability in a class where youreceive insufficient
accommodations or you get thepicture.
Yets are not silver bullets,and Dweck never said they were.
Stephanie (01:32):
So in today's episode, we're taking a look at
growth mindset as it standstoday and trying to pull apart
what we might know now almost 20years after Dweck's book was
published and how we can usethat new understanding to help
students learn.
Zac (01:52):
So
Stephanie (01:59):
All right, we are here today with Kathy Williams,
co-founder and executivedirector of U-Cubed, which is
Joe Bowler's research centerthrough Stanford University,
where Kathy develops content andprofessional development.
She's an author and math edtech advisor and generally all
around great human formathematics education.
Kathy, welcome to the show.
Oh,
Cathy (02:18):
thank you, Stephanie.
Thanks, Zac.
It's good to be here.
Zac (02:21):
Kathy.
This episode, we're trying tounpack the idea around growth
mindset.
You have done quite a bit ofwork in this area.
Can you give us a little bit ofan overview of kind of how you
came to think about growthmindset in particular and how
you see it intersecting withmath education?
Cathy (02:38):
I think I was messing with growth mindset before I
knew it was something.
Because early on, I waschallenged.
I was a teacher.
I went through my applied mathdegree, and at times I felt
inferior for whatever reasons.
(03:01):
And then in my time ofteaching, other teachers were
faster than I was at figuringthings out, and I kind of...
would shrink away from that.
And yet I would say, you know,try to build myself up again.
And so I think I was always,and then I'd see my students
(03:21):
that were really goodmathematically, but they'd be
put in the lowest classes that Idid as a new teacher.
So I think I was playing withthese ideas of what's going on
without knowing that there wasthis thing called mindset.
So I first learned about itformally.
Carol Dweck came out with thebook, I believe around 2006.
(03:42):
And then the chatter started.
I was at the county officesystem in that time.
There was a lot of chatterabout it.
And I started thinking about itmore and started realizing
these times that I really feltinferior.
A wall was going up and I wasblocking myself.
Something was blocked inside ofme.
Zac (04:01):
It's interesting you talk about Dweck's book because I
think that for a lot of people,it hit them as like, oh, this is
research to support this ideathat I've kind of intuited as
true about my students.
And then I think it also helpedmany educators, myself
included, make sure that we arelooking at our students in ways
that are also true.
(04:21):
attuned to a growth mindset,right?
So it not just this is true,like, even that mindset is not
immutable, right?
So it's not that I don't have agrowth mindset.
And Stephanie does have agrowth mindset.
It's this idea of like, Oh, asa teacher, I need to have a
growth mindset.
And in the right, so thatthere's that piece.
And I, yeah, I think that whenI encountered Dweck's work,
(04:42):
first, that was, that was thesame thing was just like, okay,
yeah, those are words to help meunderstand this thing that I've
kind of been playing with in myown practice as well.
Stephanie (04:54):
To name it, right?
Zac (04:55):
Yes, to name it, yeah.
What are other things you seein your work connecting math
education and growth mindsetwith some common practices that
maybe are important in matheducation and but you could
probably see like in theexecutive suite or kind of in an
office as well.
It's like, what are some waysyou hope students and people in
(05:15):
general are talking aboutthemselves?
Cathy (05:18):
Mindset, you know, the word is out there all over the
place now.
You know, if you're listeningto a sports broadcast, you hear
mindset, you hear, you know, I'mwaiting, you know, we have
smart water.
I'm waiting for mindset waterto come up.
Maybe I should just put it onmy water bottle and get a
sticker, mindset sticker.
Zac (05:35):
I'm sure you should get, you could get some really good
Good VC money on that one too.
I think you'd
Cathy (05:39):
get millions.
Right.
You know, I think, so the termis in our minds.
We're thinking about it.
But to me, it's kind of like aflow and it's an
internalization.
So in the office, we may nottalk about mindset, but you
know, somebody says, oh, well,let's try this.
And it's just this It's areally great idea, but you
(06:01):
recognize how hard it's going tobe.
And so you all sit down and youroll up your sleeves and
everybody comes into it with anattitude of, yeah, we're going
to figure this out.
We're going to persevere.
We're going to take this on andwe're going to do what we can
to move along this goal ofgetting there.
Stephanie (06:20):
It's a belief.
How do you pull apart thedifference between growth
mindset and grit, for example?
I guess what is growth mindsetversus what isn't growth
mindset?
Cathy (06:34):
You know, growth mindset, and I think about it today, you
know, and it goes across allthings.
I can have a really good momentin growth mindset with
mathematics and a reallyhorrible one with having to
write a piece of a grant, right?
I'm kind of a writing phobicand, uh, I'm working on that.
(06:56):
I'm working on my mindset forwriting.
So I think as we sit and welook at, at mindset, it's, it,
I'm going to go back again.
It's, it's that internalizedfeeling.
It's that belief that I can.
And grit is a piece where I'm aformer competitive athlete, uh,
(07:18):
Really, you know, athletics isa big passion of mine.
I see it in athletics, right?
In the Wimbledon final for themen, you know, we have a player
that talks about, you know, kindof went into a lull and just
really worked, worked, worked,worked, worked to come back to
the top tier.
And to me, that's grit.
You just take this uber focusand you just go, right?
(07:43):
And, um, I remember that atdifferent times in my life, um,
as an athlete and, and maybesomebody does that in
mathematics.
They just totally focus in thisworld of mathematics and they
go and they work and they workand they work and they work.
Mindset is to me is this beliefthat I could, I can do, I can
(08:04):
do it.
I can do it.
If I'm going to put the time toit, I can do it.
So, um, I don't see them.
I see them together in the samebucket, but I see them
differently.
Zac (08:15):
So you're saying what I'm hearing is mindset is the
belief.
And then great is kind of theperseverance and determination
piece.
Cathy (08:23):
You know, it's this high level of hard work and focus of
practice, practice, practice,practice.
And you just get really, reallyobsessed.
And I don't mean that in a badway.
You just get targeted at work.
And yeah, And you focus tospecialize in this one thing.
(08:43):
I think mindset goes acrosseverything, whether it be fixed
or growth.
And I see it kind of fluidly asa flow.
There's times I can get reallyfixed inside of mathematics, I
think.
And then I, as I have hadgrowth mindset, I pull myself
out of it.
Zac (09:03):
It's interesting.
Yeah.
Because I remember not longafter kind of Dweck released her
book and it became like highlyadopted and Dweck wasn't talking
about grit necessarily.
Right.
That came from from otherspaces.
And so then schools very muchseized on this.
Right.
Like we have to have a growthmindset and we have our kids
need to be gritty, which justsounds horrible.
(09:24):
If you've ever been to a beach,I don't think that's the thing
you want.
And then I think what wasimportant is the conversation
became more complex when folksentered in these ideas.
Right.
Right.
(09:55):
And so it's not an, and so thiskind of like, yeah, we want our
students to be able topersevere.
We want them to believe thatthey can do these things.
And we need to do this work ofdismantling, you know, systems
that have inherently limitedopportunities for, for folks.
And it's interesting because Ihear that in some of what you're
saying about your experience asa math teacher, right?
(10:16):
Is that the system slottedthose students into the lowest
math classes, even though thosestudents maybe had a growth
mindset or those students hadthe perseverance.
The system said, oh, because ofthis whatever factor, we're
going to move you here.
Yeah.
And so I think that for me isthe most interesting
(10:36):
complication.
It's not bootstraps.
Um, right.
Cause we keep, we hear allthat, like pull yourself up by
your bootstraps, get this thingdone.
And there's just sometimeswhere it's like, yeah, but it
should probably be a little biteasier.
I'm thinking about curling.
Have you ever watched curling?
Cathy (10:52):
Oh, I love curling.
Right.
So they push the
Zac (10:54):
stone and that stone has friction and it's got to keep
moving.
And, and what are the peopleahead of the stone do like
they're brushing right there.
And so it's this, like thestone's got to persevere.
It's got to believe it can getthere.
I know it's an inanimateobject.
Go with me on this metaphor.
Um, But still, it is somebody'sjob to clear that path, to say,
this stone's going to do thework, and we're going to work
(11:16):
ahead of it to try to make thata little bit easier.
That's how I think this livesin my brain.
Cathy (11:21):
Yeah.
And I think grit's great.
But when I think of grit, Ithink of you're just going hard
on something.
You are going to– master thispiano thing.
You are practicing, practicing,practicing.
How do you be gritty abouteverything?
Right.
(11:41):
Exhausted, right?
I think about those studentsthat take all these different
APs at once and they're tryingto be masters of the content.
