Monday, July 27, 2015
6:15 PM | 
Posted by
Kaplan Center for Health and Wellness
Title: Mindsets…
Byline: Fixed or growth!
Educators are sometimes perplexed with students and their levels of achievement. Behaviors related to this sentiment include: [1] the student who rejects the opportunity to attempt new or different tasks [2] the student’s inability to reflect on a current reading when there is no definitive answer, or [3] the student that has no fear and presses forward no matter the academic challenge. So why the differences in these behaviors? Author Carol Dweck provides an explanation in her book Mindset: A New Psychology of Success.
For a quick assessment read each
statement on intelligence and identify what applies to you:
1.
Your intelligence
is something very basic about you that you can’t change very much.2. You can learn new things, but you can’t really change how intelligent you are.
3. No matter how much intelligence you have you can always change it quite a bit.
4. You can always substantially change how intelligent you are.
By reading each statement which do agree with more? Did you lean more towards 1 and 2 or 3 and 4? Were you a mixture? As you have probably assessed 1 and 2 suggest a fixed mindset whereas 3 and 4 target a growth mindset. Sometimes is it does depend on the belief? For example try reading the same statements above and substitute the beliefs of artistic talent, sports ability and business skill for intelligence. Any difference?
In exploring mindsets further think
through the educational experiences that you have had. Were you praised for
intelligence and ability or praised for your efforts? Comments from parents,
teachers or coaches could be “You learned so quickly”! “You’re so smart”!
You’re so brilliant you got an A without even studying!” These messages of
praise are sincere and genuine however the impact on the student can have these
results. “If I don’t learn something quickly, I‘m not smart”! I’d better quit
studying or they won’t think I’m brilliant.
Some of the best professors I have had
always praised effort. One particularly would say “I will take a hard C
performance over an easy A every time”! What he didn’t convey was that the
student giving their best C effort was working through their level of ability
towards a growth mindset and this should be praised. As a reflection on
accomplishments from education to leadership some President’s, innovators,
authors, and artists have all given their best C effort in school and look at
the impact each has had on our society.
Take the full assessment or read this book. You might find other techniques
and tools to use with students or answers to perplexing behaviors.
Google. (2015). Clip art. Retrieved from google.com/images
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2 comments:
Well, this is my first visit to your blog! But I admire the precious time and effort you put into it, especially into interesting articles you share here!
TOSHIBA PLT-805AT
Thank you for your comments Frank! Hope you will join in more often. All the best, DrD
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