Reading Summary 6

Lauren Glasser
30049003
This article focuses on showing students malleability and resilience in social and
academic contexts. Resilience is defined as good outcomes in spite of serious threats to
adaptation or development. Yeager and Dweck describe it as “any response to academic or social
challenges that is necessary for development”. They focus on implicit theories which are the
framework for making predictions and judging meaning in your own world, this leads to a
certain pattern of resilience over time. There are two ends of the spectrum, entity theory of
intelligence where intelligence is fixed and incremental theory of intelligence where intelligence
grows over time. These directly impact students’ academic success because they shape students
goals, beliefs, efforts, what they attribute their setbacks to and their learning strategies. A study
conducted over the course of the school year showed that teaching incremental theories of
intelligence actually help to improve students grade point averages.
Relating to social resilience they focused on how implicit theories can impact social
resilience which correlates to better academic performance. They found those who had been
exposed to implicit theories were more likely to try and find positive solutions versus just
responding aggressively, they were more resilient. Research showed a strong correlation between
social stress and academic performance and they found students who had been introduced to
incremental theories had more resilience and performed better academically because they
believed their classmates could change.
Another important point they raise is how students are praised for their efforts. They
argue the best way to praise students is by praising them on the process and hard work which
causes them to adopt an incremental view and they tend to be more successful. Conversely, when
students are struggling helping them to see they can improve by changing their strategies allows
for improvement. In conclusion Dweck and Yeager believe it is important to help teach
resilience through praising students on the process and instilling implicit theories that promote
the ideas of malleability.
I never realized there was a wrong way to praise students that could actually negatively
impact their performance! I have definitely personally struggled from moments where I
convinced myself that I just wasn’t good at math and I wasn’t going to get it and justifying those
negative thoughts only brought negative outcomes and hindered my success. Recognizing this I
think it will be easier for me as a peer mentor to focus on praising kids for their good research
and hard work instead of “being smart”. By praising the process, I believe it will create more
enthusiasm toward research and help students to work hard to dig deeper. Conversely when
students are struggling, helping them to find new leads or strategies when researching their
topics should help them get back on track and will hopefully squash any discouragement they
may be feeling.

Word Count 465