And of course they are.
They're high achieving kids.
You know, they're working sohard.
I think mindset is, you know, Ihope they have that because,
you know, that goes acrosseverything to me.
Stephanie (12:02):
Yeah.
So this leads me to a reallyinteresting question.
Can it be unintentionallyweaponized or harmful, this idea
of growth mindset?
I mean, we've talked a littlebit about how grit can be
weaponized.
You know, like, no, you justneed to bootstrap.
You need to do it yourself.
Where there's a will, there's away.
And that's the end.
(12:22):
But what about growth mindset?
Does the idea of growth mindsethave any kind of unintentional
harm behind it if we're notcareful?
Yeah.
Cathy (12:31):
I think actions need to match the words.
So I think using growth mindsetterms and the actions don't
match it, I think can really nothelp.
I think it's better to not evengive the growth mindset term
then.
And I see that a lot in theclassroom.
You know, growth mindset ishard as a teaching practice.
(12:53):
It requires a lot of work.
Zac (12:56):
Dweck wrote about this in 2015 for Ed Week, and I thought
it was really interesting.
She says, It's about tellingthe truth about a student's
(13:28):
current achievement and thentogether doing something about
it, helping him or her becomesmarter.
And then it's, I also fearthat, and then this goes back to
my, I think my last point, Ialso fear that the mindset work
is sometimes used to justify whysome students aren't learning.
Oh, he has a fixed mindset.
We use it to blame the child'senvironment or ability.
(13:49):
You talk about athletes, Kathy,and I think I go back to the, I
think the last Olympic summerOlympics with Simone Biles.
Right.
And so this, the concept, thisis where I learned about the
yips.
I didn't know what those were.
Right.
And so, you know, Simone Bileswas most decorated Olympian.
(14:09):
Right.
And she just said, I, I'm goingto pull out of this thing.
Right.
And so, right.
Like she recognized, she knowsshe's great.
There is not like, like SimoneBiles knows what Simone Biles
can do.
Right.
And she realized, if I keeppushing, I won't be who I want
(14:30):
to be.
Right.
I need to do this thing for meso that I can do this thing
later on.
And I think that...
There are applications for theclassroom on that one as well.
I would tell my kids when theycame in the class, I said, you
just tell me if you're having achunky milk day.
Sorry,
Stephanie (14:48):
that's a visual.
Zac (14:50):
If you woke up, you poured your cereal, the milk was
chunky, you didn't notice, youtook a bite, and then everything
went down.
Alexander and the horrible, nogood, the terrible.
You raise your hand and say,this is standing in the way for
me.
You know that.
You're like, I'm not going tobe able to do math.
I'm not going to be able towrite.
This is the thing I need.
I have a psychosocial need forsafety, and my cognitive load is
(15:14):
too high.
Cathy (15:15):
It's this belief that I can learn, not that this wasn't
given to me.
And how many math students dowe see?
Stephanie, I know you'veprobably got a long list of
things you could say about this,where all of a sudden they're
crushed.
They get that first failingpiece and they're crushed and
they're done.
(15:35):
I can't tell you how manyparents, grandparents are
reaching out to me this summer.
I don't know what it is.
These students that have beenhigh achieving in elementary
school and all of a suddenthey're crushed and they're
done.
And that's the fixed mindset,right?
That's the, oh my gosh, it wasa gift.
It was given to me.
And now I don't have itanymore.
I reached in some of thestudents that, you know, we've
(15:57):
interviewed here at Stanford.
They say, well, I reached mylimit.
I'm done.
And, you know, it's like theyhave this limit.
And because it was a gift, itwasn't something that they
earned that they worked for.
And I think that is somethingwe really need to work on.
We need to educate parents,everybody about it.
You know, I think about one ofmy, I'm a huge avid follower of
(16:25):
lots of sports and athletics,but my favorite is the U.S.
Women's National Team.
recently Tobin Heath just cameout, one of my absolute favorite
players, uh, just this magicalplayer on the field.
And she talked about, uh, shehad to retire because of, um,
(16:46):
physical challenges and justcould not compete at that high
level anymore.
And do you know, the body, thewear and tear on the body and,
um, But what Tobin kept sayingwas, you know, people are
saying, well, how did you dothis?
This magical player with skillsthat other players, you know,
wish they had.
And she talks about how everyplayer that she played with that
(17:07):
she saw something in them thatshe wanted to emulate, she would
take and pick.
She had this belief that I canwatch this player.
Oh, look at him do that.
I want to do that.
And Tobin would pick.
figure it out and take it intotheir game and, and make it then
theirs in there.
And I, and I think about thatwith kids, you know, this is
what we want for everyone.
(17:28):
Okay, sure.
Tobin got into a situationwhere all of a sudden the body
says, no, you can't keep goingwhen the mind still wants to,
but Tobin's going to figure itout and do something else
amazing just because she hasthis mindset, you know, to, to
take anything on.
And I wish that, our studentsknew that, you know, in the
(17:49):
classroom that so many kids giveup when it's hard or give up
when they fail or give up whenthey make a mistake.
Yeah.
And this is where mindsetgrowth mindset comes in.
Okay.
I made a mistake.
Let me learn from it.
Stephanie (18:03):
I was one of those kids.
I think who you're talkingabout, who just whatever class I
was in, I got it.
Like I didn't have to work toget my 4.0.
Right.
Right.
made my mom so mad because shewas not like that.
She just would study all thetime, would not get the grade
(18:24):
that she wanted.
And she would always tell me,why aren't you studying?
Why aren't you studying?
I was like, what do you want meto do?
Get a higher A?
It's the same on my GPA.
But then when I got to college,when I went to UCSD, I didn't
know how to study.
And I got my very first C in ina calculus class.
(18:45):
And I was like, Oh no, this isnot ever happening to me again,
again, again.
And I, I figured it out.
It's like this, this, thisletter is not in my vocabulary,
but what am I supposed to dowith that?
It just, it's an interestingway to think about like, how,
how did that happen for me?
(19:05):
Like for somebody who quote,didn't have to work for it.
And then suddenly decided, no,no, I will work for it because
that's not what I'm used to.
But maybe it's because, becauseI heard my parents over and
over again saying like, no, you,you can work for it.
You should work for it.
I don't know.
Maybe that's what it had to.
Cathy (19:28):
Yeah.
I attribute it myself to comingthrough athletics because in
athletics, you know, you, youstrike out and you just get back
to the batting cage.
you know, you pop up a buntinstead of putting it down, you
get back in the batting cage,you go, go, go pitch, pitch,
pitch.
Here comes that grit, right?
Just boom, boom, boom in it, init, in it.
(19:49):
And I think it took me later,you know, to figure it out
academically.
Zac (19:55):
Well, and it's that you were using sports here and I, I
have invoked Simone Biles, but Ithink it's also like the arts
give us this, right?
Like visual artists, performingartists, like they know, this
piece too, right?
If you are involved insomething that has taught your
brain the value of practice andthe value of rehearsal, then
(20:18):
you've been in an endeavor thatrequires growth mindset or
inspires growth mindset,perhaps.
And then there's that importantelement of, and Kathy, I'm
hearing you say you kind of didthis, of transfer, right?
Because you know, I'm good atsports does not always equal, or
(20:39):
I'm good at learning sportsdoes not always equal.
I am good at learning math.
And I think the piece here,Stephanie, to go back to your
question of kind ofunintentional harm that can be
done with growth mindset is thatthere are probably some
educators who latched ontogrowth mindset and then use that
as an excuse for uninterestingteaching.
Stephanie (21:03):
Yeah.
Zac (21:03):
Yeah.
Right.
Like you can have the mostgrowth mindset, you know,
mindset of the world.
And if the math is boring or itis like, and I mean, I think
like, I should get points everytime I invoke Dewey on this
podcast, right?
But we're going to go back toDewey, right?
Experience and education.
(21:24):
It is the educator's job tomake the experience interesting,
to lead us to the nextexperience.
So it doesn't matter if mymindset is fixed or growth, if
the experience is uninteresting.
It's this combination ofthings.
Cathy (21:37):
In the math class, there are kids that are going to sit
there and think that set of 40questions is fun.
I didn't think it was fun, butI didn't find it challenging
when I was in high school, so Iwas okay to sit there and do it
off my plate.
But for some, that is justsnake and spider click away.
I don't want any part of this.
(21:57):
And so where's that fun factor?
That person dancing and doingthose dance moves over and over
again, they think it's fun.
For me, batting in the battingcage was fun.
