Dive Brief:
- Stanford’s College Perspectives Program out of the university’s PERTS Lab aims to teach students about the growth mindset and encourage persistence, motivation, and achievement at community colleges.
- According to eCampus News, the original program reached 1,400 students from 2012-2014, increasing the rate at which students were enrolled full-time by more than 15% and increasing the rate at which they earned credits in STEM courses by more than 20%.
- The program, which is made up of two hourlong online sessions, will be open to community colleges across the country at no cost to students or the institutions, but at least 1,000 students from each school must participate for the school to be eligible.
Dive Insight:
The growth mindset is common in other countries’ education systems, including Japan’s. It teaches children that their intellectual capacity is dependent on hard work rather than intrinsic ability. In the United States, students often internalize either being smart or not and don’t take ownership of their own capacity to improve. Some might argue college is a late time to learn the growth mindset, but the original success of the College Perspectives Program shows an impact.
Should the expanded study reveal similar data, administrators might consider incorporating the simple online trainings into orientation activities, required for every student. In addition to full-time enrollment rates and STEM participation, colleges can then study the training’s effect on persistence rates from the first to the second year, a critical time for student success.