OLD DOGS & NEW TRICKS

Can Law Schools Really Fix Their (and Their Students’) Fixed

Mindsets?

Prof. Sarah Adams-Schoen

Sound familiar?

Critical feedback = an indictment of your abilities

Presentation overview

What is the fixed mindset? What does it do? How can we teach fixed mindset students to

respond effectively to challenges, confusion & perceived failures?

Mindsets – It’s about belief

Fixed mindset Malleable mindset

Belief that you have a fixed amount of an attribute such as intelligence

Belief that you have the potential to increase your intelligence with effort and education

Mindsets – It’s about belief

Not confidence

Not ability

Fixed responses

• Despondence, boredom, depression• Blaming of external factors• Repeatedly adopting the same ineffective

strategies• Risk, task and effort avoidance• Inaccurately assessing ability• Pursuit of performance goals• Lower performance on tasks within the

student’s aptitude

Derailed by a single confusing passage

No Confusing Condition

Confusing Condition

Fixed Mindset Equally likely to master materials

35% mastered materials

Malleable Mindset

Equally likely to master materials

72% mastered materials

Malleable responses

• Task-enthusiasm• Self-teaching • Accurately assessing ability• Valuing effort• Use of effective coping strategies for dealing

with depression and negative stereotypes • Pursuing learning goals

Fixed triggers

Threats of failureConfusing instructionsThe perception that effort is requiredChallenging workHigh-stakes performancesAn emphasis on performanceMajor life transitions

What does this mean for us? • Law Students– Approximately 25% probably have fixed mindsets

• Law Schools – Tend to reinforce the fixed mindset

• Severely limits students’ ability to learn from challenges and setbacks

• Students are failing despite sufficient aptitude

Fostering a malleable mindset

How do we do it?

Change our own mindsets

Rigorous criticism + affirmative message

Avoid generic praise

Emphasize process/learning over evaluation

Teach students to teach each other about the malleable mindset

Teach students to teach each other about the malleable mindsetAdvocacy in their own words

Public commitment

Validation through current personal experience

Validation through past personal experience

Repetition

Teach students to teach each other

For more information, citations, and detailed methodologies for creating an enduring shift to the growth mindset

See Sarah J. Adams-Schoen, Of Old Dogs and New Tricks--Can Law Schools Really Fix Students’ Fixed Mindsets?, forthcoming in vol. 19 of Leg. Writing, draft available on SSRN at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=2109565

For copies of mindset handouts and lesson plans, email me at sadams-schoen@tourolaw.edu or see the LWI Idea Bank

To learn more Carol S. Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (Ballantine Books

2008)

Carrie Sperling & Susan Shapcott, Fixing Students’ Fixed Mindsets: Paving the Way for Meaningful Assessment, 18 Leg. Writing 39 (2012)

Daniel C. Molden & Carol S. Dweck, Finding Meaning in Psychology: A Lay Theories Approach to Self-Regulation, Social Perception, and Social Development, 61 Am. Psychologist 192 (2006)

Joshua Aronson et al., Reducing the Effects of Stereotype Threat on African American College Students by Shaping Theories of Intelligence, 38 J. Experimental Soc. Psychol. 113, 116–123 (2002)

Thank you!

Prof. Sarah Adams-Schoen