Pastoral Care Unit Plan

Unit Title: Positive Mindset Band: Primary Standard: 3

Year Level: 5/6

Online resources: http://novella.mhhe.com/sites/0335246168/student_view0/index.html

Learning activities
Unit 4 – Positive Mindset
Section 19: Fixed or Flexible
Aims & Objectives:
To understand the difference between fixed and growth mindset.
To understand how mindsets affect our goals and efforts

Class Activity: Good at/ Bad at

Give each student a copy of the Good at/ Bad at hand out, indicating up to 5 things that they are
good at and bad at. View the first slide from the PowerPoint saved in the folder – ask students to
consider their responses:

Have a look at your “good at” list.

Can you get better at it?
Do you believe that you are always going to be good at these things?
What would happen if you “failed” at this?
Have a look at your “bad at” list.
Has it always been this way?
Do you believe you can get better at this?

If students believe that what they are good/ bad at cannot change then they have a fixed mindset.
If they believe that with a bit of effort what they are not good at can change and that they can
stretch themselves a bit further, they have a flexible mindset.

Teacher explanation - What is Mindset all about and why does it matter?

There are three points that that the teacher should aim to get across.
1. There are 2 mindsets which people adopt: growth & fixed.
2. The brain can and does change.
3. Mindsets affect our goals, efforts and meaning of failure.

Ask students ‘do you think that we are born smart’? This will allow the teacher to the teacher to
explore student’s ideas of whether they believe people are born sporty, arty or intelligent. Ask the
following questions:

Was Michael Jordan born with the natural ability to play basketball? – Jordan’s coach said
that he was no more gifted than any other; what differentiated him from his peers was the hard
work and effort that he put in.

Was Albert Einstein born a genius? – Einstein did not talk until he was 4 and his teacher said
that he was educationally subnormal.

Teaching students about the brain and its amazing potential confronts the false assumption that the
brain becomes ‘fixed’ at an early age. Our brain makes new connections every day and continues
to do so until the day we die, the more we use a new connection, the stronger it becomes.
So the old saying ‘practice makes perfect’ is true. The brain can rewire itself after damage and gets
bigger and denser when we use it.
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• A study of taxi drivers in London found that the part of their brain that deals with 3D space was
larger than that of non-taxi drivers.
• A study of musicians found that the area of the brain that processes sound was larger than that
of non-musicians.

Some people think that intelligence is carved in stone and unchangeable - this is called a FIXED
mindset.
With this mindset, there is a belief that intelligent people do not need to work hard at academic
work and that failing at something is the result of lack of intelligence, not a lack of effort.

With a FLEXIBLE mindset, people see intelligence as malleable and changeable. For this group,
learning takes a lot of hard work and effort. In this mindset, all individuals can learn and improve.

Mindsets affect the goals people pursue, the effort they invest, and the way they deal with failure.

Goals

Fixed mindsets believe that potential and ability can be measured, they tend to create goals which
are about demonstrating their ability – They believe that an A grade will show people that they are
smart.

Flexible mindsets tend to create learning goals. This is because they believe intelligence is
malleable and can be improved. Learning goals are about mastery (How well have I learned this
subject?).
People who set performance goals value looking good while people who set learning goals value
learning.

Failure

Fixed mindsets tend to respond to failure with a ‘helpless’ response, while people with a growth
mindset tend to respond to failure with a ‘mastery’ response.

Effort

Fixed mindsets avoid investing too much effort, because they believe that if they are good at
something, they don’t need effort to prove it. Flexible mindsets invest effort because it brings
mastery.

Class Activity 2: Possible or Impossible

Split the class into small groups and give them a copy of the possible/ impossible handouts.
Students need to decide together whether these statements are true or false:
• Finishing at the bottom of the class will never land you a good job.
• You can’t make art from decomposing rubbish.
• Running a business from your bedroom is unlikely to get you far.
• You can’t be a world class athlete without arms and legs
• Dreamers are losers.

When students report their conclusions back to the class, the teacher can refer to some well known
personalities, companies and events.