So how do we we have to workhard to make our content fun or
at least something that studentssee themselves engaging in,
whether they need to know ifit's relevant.
Is it fun?
Is it playful?
(22:17):
That's why when I see I walkinto a classroom and maybe I'm
going to hear the words and I'mgoing to see all the mindset
posters around the classroom.
But to me, none of that makes adifference if the engagement
with the content and thelearning isn't a piece of it.
And that's what we really workon at U-Cube, the low floor,
high ceiling task that isplayful.
Zac (22:39):
When I was an undergrad, I decided I was going to take
Latin as my internationallanguage.
I am not taking any Latin.
Cathy (22:47):
As we do.
I
Zac (22:49):
was like, this sounds interesting.
I take it Spanish, right?
And related.
They're related, but they'renot the same.
And...
That was when I got my C, but Iwas really interested in
learning the Latin, right?
But the grade was actuallygetting in the way.
And it was hard work and thosetests did not go well for me.
(23:12):
And so that was the only courseI ever took pass fail because I
was like, oh, I know GPA isgoing to matter later on, but I
want to keep doing this.
Like it was in It wasinteresting to me.
And so I was like, how do Ireduce the threat level here so
I can just do this interestingthing?
So I say to you, SolwayMagister.
I don't know.
(23:32):
That's been a long time sinceI've had to use my Latin.
But I had that growth mindset.
But the system, again, was setup to be like, well, you're
going to fail.
You might want to not take anymore Latin.
Maybe go back to Spanish.
And I was like, I don't wantto.
All right.
(23:53):
We have talked through the insand outs of growth mindset, some
of the potential pitfalls andpratfalls.
I just like alliteration.
We're going to close here,Kathy.
Thanks for staying with us.
And think through somepractitioner-based pieces.
I spoke to this a little bit.
And we can have a conversationabout teachers and educators
because this is a podcast abouteducation.
(24:14):
But I think what's reallyimportant is this understanding
of growth mindset isn't just forstudents, right?
You're a lifelong learnerbecause you have that growth
mindset.
You're still doing the thingeven though you're not getting a
degree or nobody's grading youat this point.
So you mentioned going into aclassroom and the posters are
(24:35):
everywhere.
What does it look like in yourday-to-day?
Let's not even talk about your–what is a thing, a habit that
you, because of this work, havedeveloped today?
That you say, this is actuallywhere I figured out I needed to
put some growth mindset intopractice.
Cathy (24:53):
I think we really have to bring children in, bring people
in and listen to what they seeand not be correcting their
language.
Oh, you didn't use the rightword there, interrupting them.
Or, you know, just reallyletting people come into the
conversation.
I call it a math community.
And everybody's ideas matter,and we're going to talk this
(25:13):
through, and we're going to seehow you see it, and you see it,
and then we're going to followthrough.
So I'm engaging in this contentin a community, or maybe I'm
taking it off and I'm doing itmyself, but I feel like I have
agency in it.
I'm not trying to do whatsomeone else, I'm not trying to
please someone else and make ittheir way.
I'm actually engaging with itwith my own thinking and my own
(25:37):
agency.
And that's the way we go aboutit.
And then we teach along theway.
Zac (25:42):
When I was in grad school, we read a paper, Barn Raising,
Collaborative Group Process inSeminars.
It's by Don McCormick andMichael Kahn.
And it was one that's like, itis sticky in my brain.
And the idea that inconversations, very similar in
what you said, Kathy, makes methink of this, that our goal is
(26:03):
in conversation is to buildsomething, right?
It could be to build our mathunderstanding.
It could be to build thiscompany.
It could be to build this idea,this sense of self, whatever.
And so the, like the barnraising approach taken from the
metaphor of kind of Amish barnraising is we all show up to try
to do the thing together.
Cathy (26:21):
Yeah.
I want to come back to feedbecause I think that is a huge
piece of this and it's, youknow, we're molding, we're
teaching young children and allof a sudden math is about speed
and it's your name's on theboard, your name's not on the
board, you didn't get there fastenough, you made a few
mistakes.
We brought in the middle schoolkids to our summer camp.
(26:44):
There was over 80 of them andall the researchers, and they
were kids of varyingachievement, right?
According to their parents'perspective and their school
perspective and those measures.
And the kids were asked if theywere a math person and every
single one of them, even thehigh achievers said no.
And they were asked, why aren'tyou?
And they were able to name someother student and say they are
(27:05):
because they're fast.
And so this is what they'vemade meaning of.
This is what they'veinternalized from these
practices.
And that isn't it.
And I think that's what Isuffered from when I was young.
I was fast and then I wasn'tfast.
And I was...
And due to, you know, my auntwas a professor of mathematics
(27:29):
and she'd bring me puzzles.
She wouldn't tell me they'remathematical, but they were slow
and I had to sit and work atthem.
And she'd come back and visitand say, how many moves?
You know, she'd ask me allthese questions.
And I realize, you know, allthe time spent.
So I had this weird thing.
I had the speed in school andthen I had what my aunt was kind
of molding me with.
(27:49):
And later when I was slow, Ithought I wasn't good anymore.
I fell into that because of thespeed base.
And I wasn't as accurate as Ihad been as a child.
We hear Stanford students, youknow, say that Joe teaches a
class, how to learn math forstudents.
We have a free online course onthis.
And then Joe teaches anundergraduate class and there's
(28:09):
high achieving students atStanford in mathematics and
others that feel are not,they're not confident in
mathematics.
And they all talk about this,damaging speed message.
Stephanie (28:24):
Yeah.
Cathy (28:24):
We talked to mathematicians today.
You know, I think of the manymathematicians out there that I
get to interact with theseamazing people, how many of them
tell me that they are slowmathematical thinkers.
And I think my confidence inmyself has even grown the more I
spend time with these people,because I realized that in the
(28:47):
And when we construct tasks hereat U-Cubed, you wouldn't
believe the number of drafts andthe amount of thought that just
goes into one task we produce.
That's why we don't produce awhole lot of tasks.
But it's getting away from thatand also realizing that this
isn't a race.
This isn't running the hundred.
This isn't trying to be thefastest one out there in
(29:10):
whatever sports have speed orwhatever.
This is thinking deeply.
This is thinking about how itworks and thinking about what
does it look like and what isthe language and all of these
different components of it.
I think that is what we need tohelp kids see and get away from
(29:31):
the speed piece.
Because when we say they knowit, when they do a time test, do
they know it?
What is knowing?
If they can say three timesseven is 21, okay, great.
But draw me a picture of it.
What does three times 21 looklike?
What does three times sevenlook like?
What does the three mean andwhat does the seven mean?
(29:55):
And what is the language aroundthis away from the
symbolization?
That's knowing it.
And I think we have a lot ofkids today that can do really
fast work, but they don't know.
They don't really know.
Stephanie (30:08):
every time I hear you need to be able to do this
quickly is it's always in someform of connection to this idea
of cognitive load.
If you don't have to think sohard about what three times
seven is, you'll be able to dothis inherently more difficult,
more complex mathematics easier.
And I know that this issomething that also, you know,
(30:28):
goes across content areas.
It's not just math, right?
The easier stuff can be donefaster and therefore your brain
can focus more on the morecomplex stuff.
So how do we square ourselveswith that?
Like this need for rotememorization of, you know,
quote, basic math facts, let'ssay, so that a kid can more
(30:49):
effectively do more complexwork.
My thing was when I was in theclassroom, by the time you got
to middle school, if you didn'tknow your multiplication tables
or your basic arithmetic, use adang calculator.
Just use it.
And that is a thing.
But I know a lot of otherteachers who are mad at me.
It's like, no, I can't get mykids to do systems of equations
(31:12):
until I'm confident that theycan add, subtract, multiply,
divide with fractions.
And so they would spend thefirst six weeks of the school
year doing that.
It's like, Oh my God, what arewe doing here?
I
Cathy (31:22):
think of my son who memorizing multiplication facts
was not in his world.
And I was told he wouldn't.
Zac (31:31):
That's weird because I'm not your son, but it sounds like
you're describing.
Cathy (31:35):
I was told like he wouldn't graduate, you know, all
these things that tell you whenchildren are challenged.
It wasn't, My child is notbroken.
The system was broken.
Say that again.
Say that again.
My child is not broken.
It was the system that'sbroken.
And today he is thishigh-flying, sought-after
(31:56):
engineer that can solve really,really hard problems that others
can't solve.
And he can actually make itwork and fix anything.
And that's the child I knew.
And yet in the school system,he can't do it fast.
Oh, but he certainly knows itbetter.
You know what?
