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Mindset Knowledge Forum
The Mindset Knowledge Forum is a joint knowledge-sharing initiative of the Student Experience Research Network and the Carnegie Foundation that will provide K-12 and higher education policymakers and practitioners with authoritative, research-based answers to their questions about learning mindsets.
Based on Carnegie’s “Knowledge Network” model, the Forum will produce a series of knowledge briefs and webinars that summarize what we know, what we don’t know, what needs to be known, and the practical implications of this knowledge on real-world problems of practice.
The Need for a Mechanism to Connect Research, Practice, and Policy
The Mindset Knowledge Forum seeks to connect the rapidly evolving scientific knowledge base with the burgeoning group of education practitioners and policymakers excited by the prospect of mindsets for improving student outcomes.
The variety of sources of information on mindsets and other non-cognitive factors available on the Internet can be overwhelming to educators and policymakers interested in understanding the implications of mindsets for their work. Add to this the fact that most scientific findings are written in highly technical language, and it’s clear why much important knowledge is inaccessible to the very professionals who are poised to use it to improve student outcomes.
Research with the potential to affect the lives of millions of students and educators is rapidly accumulating. Without a mechanism by which these findings are translated into an accessible, applicable format, the education system will not benefit as the state-of-the-art knowledge on mindsets improves.
How it Works
The Carnegie Foundation works with a panel of practitioners to identify critical, timely knowledge needs in the field. These practitioners represent real “users” of mindset research—those who have the job of implementing the technical knowledge and insights about mindsets in K-12 and higher education systems.
The Forum then fills these knowledge gaps with the help of a panel of research experts, who reach consensus on what we know—and don’t know—about these questions from research. With input from the practitioner panelists, the experts on the Forum produce authoritative, cutting edge research syntheses that present this understanding in a form that meets user needs. A broader group of practitioners and policymakers have the opportunity to ask questions of the expert panelists in webinars that are held alongside the release of each brief.
To ensure the information in these syntheses remains useful for years to come, the knowledge briefs produced by the Forum will be “living documents” that are updated biannually to reflect the latest research findings.
