THE POWER OF YET

Martin Reid • Cahn Fellow 2019

“I may not be able to do it yet, but with hard work, I will prevail”. This was one of the many motivational statements that our Biology teacher used in the classroom, which aligns with the “Power of Yet”, a notion regarding the Growth Mindset Model of Thinking. By using the growth mindset model of thinking within her classroom, her students scored above the district and state average on the Biology End-of-Course (EOC) examination year after year.

Follow our journey as we sought to replicate this success on a schoolwide level and transform the school into a “growth mindset” school. We took action by introducing the concept to the teachers and training them on how to use the growth mindset model of thinking throughout their classroom instruction. We also introduced the growth mindset concept to the students by utilizing the Power of Yet; the students began to remind themselves that just because they do not understand something “yet”, it does not mean that they never will. By utilizing growth mindset concepts throughout the school, the data began to show a positive correlation between the growth mindset model of thinking and overall student achievement.