So that's when I, you know,start to say, well, this whole
(32:18):
speed thing, having to factor 10quadratic equations in a
classroom by hand or whatever,whatever polynomial long
division, I don't know, justname it.
Oh, I could go on forever here.
Is that really knowing?
There's so much more to this.
And I think, you know, as I,meet other mathematicians and I
(32:40):
talk to them and they talk aboutschooling and, you know, their
challenges of school and howthey felt slow.
Well, thank you that you'reslow today because you are
solving really, really hardthings.
So I think the speed thingmaybe was more in benefit of the
teacher.
Stephanie (33:02):
Brilliant.
Sorry.
I love that.
It's like, at what point intime did we devalue thinking,
carefully and methodically aboutstuff.
Zac (33:11):
Growth mindset, I think, is also instilling doubt in our
own inabilities, right?
So it's not the same asbuilding our belief in our
abilities, which I think runsthe risk of that kind of
self-esteem piece.
But when we fail or somethingis difficult and we go to that
(33:33):
place of like, I guess I'm notgood at this, it is creating
another voice in the But what ifyou could be right like that?
Just that little piece of likeI'm doubting my own sense of
doubt.
Stephanie (33:47):
It's a really great way, I would think.
I would think to combatimposter syndrome, which is
something that I 100% battlewith all the time.
So I'm going to keep thatlittle tidbit in mind, Zac.
Thank you for that one.
Zac (34:00):
I'm not supposed to be in this room.
But what if I
Stephanie (34:03):
am?
But what if I am?
Zac (34:04):
Right?
Doubting our own doubts.
Yeah.
My brain is trained againstdouble negatives, I know.
But I think that for me, that'sthe practice of growth mindset.
I don't need you to believethat you can do it 100%.
This is amazing.
I just need you to chip away atthat edifice of this is
(34:26):
impossible, or I can't do this,or I'm not good at math, or I'm
not good at reading, or this isstupid.
It's a harder thing to say whenthis is stupid and then music.
But what if it's not?
That doesn't work the same.
Stephanie (34:39):
It doesn't.
But at the same time, likethat's really good for middle
school students.
Like this is stupid when I'mever going to use this in life.
But what if I am?
What if there was thecircumstance later in life where
this actually did presentitself as something necessary?
Yeah.
Zac (34:54):
I want to bring in a last piece here that occurs to me,
and that is around the, what'scalled the question formulation
technique out of the rightquestion Institute, which is
right question.org.
And it's this idea of theconnection between learner
curiosity and growth mindset,right?
(35:16):
You wanted to get better athitting because you were curious
and you talked about the Thesoccer player whose name is
escaping me right now.
Cathy (35:24):
Tobin Heath.
Zac (35:25):
Right.
So Tobin's curiosity beingimportant to her growth mindset.
Right.
So the idea behind the questionformulation technique is you
say, like, today we're going tolearn about how polynomials can
be.
Give me a verb.
Cathy (35:44):
Used in the world can be.
Yeah.
Right.
Zac (35:46):
So there's our objective.
Learners will understand howpolynomials can be used in the
world.
We write that on the board.
And the whole idea behind thequestion formulation technique,
which can take five minutes, isthat the students then look at
that and generate as manyquestions as they can.
It is quantity over qualitybased on that one sentence.
And then they say, what are themost important questions of the
(36:09):
ones we generated as a group?
And then you can just teachyour lesson as is.
But by activating...
students' curiosity and havingthem prioritize their curiosity,
I would argue that you haveinitiated more of a growth
mindset.
I'm more likely to have agrowth mindset because I have
the question.
I have some sort of stake,artificially generated as it may
(36:32):
be in some instances, that thatis another way.
What is my question about thisthing?
What am I curious about?
Cathy (36:40):
I found if we show a visual image of something, and
say, what do you notice?
What do you wonder?
And our brains, our human mindis mathematical.
Everybody's is.
We don't have anybody thatisn't mathematical.
What patterns do you see?
What do you notice?
Our brains seek patterns andthen we seek efficiency.
(37:00):
And we create things at U-Cubethat draw the learner in.
And we've had students that, asixth grader sits there and
generalizes using symbols in aquadratic formula, right?
This is not the student thatwas sitting in honors classes
that had had algebra.
This is a student that didn'tsee themselves as a math person,
but they loved visuals, andthey believed in themselves as
(37:24):
an artist.
And all of a sudden, they sawart in these visual patterns,
and then they wanted togeneralize it, and they used
their language, and then theyfound their language was taking
them towards symbols.
That's...
That to me is this curiositythat draws it in.
And then, then you teach whatthey need to know.
You guide them along thispathway.
(37:46):
It
Zac (37:47):
works.
Cathy (37:48):
It works.
Zac (37:49):
I think our content should end with curiosity.
Stephanie, are you curiousabout anything?
Stephanie (37:54):
Yeah.
Kathy, I have heard about thisbook that's coming out called
data mines.
Tell me about it.
Cathy (38:00):
You know, I'm so excited for data mines.
Um, We were asked, you know, toput this together for Corwin.
And so it's a Corwin book.
I think it's coming out verysoon.
And I think, you know, todayour students are surrounded by
data.
And they're also, you know,data is being collected on us,
all of us, all of the time.
And so this is just aintroductory book on what are
(38:25):
some ways we can help studentsdevelop a data mind across
content areas and differentteaching areas.
Ideas are throughout the bookand different teachers that we
followed and watched them dothis in their classrooms.
Now, every time I get into anytype of a math thing that I'm
designing, I can't help butthink of it through a data
(38:45):
perspective or something that wecall data moves that I might do
in the classroom.
Or teaching with a data flare.
We talk about this throughoutthe book.
And I think this is somethingthat brings together all of our
content areas together.
Stephanie (39:01):
Everybody's talking about database, this database,
that database, the other thing.
And what is it that we push ourkids to do?
We push them to figure out howfast the base of the ladder is
falling away from the wall asthe top slides down at a rate of
0.4 meters per second.
Nobody cares about that.
Nobody wants to solve that.
(39:22):
I mean, I would solve
Zac (39:22):
that.
If you're on that ladder, youjust care that it's falling.
You're
Stephanie (39:25):
right.
Exactly.
Cathy (39:27):
What move am I going to make to try to have the least
amount of injury?
Stephanie (39:31):
Yeah, right.
Exactly.
But this idea that we asgrownups use data every single
day to make decisions in ourprofessional and personal
aspects of life.
but we don't give our studentsthe same opportunity.
So what is it that we expectthem to do when they grow up,
(39:52):
you know, or, or navigate thereal world?
Like a data mindset now morethan ever is an essential
component, I think to succeedingin the real world.
Zac (40:04):
Absolutely.
Kathy Williams.
It is a pure delight to, I'm soexcited to read Data Mines.
Have I pre-ordered my copy?
I sure have.
Cathy (40:17):
And thank you, Zac.
It's great talking to you too.
I mean, just anytime we can sitdown as educators and just have
a conversation, it's a goodthing.
I think we need to have thismore, right?
We have a lot of people outthere that are saying, this is
the way to do it and this is theway to do it.
And we need to just sit downand talk.
We're going to agree more thanwe're ever going to disagree.
And then we need to worktogether.
(40:38):
Thank you.
Stephanie (40:47):
Thank you so much for joining us today on this
episode of AcademicDistinctions.
As always, we hope that youenjoyed today's episode and that
you'll share it.
Follow us on Instagram atacademicdistinctionspod.
Find us on Blue Sky atfixingschools.
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As always, this is your call toaction to share the post, like
us, and subscribe.
(41:07):
You can find us online atacademicdistinctions.com.
Have a question for the pod ora topic you'd like us to dig
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Email us at mail atacademicdistinctions.com.
Until next week, friends.
This podcast is underwritten bythe Federation of American
Scientists.
Find out more at FAS.org.
Zac (41:24):
so
Hi, I'm Zac Chase.
Stephanie (00:02):
And I'm Stephanie Melville.
Zac (00:04):
And this is Academic Distinctions.
Stephanie (00:06):
In 2006, a researcher named Carol Dweck published a
book that would soon be on theshelves in e-readers of
educators across the world whowere dedicated to getting
students to learn.
The book?
Mindset, The New Psychology ofSuccess.
It's got a ring to it, doesn'tit?
Zac (00:22):
It does.
In her book, Dweck highlightedan important idea, something the
research was telling her andher colleagues could make the
difference in moving learnersfrom not learning to, well,
learning.
Stephanie (00:33):
Dweck, it won't surprise you to learn, called
this factor growth mindset.
