A Growth Mindset Can Help You Thrive! Bulletin Board

Last year I ran a book group for parents and caregivers.  I decided to call the book group "Thriving in the Middle" to counter the negative language surrounding middle school. You often see books and articles about surviving middle school or how middle school was the worst years of people's lives.  I was planning to incorporate the concept of "thriving" and how school counselors can help students thrive into other aspects of my school counseling programming this year.  I have been wracking my brain to come up with bulletin boards ideas to go with the thriving theme. 

The first one I'll share is a growth mindset bulletin board.  Carol Dweck's book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success discusses the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. Growth mindset is the idea that intelligence can be developed, whereas fixed mindset is the idea that intelligence is static. Growth mindset is popular trend currently in education. I haven't read Dweck's book yet, but I am planning to make it one of my parent book club selections this year.

This video by Matthew Metoyer gives a great brief synopsis about growth mindset and fixed mindset.

I am very excited to learn more about growth mindset and how I can use it with my students. I first heard about it from Franciene Sabens blog where she shared books she is currently reading related to her school counseling progra. (She shared her growth mindset bulletin board last night on Twitter!)

I knew I wanted to do a growth mindset bulletin board, but I wanted to do it a little differently than the others I have seen. The idea hit me suddenly when I was thinking about how a fixed mindset is like negative thinking and having a dark cloud above your head. People with a growth mindset are able to see the light so to speak. A growth mindset gives you hope, an open mind, and the courage to try new things.  The image of clouds made sense to me, so I went with it...

A close up of the left side.

A close up of the right side.

I decided to title it, "A Growth Mindset Can Help You Thrive!" to fit with the thriving theme. I made more examples of fixed and growth mindset that I plant to rotate. I ran out of space to put them all on the board. I intentionally wrote "CAN" instead of "WILL" because I wanted it to be phrased and a choice and opportunity. Using the word "WILL" I felt would be contributing to a fixed mindset. 

I used Google Drive Presentation to created the bulletin board clouds and letters. You can click on the image above to get a copy of the file that includes the letters and images.  

I printed the letters and clouds on regular computer paper. I cut them to size then cut black cardstock and colorful card stock to put behind the letters. I printed the lightning bolts on computer paper, traced them onto yellow card stock, and cut them out. I used a round picture frame from my office to trace the circle for the suns and free-hand cut out the triangles to surround the sun. I included sun images in the Google Presentation bulletin board file, but I did not use them in this version. 

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Danielle is a K-12 Certified School Counselor, Nationally Certified Counselor, and blogger at School Counselor Blog, a place where school counselors share innovative ideas, creative lesson plans, and quality resources. Connect with Danielle via email, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+, and become a fan of the School Counselor Blog Facebook Page.