• Richard Branson has dyslexia and demonstrated poor academic performance as a student.
• Facebook was created in a person’s bedroom.

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Teacher should point out that most things are possible with some time and effort. Don’t declare that
anything is possible.

Class Activity 3: Message from the past

Students are invited to write a short note about how abilities can be developed. They could/ should
include how they themselves have dealt with some difficulties in the past or how they became good
at something that they were first bad at.

Class Activity 4: If anything was possible

Ask students to tell a person next to them five things that they would like to learn. They are
encouraged to think broadly, as it can be anything, from dance, music, art, technology, sport or
travel.

Possible report comments:

➢ Student understands that a person’s mindset can help or limit the success that they have in life.
➢ Discusses that the brain can and does change and a person’s mindset affects their goals and
efforts

Section 20: Hope

Aims & Objectives:
To be able to define hope
To be able to distinguish the will from the way
To understand the negative effects of unhopeful language

Class Activity 1: I hope

Ask students to complete 10 sentences beginning with the words ‘I hope……….’ on the I hope
hand out from the folder. The can then read their sentences to a partner, then take the time to
listen.

Teacher explanation – The importance of hope

Hope is an emotion, which reflects a positive expectation about something happening in the future.
Being hopeful helps people to stay healthy, study better, win sports competitions and even cope
with physical pain and troubles in life.

Whether someone is hopeful or not can have a significant effect in a life or death situation.

Discuss that, we feel hope if:

1. We know what we want and can think of several ways to get there; and
2. We start to act and keep going.

Thinking about several different ways to achieve our goal is important because one way may not be
the best way. If one way to success/ an outcome is blocked, a hopeful person will find other options
open to them. However, knowing how to go about something is not enough, you need to get
moving! This is where agency thoughts come into play (or the will, represented as ‘I can do this’, ‘I
won’t be stopped’). These thoughts are not only about starting but also about staying energised
and on task.

Ask students if they can name any fictional characters who are hopeful (Marlin in finding Nemo).
Can they identify these characters goals? They way or ways in which they tried to do it and the will,
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how they managed to do it.

Class Activity 2: Finding the way

Using the finding the way handout, students need identify one goal that they hope to reach. This
can be an object or a certain thing that they want to be able to do in school, or in sports. It could
also be something to do with their families or friends.

The next stage is to identify up to 5 possible ways to reach this goal. Once completed, students
need to think of what could go wrong or possible barriers on the way to goal achievement. Finally,
they need to find another possible way to achieve their goal that could help them navigate around
these barriers.

Class Activity 3: Finding the will

If things get tough or don’t go according to plan, how can students find the energy to move towards
their goals? Why would they keep going? What characteristics would help them to keep going?
Students complete the Finding the will handout, writing down the answers to these questions.

Class Activity 4: Hope Talk

Hope talk is a way of speaking that encourages hopeful behaviour. The teacher may want to
convey to the students that the way that they speak influences, what they tell themselves and thus
how they behave. If we constantly speak in unhopeful language to ourselves, we have less chance
of moving towards our goals.
Students are asked to rephrase the unhopeful statements on the board into ones filled with hope.
Hope talk does not just mean ‘thinking positively’. Instead, it has to do with a type of language,
which includes goal orientated thinking and focuses on the opportunities side of a problem. It
emphasizes pathways and ways around barriers as well.

The teacher needs to give the first statement and ask if it sounds hopeful or not. How can students
change it around into a more hopeful statement?

For example:

Unhopeful talk – I can’t swim

Hope talk – I don’t know how to swim but I can try to learn

In the Hope folder there is a list of unhopeful talk examples – can the students rewrite/ rephrase
them in a hopeful way?

There are Hope examples in there as well.

Students can then use the My hope story page from the folder to write a personal hope story.
Read through this with the students and give them time to complete the sheet.

Possible report comments:

➢ Student understands that ope is an emotion, which reflects a positive expectation about
something happening in the future.
➢ Student identifies a goal that they hope to achieve and names up to five possible ways to
accomplish this objective.
➢ Student discusses that hope talk is a way of speaking that encourages hopeful behaviour in
themselves and others.

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