Zac (00:37):
Growth mindset stands across the room and makes
self-satisfied faces at its eviltwin, fixed mindset.
Stephanie (00:44):
At its core, growth mindset is the belief that even
if we can't do something ordon't know something now, we
have the capacity to do or learnthat thing in the future.
Zac (00:53):
It's the difference between I can't do a somersault and I
can't do a somersault yet.
Stephanie (01:00):
Not long after Dweck's work was published, it
started getting misused.
Zac (01:04):
This is the way.
Stephanie (01:05):
Folks mistakenly thought all students needed was
a yet at the end of theirsentences to make progress in
school.
Zac (01:12):
And yets are powerful things, but they aren't
necessarily more powerful thanshowing up to school hungry or
living in poverty orhomelessness or having a
disability in a class where youreceive insufficient
accommodations or you get thepicture.
Yets are not silver bullets,and Dweck never said they were.
Stephanie (01:32):
So in today's episode, we're taking a look at
growth mindset as it standstoday and trying to pull apart
what we might know now almost 20years after Dweck's book was
published and how we can usethat new understanding to help
students learn.
Zac (01:52):
So
Stephanie (01:59):
All right, we are here today with Kathy Williams,
co-founder and executivedirector of U-Cubed, which is
Joe Bowler's research centerthrough Stanford University,
where Kathy develops content andprofessional development.
She's an author and math edtech advisor and generally all
around great human formathematics education.
Kathy, welcome to the show.
Oh,
Cathy (02:18):
thank you, Stephanie.
Thanks, Zac.
It's good to be here.
Zac (02:21):
Kathy.
This episode, we're trying tounpack the idea around growth
mindset.
You have done quite a bit ofwork in this area.
Can you give us a little bit ofan overview of kind of how you
came to think about growthmindset in particular and how
you see it intersecting withmath education?
Cathy (02:38):
I think I was messing with growth mindset before I
knew it was something.
Because early on, I waschallenged.
I was a teacher.
I went through my applied mathdegree, and at times I felt
inferior for whatever reasons.
(03:01):
And then in my time ofteaching, other teachers were
faster than I was at figuringthings out, and I kind of...
would shrink away from that.
And yet I would say, you know,try to build myself up again.
And so I think I was always,and then I'd see my students
(03:21):
that were really goodmathematically, but they'd be
put in the lowest classes that Idid as a new teacher.
So I think I was playing withthese ideas of what's going on
without knowing that there wasthis thing called mindset.
So I first learned about itformally.
Carol Dweck came out with thebook, I believe around 2006.
(03:42):
And then the chatter started.
I was at the county officesystem in that time.
There was a lot of chatterabout it.
And I started thinking about itmore and started realizing
these times that I really feltinferior.
A wall was going up and I wasblocking myself.
Something was blocked inside ofme.
Zac (04:01):
It's interesting you talk about Dweck's book because I
think that for a lot of people,it hit them as like, oh, this is
research to support this ideathat I've kind of intuited as
true about my students.
And then I think it also helpedmany educators, myself
included, make sure that we arelooking at our students in ways
that are also true.
(04:21):
attuned to a growth mindset,right?
So it not just this is true,like, even that mindset is not
immutable, right?
So it's not that I don't have agrowth mindset.
And Stephanie does have agrowth mindset.
It's this idea of like, Oh, asa teacher, I need to have a
growth mindset.
And in the right, so thatthere's that piece.
And I, yeah, I think that whenI encountered Dweck's work,
(04:42):
first, that was, that was thesame thing was just like, okay,
yeah, those are words to help meunderstand this thing that I've
kind of been playing with in myown practice as well.
Stephanie (04:54):
To name it, right?
Zac (04:55):
Yes, to name it, yeah.
What are other things you seein your work connecting math
education and growth mindsetwith some common practices that
maybe are important in matheducation and but you could
probably see like in theexecutive suite or kind of in an
office as well.
It's like, what are some waysyou hope students and people in
(05:15):
general are talking aboutthemselves?
Cathy (05:18):
Mindset, you know, the word is out there all over the
place now.
You know, if you're listeningto a sports broadcast, you hear
mindset, you hear, you know, I'mwaiting, you know, we have
smart water.
I'm waiting for mindset waterto come up.
Maybe I should just put it onmy water bottle and get a
sticker, mindset sticker.
Zac (05:35):
I'm sure you should get, you could get some really good
Good VC money on that one too.
I think you'd
Cathy (05:39):
get millions.
Right.
You know, I think, so the termis in our minds.
We're thinking about it.
But to me, it's kind of like aflow and it's an
internalization.
So in the office, we may nottalk about mindset, but you
know, somebody says, oh, well,let's try this.
And it's just this It's areally great idea, but you
(06:01):
recognize how hard it's going tobe.
And so you all sit down and youroll up your sleeves and
everybody comes into it with anattitude of, yeah, we're going
to figure this out.
We're going to persevere.
We're going to take this on andwe're going to do what we can
to move along this goal ofgetting there.
Stephanie (06:20):
It's a belief.
How do you pull apart thedifference between growth
mindset and grit, for example?
I guess what is growth mindsetversus what isn't growth
mindset?
Cathy (06:34):
You know, growth mindset, and I think about it today, you
know, and it goes across allthings.
I can have a really good momentin growth mindset with
mathematics and a reallyhorrible one with having to
write a piece of a grant, right?
I'm kind of a writing phobicand, uh, I'm working on that.
(06:56):
I'm working on my mindset forwriting.
So I think as we sit and welook at, at mindset, it's, it,
I'm going to go back again.
It's, it's that internalizedfeeling.
It's that belief that I can.
And grit is a piece where I'm aformer competitive athlete, uh,
(07:18):
Really, you know, athletics isa big passion of mine.
I see it in athletics, right?
In the Wimbledon final for themen, you know, we have a player
that talks about, you know, kindof went into a lull and just
really worked, worked, worked,worked, worked to come back to
the top tier.
And to me, that's grit.
You just take this uber focusand you just go, right?
(07:43):
And, um, I remember that atdifferent times in my life, um,
as an athlete and, and maybesomebody does that in
mathematics.
They just totally focus in thisworld of mathematics and they
go and they work and they workand they work and they work.
Mindset is to me is this beliefthat I could, I can do, I can
(08:04):
do it.
I can do it.
If I'm going to put the time toit, I can do it.
So, um, I don't see them.
I see them together in the samebucket, but I see them
differently.
Zac (08:15):
So you're saying what I'm hearing is mindset is the
belief.
And then great is kind of theperseverance and determination
piece.
Cathy (08:23):
You know, it's this high level of hard work and focus of
practice, practice, practice,practice.
And you just get really, reallyobsessed.
And I don't mean that in a badway.
You just get targeted at work.
And yeah, And you focus tospecialize in this one thing.
(08:43):
I think mindset goes acrosseverything, whether it be fixed
or growth.
And I see it kind of fluidly asa flow.
There's times I can get reallyfixed inside of mathematics, I
think.
And then I, as I have hadgrowth mindset, I pull myself
out of it.
Zac (09:03):
It's interesting.
Yeah.
Because I remember not longafter kind of Dweck released her
book and it became like highlyadopted and Dweck wasn't talking
about grit necessarily.
Right.
That came from from otherspaces.
And so then schools very muchseized on this.
Right.
Like we have to have a growthmindset and we have our kids
need to be gritty, which justsounds horrible.
(09:24):
If you've ever been to a beach,I don't think that's the thing
you want.
And then I think what wasimportant is the conversation
became more complex when folksentered in these ideas.
Right.
Right.
(09:55):
And so it's not an, and so thiskind of like, yeah, we want our
students to be able topersevere.
We want them to believe thatthey can do these things.
And we need to do this work ofdismantling, you know, systems
that have inherently limitedopportunities for, for folks.
And it's interesting because Ihear that in some of what you're
saying about your experience asa math teacher, right?
(10:16):
Is that the system slottedthose students into the lowest
math classes, even though thosestudents maybe had a growth
mindset or those students hadthe perseverance.
The system said, oh, because ofthis whatever factor, we're
going to move you here.
Yeah.
And so I think that for me isthe most interesting
(10:36):
complication.
It's not bootstraps.
Um, right.
Cause we keep, we hear allthat, like pull yourself up by
your bootstraps, get this thingdone.
And there's just sometimeswhere it's like, yeah, but it
should probably be a little biteasier.
I'm thinking about curling.
Have you ever watched curling?
Cathy (10:52):
Oh, I love curling.
Right.
So they push the
Zac (10:54):
stone and that stone has friction and it's got to keep
moving.
