Week 8 Growth Mindset

In this class, I think that I have grown in certain areas and also have areas to grow in others. This applies to my other classes as well. I think that in this class and others, I normally don't do the minimum. I have learned to push myself because I don't like feeling like I only did the minimum. I want to be proud of what I did and show others what I can do and not cut myself short. That being said, I tend to stay in my comfort zone. During this class, I have pushed out of that comfort zone a lot but I still have a ways to go. I never thought I could do creative writing at all, and writing stories isn't something I ever used to do. I have gotten comfortable with it and I feel I have grown a lot in that area. I definitely have focused more on learning and less on grades since I started this class. Since I'm almost done with college, grades matter very little in the grand scheme of things. Grades won't matter once I am out in the real world, but rather what I have learned. I love that I can be free to learn in my own way without pressure of being graded harshly.

Although I push myself in ways, I also tend to do what's easy. When I pick my stories, or even projects for other classes, I usually choose what looks easy. I should try to choose more difficult things so that I can get the most out of it and learn. Again, I think one reason why I do this is because I don't want to do something hard and then make a bad grades. But if I focus on learning and not grades, I will be able to do more difficult things. Another place I have room to grow in is wanting to get things right the first time. I hate editing and I hate redoing things. When I write essays, I tend to do them and then just turn them in. I need to learn that the first time is never the best time. You can't always get it right the first time, and it takes a lot of practice to become good at things. Knowing that I have room to grow here is key in accomplishing my goals.

Growth

Growth Mindset: New Storytelling Style

This week, with my retelling of Twenty-Two Goblins, I tried out a style that I hadn't used before. For one, it was the first story that I had written from a first-person perspective, and also it was written to be slightly comical and it was also an unfinished type of story, one where you're not really sure what happens next. Before this story I had only just changed a few details in the story but left most everything else the same. With this one, I changed most everything. I actually really enjoyed writing this way. I felt free to make the story completely my own. It was more enjoyable than keeping with the same tone as the original story. I think I might actually try this more often, I feel like I learned a lot just by trying out the new style.

Image from Wikipedia

Growth Mindset: Talk With a Friend

This week, I decided to talk with my friend about growth mindset. I asked them if they had ever heard of it and they said they hadn't. I had also never heard of growth mindset before this class and so I wasn't surprised that they hadn't ever heard of this topic. I explained to him what growth mindset is, and he suddenly realized that he sees this being talked about very often but just under a different name. It was then that both of us realized that although many people have never heard of "growth mindset", most people are still aware of the problems concerning it and what it is. Even schools know there is a problem with how students react to grades and learning. In many ways, people are already acting to fix this issue without necessarily knowing what it is called. I think this is a good sign. My friend said he had already been applying some of the ideas of growth mindset in his school work without even knowing it, but knowing the name and specific definition will now make it easier.

Picture from Pexels

Growth Mindset: OU's Growth

I truly believe that college is a million light years ahead of high school when it comes to growth mindset and creating an environment that encourages learning. I can honestly say that I have developed more of a growth mindset here at OU (without even knowing it) than during any of my time in high school or middle school. For my tests, I almost always have something like a project or an essay that is graded rather than a standardized test with multiple choice answers. This in itself is a step in the right direction, because I actually learn to remember and not learn just to get the right answers on a test one time. My work can be interpreted and I can show what I know rather than what I do not know.

This being said, there are also areas of needed improvement. I find that during the lower division courses that are taught by mostly Masters level students that are only slightly older than me, they are still in the wrong mindset about school. The older professors tend to grade students based on their work but the younger ones still just want a test score that the big boss man requires. This means that the freshman and sophomores are still getting that fixed mindset education. It would be great if professors could be taught this information about growth mindset. I know many don't know about it, and I think it would help a lot to prevent incoming freshman from dropping out and deciding that they aren't meant for college.

Image from Pexels

Thoughts on Growth Mindset

I think growth mindset is very interesting and something that I agree with. Although I haven't heard of this term before, I feel like I have still thought of the same ideas before. I know a lot of people who would think of themselves as stupid or incapable because of grades or test scores. I also know personally that I would often memorize information for a test but instantly forget it almost right afterwards, and have also given up on learning things like history or math because I wasn't getting the grades I wanted.

There are a lot of things where, if I don't do well on it once, I'll say things like "It's not for me" or "I can't do this." I also took a lot of AP classes in high school, and even though they were more challenging and rewarding, I kicked myself for taking them because if I hadn't taken them, I could have had a 4.0 GPA and gotten more scholarships in college. But since I pushed myself and took difficult classes that gave me lower grades, I didn't make the cut. This is teaching kids to take the easy way out, and I often find myself doing that now because of this.

These kinds of thoughts I know are because of a growth-fixed mindset and could be helped if I changed the mindset. It's a very cool idea that I'm happy to look more into. It's important that people know that they are capable of learning anything even if they don't get the letter grade they wanted the first time.

(Cat meme from Growth Mindset Memes blog)