Growth Mindset

Have you heard of the “growth mindset” and the research by Stanford professor Carol Dweck about growth and learning? I’ve been inspired by her work in my own teaching and learning, so I decided to make a growth mindset an explicit part of this class.
In this assignment, I’d like to introduce you to Carol Dweck and her work on growth mindset, and I hope that will inspire you to try some of the extra credit growth mindset and other learning challenges this semester (you will find both of those options on the extra credit list starting in Week 3).

The assignment has three parts, and it will take approximately 30-45 minutes to complete:

Part 1. Learn about Carol Dweck and growth mindset.
Part 2. Explore the growth mindset challenges.
Part 3. Write up your thoughts about growth mindset in a blog post.

PART ONE. Learning about the Growth Mindset.

I’ve picked out two of Carol Dweck’s videos to share here. If you prefer to read rather than listen, I’ve included links to the video transcripts. I also included a third video, but I don’t have a transcript for that one; if you like RSA-animate videos, you might really enjoy that video also, even though it does not have a transcript.

• • • Carol Dweck TED Talk, “The Power of Believing That You Can Improve” – 10 minutes, with a transcript at TED.

• • • Carol Dweck, “Make Challenge the New Comfort Zone” – 2 minutes. A very quick video, with a transcript at this post.

• • • Carol Dweck, “How to Help Every Child Fulfill Their Potential” – 10 minutes. This is an RSA Animate video, which means it is really fun to watch, but I do not have a transcript for this one:

PART TWO: Explore the Growth Mindset challenges. 

I’ve started a list of ideas for how you could explore the growth mindset week by week in this class, based on what is of most interest to you: Growth Mindset Challenges. See what you think of those as possible activities you might participate in this semester; I’ll be adding new ones throughout the semester also based on new articles and video that I find online.

PART THREE: Your thoughts about growth mindset. 

Write up a blog post and let me know what you think. Some possible topics to cover might be the questions I’ve listed below, but please write about whatever comes to mind as you ponder the growth mindset and the possibilities you can imagine for the semester.

• • • have you heard of Carol Dweck and/or the growth mindset before? how did you learn about it?
    • how do you see yourself on the spectrum of growth-fixed mindset in your schoolwork? what about other aspects of your life? (for example, if you are an athlete, can you relate to this from a sports perspective? music? travelling? cooking?)
    • what have you learned about your own learning while you’ve been at OU? what are your biggest challenges as you set about learning new things?
    • do you think you’ll be interested in learning more about the growth mindset this semester?
    • do you have any personal learning goals for this semester? any class that you are really excited about? or a class you are worried about? (I would be really happy if learning about growth mindset could help you in your work not for just this class, but in other classes too!)

Include an image in your blog post. You can find some memes and infographics over at the Twitter hashtag stream for #growthmindset usually has lots of good stuff being shared; searching Pinterest for growth mindset is also a good way to find stuff. So, find a growth mindset graphic that you can really connect with and include it in your blog post, along with image information like always (caption, credit, link to source).
Please include “Growth Mindset” somewhere in the blog post title, and use “Growth Mindset” and “Week 2” as blog post labels: Growth Mindset, Week 2 (separated by a comma).
When you’re done, don’t forget to do the Declaration… and then you can move on to the next assignment, which is an overview of all the class assignments.

DECLARATION: PLEASE READ CAREFULLY: I have published a blog post with my thoughts about growth mindset. TITLE: The phrase “Growth Mindset” appears somewhere in the title. LABELS: I have the labels — Growth Mindset, Week 2 — separated by a comma. IMAGE: The post contains at least one image with image information.