Professional Development

Stanford PERTS Debuts Mindset Kits for Educators

• By Joshua Bolkan
• 08/20/15

Stanford University's Project for Education Research that Scales (PERTS) has introduced a set of free online resources, dubbed the Mindset Kit, designed to help educators and parents understand how to help students develop learning mindsets.

"When students have learning mindsets — for example, when they believe that intelligence is something they can develop and feel they belong and can succeed in the classroom — they are more motivated, engaged and resilient," according to a Stanford news release. "Studies have also shown that certain messages can help students develop learning mindsets and, in turn, do better in school."

Resources for the kit are organized into four courses:

• Growth Mindset for Teachers is a 45-minute course designed to introduce teachers to growth mindset concepts, along with practices for classroom implementation;
• Growth Mindset for Parents, a 30-minute course, aims to introduce parents to growth mindset concepts and features activities, videos and quizzes;
• Growth Mindset for Math is a 75-minute course focused on growth mindset practices specifically for math teachers; and
• The half-hour Growth Mindset for Teacher Teams is designed for school leaders or teaching teams who want to bring mindset practices into their schools.

Users can also search all kit resources through the PERTS library to find materials for specific situations.

The initiative has also released two videos with the Teaching Channel, Praising the Process and Encouraging Students To Persist Through Challenges, designed to give examples of mindset practices in use.