LCU School of Education hosted its annual Chap Connection Fall Symposium, an event providing a forum for exploration and discussion about building and implementing a growth mindset for Region 17 educators, while also providing opportunities for networking and refreshment for area instructors. 

The conference was attended by over 160 regional educators and representatives from all of Lubbock’s schools and others from Region 17, where they were informed of the intricacies of developing a growth mindset in students in their respective schools across the region. Those who attended the symposium also received four hours of professional development credit. 

Dr. Gene Sheets, associate professor in the LCU School of Education and coordinator of the graduate superintendent certification program said, “In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment. By educating teachers to create this belief in their classroom, it creates a culture of perseverance and academic tenacity.” 

Growth mindset is an integral part of LCU’s Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), which focuses on fostering and maintaining academic tenacity in students. As one of the largest initiatives to come out of LCU’s recent accreditation, the Equip LCU program aims to build a campus-wide focus on perseverance and growth in order to both establish and bolster persistence. The choice of topic for this workshop for local educators demonstrates the importance of those ideas.

The Keynote speaker, Janna Peskett, is the director of digital learning and curriculum design at Mindset Works. Peskett is an educator with over 20 years of experience teaching math, developing digital and print curriculum, and delivering professional development for K-12 schools in Texas, Philadelphia, and Washington school districts. She had also presented on growth mindset at the university level. 

LCU has a rich legacy and continued partnership with local, regional, and statewide schools, providing training for a very significant number of teachers and administrators in elementary and secondary schools. In the 2019-20 school year, a full third of principals and vice principals in Region 17 were graduates from Lubbock Christian University. And for that same time frame in the LCU undergraduate school of education, 100% of fully certified teachers secured a teaching position upon graduation.  

Learn more about the LCU School of Education or the Equip LCU program.