And, and what are the peopleahead of the stone do like
they're brushing right there.
And so it's this, like thestone's got to persevere.
It's got to believe it can getthere.
I know it's an inanimateobject.
Go with me on this metaphor.
Um, But still, it is somebody'sjob to clear that path, to say,
this stone's going to do thework, and we're going to work
(11:16):
ahead of it to try to make thata little bit easier.
That's how I think this livesin my brain.
Cathy (11:21):
Yeah.
And I think grit's great.
But when I think of grit, Ithink of you're just going hard
on something.
You are going to– master thispiano thing.
You are practicing, practicing,practicing.
How do you be gritty abouteverything?
Right.
(11:41):
Exhausted, right?
I think about those studentsthat take all these different
APs at once and they're tryingto be masters of the content.
And of course they are.
They're high achieving kids.
You know, they're working sohard.
I think mindset is, you know, Ihope they have that because,
you know, that goes acrosseverything to me.
Stephanie (12:02):
Yeah.
So this leads me to a reallyinteresting question.
Can it be unintentionallyweaponized or harmful, this idea
of growth mindset?
I mean, we've talked a littlebit about how grit can be
weaponized.
You know, like, no, you justneed to bootstrap.
You need to do it yourself.
Where there's a will, there's away.
And that's the end.
(12:22):
But what about growth mindset?
Does the idea of growth mindsethave any kind of unintentional
harm behind it if we're notcareful?
Yeah.
Cathy (12:31):
I think actions need to match the words.
So I think using growth mindsetterms and the actions don't
match it, I think can really nothelp.
I think it's better to not evengive the growth mindset term
then.
And I see that a lot in theclassroom.
You know, growth mindset ishard as a teaching practice.
(12:53):
It requires a lot of work.
Zac (12:56):
Dweck wrote about this in 2015 for Ed Week, and I thought
it was really interesting.
She says, It's about tellingthe truth about a student's
(13:28):
current achievement and thentogether doing something about
it, helping him or her becomesmarter.
And then it's, I also fearthat, and then this goes back to
my, I think my last point, Ialso fear that the mindset work
is sometimes used to justify whysome students aren't learning.
Oh, he has a fixed mindset.
We use it to blame the child'senvironment or ability.
(13:49):
You talk about athletes, Kathy,and I think I go back to the, I
think the last Olympic summerOlympics with Simone Biles.
Right.
And so this, the concept, thisis where I learned about the
yips.
I didn't know what those were.
Right.
And so, you know, Simone Bileswas most decorated Olympian.
(14:09):
Right.
And she just said, I, I'm goingto pull out of this thing.
Right.
And so, right.
Like she recognized, she knowsshe's great.
There is not like, like SimoneBiles knows what Simone Biles
can do.
Right.
And she realized, if I keeppushing, I won't be who I want
(14:30):
to be.
Right.
I need to do this thing for meso that I can do this thing
later on.
And I think that...
There are applications for theclassroom on that one as well.
I would tell my kids when theycame in the class, I said, you
just tell me if you're having achunky milk day.
Sorry,
Stephanie (14:48):
that's a visual.
Zac (14:50):
If you woke up, you poured your cereal, the milk was
chunky, you didn't notice, youtook a bite, and then everything
went down.
Alexander and the horrible, nogood, the terrible.
You raise your hand and say,this is standing in the way for
me.
You know that.
You're like, I'm not going tobe able to do math.
I'm not going to be able towrite.
This is the thing I need.
I have a psychosocial need forsafety, and my cognitive load is
(15:14):
too high.
Cathy (15:15):
It's this belief that I can learn, not that this wasn't
given to me.
And how many math students dowe see?
Stephanie, I know you'veprobably got a long list of
things you could say about this,where all of a sudden they're
crushed.
They get that first failingpiece and they're crushed and
they're done.
(15:35):
I can't tell you how manyparents, grandparents are
reaching out to me this summer.
I don't know what it is.
These students that have beenhigh achieving in elementary
school and all of a suddenthey're crushed and they're
done.
And that's the fixed mindset,right?
That's the, oh my gosh, it wasa gift.
It was given to me.
And now I don't have itanymore.
I reached in some of thestudents that, you know, we've
(15:57):
interviewed here at Stanford.
They say, well, I reached mylimit.
I'm done.
And, you know, it's like theyhave this limit.
And because it was a gift, itwasn't something that they
earned that they worked for.
And I think that is somethingwe really need to work on.
We need to educate parents,everybody about it.
You know, I think about one ofmy, I'm a huge avid follower of
(16:25):
lots of sports and athletics,but my favorite is the U.S.
Women's National Team.
recently Tobin Heath just cameout, one of my absolute favorite
players, uh, just this magicalplayer on the field.
And she talked about, uh, shehad to retire because of, um,
(16:46):
physical challenges and justcould not compete at that high
level anymore.
And do you know, the body, thewear and tear on the body and,
um, But what Tobin kept sayingwas, you know, people are
saying, well, how did you dothis?
This magical player with skillsthat other players, you know,
wish they had.
And she talks about how everyplayer that she played with that
(17:07):
she saw something in them thatshe wanted to emulate, she would
take and pick.
She had this belief that I canwatch this player.
Oh, look at him do that.
I want to do that.
And Tobin would pick.
figure it out and take it intotheir game and, and make it then
theirs in there.
And I, and I think about thatwith kids, you know, this is
what we want for everyone.
(17:28):
Okay, sure.
Tobin got into a situationwhere all of a sudden the body
says, no, you can't keep goingwhen the mind still wants to,
but Tobin's going to figure itout and do something else
amazing just because she hasthis mindset, you know, to, to
take anything on.
And I wish that, our studentsknew that, you know, in the
(17:49):
classroom that so many kids giveup when it's hard or give up
when they fail or give up whenthey make a mistake.
Yeah.
And this is where mindsetgrowth mindset comes in.
Okay.
I made a mistake.
Let me learn from it.
Stephanie (18:03):
I was one of those kids.
I think who you're talkingabout, who just whatever class I
was in, I got it.
Like I didn't have to work toget my 4.0.
Right.
Right.
made my mom so mad because shewas not like that.
She just would study all thetime, would not get the grade
(18:24):
that she wanted.
And she would always tell me,why aren't you studying?
Why aren't you studying?
I was like, what do you want meto do?
Get a higher A?
It's the same on my GPA.
But then when I got to college,when I went to UCSD, I didn't
know how to study.
And I got my very first C in ina calculus class.
(18:45):
And I was like, Oh no, this isnot ever happening to me again,
again, again.
And I, I figured it out.
It's like this, this, thisletter is not in my vocabulary,
but what am I supposed to dowith that?
It just, it's an interestingway to think about like, how,
how did that happen for me?
(19:05):
Like for somebody who quote,didn't have to work for it.
And then suddenly decided, no,no, I will work for it because
that's not what I'm used to.
But maybe it's because, becauseI heard my parents over and
over again saying like, no, you,you can work for it.
You should work for it.
I don't know.
Maybe that's what it had to.
Cathy (19:28):
Yeah.
I attribute it myself to comingthrough athletics because in
athletics, you know, you, youstrike out and you just get back
to the batting cage.
you know, you pop up a buntinstead of putting it down, you
get back in the batting cage,you go, go, go pitch, pitch,
pitch.
Here comes that grit, right?
Just boom, boom, boom in it, init, in it.
(19:49):
And I think it took me later,you know, to figure it out
academically.
Zac (19:55):
Well, and it's that you were using sports here and I, I
have invoked Simone Biles, but Ithink it's also like the arts
give us this, right?
Like visual artists, performingartists, like they know, this
piece too, right?
If you are involved insomething that has taught your
brain the value of practice andthe value of rehearsal, then
(20:18):
you've been in an endeavor thatrequires growth mindset or
inspires growth mindset,perhaps.
And then there's that importantelement of, and Kathy, I'm
hearing you say you kind of didthis, of transfer, right?
Because you know, I'm good atsports does not always equal, or
(20:39):
I'm good at learning sportsdoes not always equal.
I am good at learning math.
And I think the piece here,Stephanie, to go back to your
question of kind ofunintentional harm that can be
done with growth mindset is thatthere are probably some
educators who latched ontogrowth mindset and then use that
as an excuse for uninterestingteaching.
Stephanie (21:03):
Yeah.
Zac (21:03):
Yeah.
Right.
Like you can have the mostgrowth mindset, you know,
mindset of the world.
And if the math is boring or itis like, and I mean, I think
like, I should get points everytime I invoke Dewey on this
podcast, right?
But we're going to go back toDewey, right?
