On shift of mindset: the importance of change of mindset in helping students get better at getting better in mathematics

Abstract

That mathematics is important in enhancing creativity, innovativeness and technological development is undisputable. Kenya like any other African country is endowed with reach human resource yet lesscompetitive globally partly due to students’ fear of mathematics and poor performance at almost all levels. A number of measures have been put in place to remedy the situation yet the score card has been poor over the years. There is no such thing as a “math person”. Everyone can and has a capacity to learn mathematics welltoat least improve in it provided they could be helped to overcome the fear for failure. This paper presents and discusses the importance of a shift in mindset for students of mathematics where working on challenging work and making mistakes enhances learning potential. It also proposes some of the interventions by teachers of mathematics that could help students change from fixed mindset to a growth mindset in the 21st century.