Using Praise to Enhance Student Resilience and Learning Outcomes

Research has clearly demonstrated that having the mindset that you are either smart or not smart has serious negative consequences for learning. Fortunately, one powerful way that you can intervene as a teacher is by being careful about how you give students praise. Offering praise for students' work and efforts can alter this mindset so that students can begin to view their own intelligence as something that can be developed. This mindset of developing intelligence will increase students' ability to "bounce back" in the face of academic setbacks and other difficulties.