Experience and education.
(21:24):
It is the educator's job tomake the experience interesting,
to lead us to the nextexperience.
So it doesn't matter if mymindset is fixed or growth, if
the experience is uninteresting.
It's this combination ofthings.
Cathy (21:37):
In the math class, there are kids that are going to sit
there and think that set of 40questions is fun.
I didn't think it was fun, butI didn't find it challenging
when I was in high school, so Iwas okay to sit there and do it
off my plate.
But for some, that is justsnake and spider click away.
I don't want any part of this.
(21:57):
And so where's that fun factor?
That person dancing and doingthose dance moves over and over
again, they think it's fun.
For me, batting in the battingcage was fun.
So how do we we have to workhard to make our content fun or
at least something that studentssee themselves engaging in,
whether they need to know ifit's relevant.
Is it fun?
Is it playful?
(22:17):
That's why when I see I walkinto a classroom and maybe I'm
going to hear the words and I'mgoing to see all the mindset
posters around the classroom.
But to me, none of that makes adifference if the engagement
with the content and thelearning isn't a piece of it.
And that's what we really workon at U-Cube, the low floor,
high ceiling task that isplayful.
Zac (22:39):
When I was an undergrad, I decided I was going to take
Latin as my internationallanguage.
I am not taking any Latin.
Cathy (22:47):
As we do.
I
Zac (22:49):
was like, this sounds interesting.
I take it Spanish, right?
And related.
They're related, but they'renot the same.
And...
That was when I got my C, but Iwas really interested in
learning the Latin, right?
But the grade was actuallygetting in the way.
And it was hard work and thosetests did not go well for me.
(23:12):
And so that was the only courseI ever took pass fail because I
was like, oh, I know GPA isgoing to matter later on, but I
want to keep doing this.
Like it was in It wasinteresting to me.
And so I was like, how do Ireduce the threat level here so
I can just do this interestingthing?
So I say to you, SolwayMagister.
I don't know.
(23:32):
That's been a long time sinceI've had to use my Latin.
But I had that growth mindset.
But the system, again, was setup to be like, well, you're
going to fail.
You might want to not take anymore Latin.
Maybe go back to Spanish.
And I was like, I don't wantto.
All right.
(23:53):
We have talked through the insand outs of growth mindset, some
of the potential pitfalls andpratfalls.
I just like alliteration.
We're going to close here,Kathy.
Thanks for staying with us.
And think through somepractitioner-based pieces.
I spoke to this a little bit.
And we can have a conversationabout teachers and educators
because this is a podcast abouteducation.
(24:14):
But I think what's reallyimportant is this understanding
of growth mindset isn't just forstudents, right?
You're a lifelong learnerbecause you have that growth
mindset.
You're still doing the thingeven though you're not getting a
degree or nobody's grading youat this point.
So you mentioned going into aclassroom and the posters are
(24:35):
everywhere.
What does it look like in yourday-to-day?
Let's not even talk about your–what is a thing, a habit that
you, because of this work, havedeveloped today?
That you say, this is actuallywhere I figured out I needed to
put some growth mindset intopractice.
Cathy (24:53):
I think we really have to bring children in, bring people
in and listen to what they seeand not be correcting their
language.
Oh, you didn't use the rightword there, interrupting them.
Or, you know, just reallyletting people come into the
conversation.
I call it a math community.
And everybody's ideas matter,and we're going to talk this
(25:13):
through, and we're going to seehow you see it, and you see it,
and then we're going to followthrough.
So I'm engaging in this contentin a community, or maybe I'm
taking it off and I'm doing itmyself, but I feel like I have
agency in it.
I'm not trying to do whatsomeone else, I'm not trying to
please someone else and make ittheir way.
I'm actually engaging with itwith my own thinking and my own
(25:37):
agency.
And that's the way we go aboutit.
And then we teach along theway.
Zac (25:42):
When I was in grad school, we read a paper, Barn Raising,
Collaborative Group Process inSeminars.
It's by Don McCormick andMichael Kahn.
And it was one that's like, itis sticky in my brain.
And the idea that inconversations, very similar in
what you said, Kathy, makes methink of this, that our goal is
(26:03):
in conversation is to buildsomething, right?
It could be to build our mathunderstanding.
It could be to build thiscompany.
It could be to build this idea,this sense of self, whatever.
And so the, like the barnraising approach taken from the
metaphor of kind of Amish barnraising is we all show up to try
to do the thing together.
Cathy (26:21):
Yeah.
I want to come back to feedbecause I think that is a huge
piece of this and it's, youknow, we're molding, we're
teaching young children and allof a sudden math is about speed
and it's your name's on theboard, your name's not on the
board, you didn't get there fastenough, you made a few
mistakes.
We brought in the middle schoolkids to our summer camp.
(26:44):
There was over 80 of them andall the researchers, and they
were kids of varyingachievement, right?
According to their parents'perspective and their school
perspective and those measures.
And the kids were asked if theywere a math person and every
single one of them, even thehigh achievers said no.
And they were asked, why aren'tyou?
And they were able to name someother student and say they are
(27:05):
because they're fast.
And so this is what they'vemade meaning of.
This is what they'veinternalized from these
practices.
And that isn't it.
And I think that's what Isuffered from when I was young.
I was fast and then I wasn'tfast.
And I was...
And due to, you know, my auntwas a professor of mathematics
(27:29):
and she'd bring me puzzles.
She wouldn't tell me they'remathematical, but they were slow
and I had to sit and work atthem.
And she'd come back and visitand say, how many moves?
You know, she'd ask me allthese questions.
And I realize, you know, allthe time spent.
So I had this weird thing.
I had the speed in school andthen I had what my aunt was kind
of molding me with.
(27:49):
And later when I was slow, Ithought I wasn't good anymore.
I fell into that because of thespeed base.
And I wasn't as accurate as Ihad been as a child.
We hear Stanford students, youknow, say that Joe teaches a
class, how to learn math forstudents.
We have a free online course onthis.
And then Joe teaches anundergraduate class and there's
(28:09):
high achieving students atStanford in mathematics and
others that feel are not,they're not confident in
mathematics.
And they all talk about this,damaging speed message.
Stephanie (28:24):
Yeah.
Cathy (28:24):
We talked to mathematicians today.
You know, I think of the manymathematicians out there that I
get to interact with theseamazing people, how many of them
tell me that they are slowmathematical thinkers.
And I think my confidence inmyself has even grown the more I
spend time with these people,because I realized that in the
(28:47):
And when we construct tasks hereat U-Cubed, you wouldn't
believe the number of drafts andthe amount of thought that just
goes into one task we produce.
That's why we don't produce awhole lot of tasks.
But it's getting away from thatand also realizing that this
isn't a race.
This isn't running the hundred.
This isn't trying to be thefastest one out there in
(29:10):
whatever sports have speed orwhatever.
This is thinking deeply.
This is thinking about how itworks and thinking about what
does it look like and what isthe language and all of these
different components of it.
I think that is what we need tohelp kids see and get away from
(29:31):
the speed piece.
Because when we say they knowit, when they do a time test, do
they know it?
What is knowing?
If they can say three timesseven is 21, okay, great.
But draw me a picture of it.
What does three times 21 looklike?
What does three times sevenlook like?
What does the three mean andwhat does the seven mean?
(29:55):
And what is the language aroundthis away from the
symbolization?
That's knowing it.
And I think we have a lot ofkids today that can do really
fast work, but they don't know.
They don't really know.
Stephanie (30:08):
every time I hear you need to be able to do this
quickly is it's always in someform of connection to this idea
of cognitive load.
If you don't have to think sohard about what three times
seven is, you'll be able to dothis inherently more difficult,
more complex mathematics easier.
And I know that this issomething that also, you know,
(30:28):
goes across content areas.
It's not just math, right?
The easier stuff can be donefaster and therefore your brain
can focus more on the morecomplex stuff.
So how do we square ourselveswith that?
Like this need for rotememorization of, you know,
quote, basic math facts, let'ssay, so that a kid can more
(30:49):
effectively do more complexwork.
My thing was when I was in theclassroom, by the time you got
to middle school, if you didn'tknow your multiplication tables
or your basic arithmetic, use adang calculator.
Just use it.
And that is a thing.
But I know a lot of otherteachers who are mad at me.
It's like, no, I can't get mykids to do systems of equations
(31:12):
until I'm confident that theycan add, subtract, multiply,
divide with fractions.
And so they would spend thefirst six weeks of the school
year doing that.
It's like, Oh my God, what arewe doing here?
I
Cathy (31:22):
think of my son who memorizing multiplication facts
was not in his world.
