Growth Mindset: Looking Back, and Looking Forward

This class was the first time I ever heard about the growth mindset, and it really rang true with me. I definitely felt like a victim, as if I had been thrown into a bad mindset. Now, I'm trying my best to move out of that mindset. I feel as if I've improved a lot since the beginning of the semester and I feel a lot better about myself. 

One of the areas I struggle with is understanding that failure is a natural part of life and helps us grow. I saw this growth mindset post, and thought it was comical but also insightful

F ailure
I s
S uccess's
H erald

I like this because it is something that needs to be remembered, and the idea of an insightful fish will probably not be forgotten any time soon.

Another post I saw was this one

GROWTH PARTNERS

We need to partner with people instead of viewing roles as rigid and defined. For example, the classes that I feel have been most beneficial are those classes where I gained the professor as a mentor, a guide, and a friend as opposed to a disseminator of information. However, this requires the professor to see me as more than a student in a class, and for me to see them as  more than someone paid to impart knowledge.

This is definitely a different mindset for me. Although I gained the respect of many teachers and I think they respect me, I definitely view them in the teacher mindset more than the friend mindset. I will have to try my best to make use of this mindset in my last few weeks at OU.

Image Information

Failure - Flickr

Thoughts on Growth Mindset

This assignment was my first time hearing about Carol Dweck and the idea of the growth mindset. After watching the videos, I find it very difficult to describe what I feel. It seems like a mix of fear, anger, sadness, and guilt. I think I have been in a fixed mindset for most of my life, but I'm not sure. I find myself embracing challenges, and desiring more challenging material, but I also find myself thinking a lot of the thoughts associated with a fixed mindset.

 And after seeing the results of Carol Dweck's studies, that makes me scared for my ability to be successful in life. One of the things that scares me most is that when I think about that, I feel like I can either be successful, or not be successful, which seems like a fixed mindset thought. I know for a fact that my whole life I have been praised for intelligence, and less so for hard work. My parents always encouraged me to work hard, but I received praise for good grades, not for hard work. I didn't learn how to work hard until college, and I learned that because I stopped making good grades and felt like I needed better grades to get my usual dose of praise, not because hard work was encouraged. Not only that, but the majority of my classes seem to enforce the "now" mindset: if you don't know the information now, on the day of the test, you will not be rewarded for ever learning it. In my classes, failure doesn't feel like an opportunity to grow, it just feels like the professor expected better. Learning about the growth mindset made me feel upset because I feel like I was forced into this mindset by my environment. I feel like I'm a successful student, but I definitely need to put a lot of thought into how to have a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindset. I already blame the environment I'm in for making me have a fixed mindset, which is one of the signs of having a fixed mindset: I am actually in a fixed mindset about my fixed mindset. I found this video very eye opening, and it frightens me that I have so much work to do to get back into a healthy mindset.



Image information
(Growth Mindset - cambridgeschool website)