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Grit and elementary math: A winning combination for the students to succeed

When we mention the word ‘grit’, we mean the ability of a person to be dedicated enough to complete the assigned task efficiently, even when things get hard to handle. Grit is among the most important and valued skills that ensure the success of a student.

Factors impacting student’s success

There are a large number of factors that influence the success rate of a student. Some of the major factors are intelligence, natural talent, and IQ level. Several research studies have shown that the IQ levels of the students have a little or weak correlation with the rate of success over the course of education. That clearly means that just being ‘smart’ is not enough to be a successful learner.

As a math teacher at a New York local school, Duckworth found out via in-depth research that there is one factor that plays a major role in determining the success of the students, especially in a technical subject like Mathematics. That one major factor is Grit.

What grit actually is?

Duckworth defines the concept of grit as the ‘passion, resilience and perseverance for the long term goals’. It is more like a capacity of a person to stay determined and dedicate himself or herself to a task for a long period of time. It is about being determined to achieve the end goal no matter how much time it may take rather than seeking a temporary or immediate gratification.

Grit and elementary math

Grit and elementary math is a winning combination because a learner with grit has less probability to feel discouraged when it becomes hard to absorb mathematical concepts. Such students know that facing challenges is part of the learning process and these challenges eventually lead to success in the long run.

Students with grit consider difficulty as an opportunity to enhance their skill set and to learn new concepts and theories. Duckworth’s research concluded that grit is the most important factor influencing the success rate of students in mathematics even more than other factors including family income, level of intelligence and assessment scores, etc. In simpler terms, being smart is not enough the ‘missing link’ is grit. Grit is essential to ensure the academic success of the pupils.

Now the question arises that how is it possible to make our students gritty. Research has highlighted some approaches that can help in developing grit among the students.

Approaches to developing grit

Goal setting
Achievement of a longer goal is always the sum of many smaller goals. A student can set weekly smaller goals to achieve and this will eventually lead him or her towards the longer goal at a steady rate. For instance, to complete an entire mathematical exercise, a student can divide it among smaller concepts to cover them in a course of two to three weeks.

Continuous feedback
Through continuous feedback provided by the instructors via assessments, quizzes, and tests, students can track their progress. Continuous and timely feedback provides the students with the opportunity to learn from their mistakes. Constructive feedback acts as a guide for them to analyze how much they have learned over time.

Know that mistakes help you grow
A very famous psychologist named Jason Moser stated that the brain grows in several different ways when people make mistakes. When a person faces any kind of struggle, the brain is being challenged and this challenge results in growth.

When a person acknowledges that an error has been made, the brain starts considering the steps required to correct that error. Thus, using the mistakes made during weekly math class can help the students to take the steps required to rectify them. It also promotes a positive mindset that further attracts positive outcomes.

It is essential to provide students with the challenges to make them gritty. Tell them that there is always room for improvement when it comes to learning. It is a well-established fact that gritty students are always the outcomes of gritty teachers. Teachers are the real role models for the students. They need to have the ability to dedicate themselves to the goal they want to achieve and the students will follow their path eventually.

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