And I was told he wouldn't.
Zac (31:31):
That's weird because I'm not your son, but it sounds like
you're describing.
Cathy (31:35):
I was told like he wouldn't graduate, you know, all
these things that tell you whenchildren are challenged.
It wasn't, My child is notbroken.
The system was broken.
Say that again.
Say that again.
My child is not broken.
It was the system that'sbroken.
And today he is thishigh-flying, sought-after
(31:56):
engineer that can solve really,really hard problems that others
can't solve.
And he can actually make itwork and fix anything.
And that's the child I knew.
And yet in the school system,he can't do it fast.
Oh, but he certainly knows itbetter.
You know what?
So that's when I, you know,start to say, well, this whole
(32:18):
speed thing, having to factor 10quadratic equations in a
classroom by hand or whatever,whatever polynomial long
division, I don't know, justname it.
Oh, I could go on forever here.
Is that really knowing?
There's so much more to this.
And I think, you know, as I,meet other mathematicians and I
(32:40):
talk to them and they talk aboutschooling and, you know, their
challenges of school and howthey felt slow.
Well, thank you that you'reslow today because you are
solving really, really hardthings.
So I think the speed thingmaybe was more in benefit of the
teacher.
Stephanie (33:02):
Brilliant.
Sorry.
I love that.
It's like, at what point intime did we devalue thinking,
carefully and methodically aboutstuff.
Zac (33:11):
Growth mindset, I think, is also instilling doubt in our
own inabilities, right?
So it's not the same asbuilding our belief in our
abilities, which I think runsthe risk of that kind of
self-esteem piece.
But when we fail or somethingis difficult and we go to that
(33:33):
place of like, I guess I'm notgood at this, it is creating
another voice in the But what ifyou could be right like that?
Just that little piece of likeI'm doubting my own sense of
doubt.
Stephanie (33:47):
It's a really great way, I would think.
I would think to combatimposter syndrome, which is
something that I 100% battlewith all the time.
So I'm going to keep thatlittle tidbit in mind, Zac.
Thank you for that one.
Zac (34:00):
I'm not supposed to be in this room.
But what if I
Stephanie (34:03):
am?
But what if I am?
Zac (34:04):
Right?
Doubting our own doubts.
Yeah.
My brain is trained againstdouble negatives, I know.
But I think that for me, that'sthe practice of growth mindset.
I don't need you to believethat you can do it 100%.
This is amazing.
I just need you to chip away atthat edifice of this is
(34:26):
impossible, or I can't do this,or I'm not good at math, or I'm
not good at reading, or this isstupid.
It's a harder thing to say whenthis is stupid and then music.
But what if it's not?
That doesn't work the same.
Stephanie (34:39):
It doesn't.
But at the same time, likethat's really good for middle
school students.
Like this is stupid when I'mever going to use this in life.
But what if I am?
What if there was thecircumstance later in life where
this actually did presentitself as something necessary?
Yeah.
Zac (34:54):
I want to bring in a last piece here that occurs to me,
and that is around the, what'scalled the question formulation
technique out of the rightquestion Institute, which is
right question.org.
And it's this idea of theconnection between learner
curiosity and growth mindset,right?
(35:16):
You wanted to get better athitting because you were curious
and you talked about the Thesoccer player whose name is
escaping me right now.
Cathy (35:24):
Tobin Heath.
Zac (35:25):
Right.
So Tobin's curiosity beingimportant to her growth mindset.
Right.
So the idea behind the questionformulation technique is you
say, like, today we're going tolearn about how polynomials can
be.
Give me a verb.
Cathy (35:44):
Used in the world can be.
Yeah.
Right.
Zac (35:46):
So there's our objective.
Learners will understand howpolynomials can be used in the
world.
We write that on the board.
And the whole idea behind thequestion formulation technique,
which can take five minutes, isthat the students then look at
that and generate as manyquestions as they can.
It is quantity over qualitybased on that one sentence.
And then they say, what are themost important questions of the
(36:09):
ones we generated as a group?
And then you can just teachyour lesson as is.
But by activating...
students' curiosity and havingthem prioritize their curiosity,
I would argue that you haveinitiated more of a growth
mindset.
I'm more likely to have agrowth mindset because I have
the question.
I have some sort of stake,artificially generated as it may
(36:32):
be in some instances, that thatis another way.
What is my question about thisthing?
What am I curious about?
Cathy (36:40):
I found if we show a visual image of something, and
say, what do you notice?
What do you wonder?
And our brains, our human mindis mathematical.
Everybody's is.
We don't have anybody thatisn't mathematical.
What patterns do you see?
What do you notice?
Our brains seek patterns andthen we seek efficiency.
(37:00):
And we create things at U-Cubethat draw the learner in.
And we've had students that, asixth grader sits there and
generalizes using symbols in aquadratic formula, right?
This is not the student thatwas sitting in honors classes
that had had algebra.
This is a student that didn'tsee themselves as a math person,
but they loved visuals, andthey believed in themselves as
(37:24):
an artist.
And all of a sudden, they sawart in these visual patterns,
and then they wanted togeneralize it, and they used
their language, and then theyfound their language was taking
them towards symbols.
That's...
That to me is this curiositythat draws it in.
And then, then you teach whatthey need to know.
You guide them along thispathway.
(37:46):
It
Zac (37:47):
works.
Cathy (37:48):
It works.
Zac (37:49):
I think our content should end with curiosity.
Stephanie, are you curiousabout anything?
Stephanie (37:54):
Yeah.
Kathy, I have heard about thisbook that's coming out called
data mines.
Tell me about it.
Cathy (38:00):
You know, I'm so excited for data mines.
Um, We were asked, you know, toput this together for Corwin.
And so it's a Corwin book.
I think it's coming out verysoon.
And I think, you know, todayour students are surrounded by
data.
And they're also, you know,data is being collected on us,
all of us, all of the time.
And so this is just aintroductory book on what are
(38:25):
some ways we can help studentsdevelop a data mind across
content areas and differentteaching areas.
Ideas are throughout the bookand different teachers that we
followed and watched them dothis in their classrooms.
Now, every time I get into anytype of a math thing that I'm
designing, I can't help butthink of it through a data
(38:45):
perspective or something that wecall data moves that I might do
in the classroom.
Or teaching with a data flare.
We talk about this throughoutthe book.
And I think this is somethingthat brings together all of our
content areas together.
Stephanie (39:01):
Everybody's talking about database, this database,
that database, the other thing.
And what is it that we push ourkids to do?
We push them to figure out howfast the base of the ladder is
falling away from the wall asthe top slides down at a rate of
0.4 meters per second.
Nobody cares about that.
Nobody wants to solve that.
(39:22):
I mean, I would solve
Zac (39:22):
that.
If you're on that ladder, youjust care that it's falling.
You're
Stephanie (39:25):
right.
Exactly.
Cathy (39:27):
What move am I going to make to try to have the least
amount of injury?
Stephanie (39:31):
Yeah, right.
Exactly.
But this idea that we asgrownups use data every single
day to make decisions in ourprofessional and personal
aspects of life.
but we don't give our studentsthe same opportunity.
So what is it that we expectthem to do when they grow up,
(39:52):
you know, or, or navigate thereal world?
Like a data mindset now morethan ever is an essential
component, I think to succeedingin the real world.
Zac (40:04):
Absolutely.
Kathy Williams.
It is a pure delight to, I'm soexcited to read Data Mines.
Have I pre-ordered my copy?
I sure have.
Cathy (40:17):
And thank you, Zac.
It's great talking to you too.
I mean, just anytime we can sitdown as educators and just have
a conversation, it's a goodthing.
I think we need to have thismore, right?
We have a lot of people outthere that are saying, this is
the way to do it and this is theway to do it.
And we need to just sit downand talk.
We're going to agree more thanwe're ever going to disagree.
And then we need to worktogether.
(40:38):
Thank you.
Stephanie (40:47):
Thank you so much for joining us today on this
episode of AcademicDistinctions.
As always, we hope that youenjoyed today's episode and that
you'll share it.
Follow us on Instagram atacademicdistinctionspod.
Find us on Blue Sky atfixingschools.
Or find us on Facebook.
As always, this is your call toaction to share the post, like
us, and subscribe.
(41:07):
You can find us online atacademicdistinctions.com.
Have a question for the pod ora topic you'd like us to dig
into?
Email us at mail atacademicdistinctions.com.
Until next week, friends.
This podcast is underwritten bythe Federation of American
Scientists.
Find out more at FAS.org.
Zac (41:24):
so
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Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com