Week 8 Growth Mindset

Though I haven't been directly trying to maintain the growth mindset as it's been set forth, I think I've done a good job of sticking to the basic ideas of it. I've tried to always do my best this semester and though it's been tough to be motivated as this is my senior year and I'm spending a lot of time working of job apps that I wish I could use to study. I still think I've been doing a pretty good job of trying to go above and beyond with my material when I have the time to do so. I hope that with the rest of the semester I can try maybe a little bit harder and improve my performance in my classes. I'm of the mindset that if I do my best and it's still not good enough, I can accept that I did everything I could to do well with something. It's not ideal but with time constraints, this semester has forced me to be very rigorous in how I schedule and do my work.

(Growth Mindset brain, Pixabay)

My thoughts on the Growth Mindset

I had never heard of the growth mindset or Carol Dweck before but I really liked the idea of a growth mindset. I've had many classes that were purely graded on correctness, but I've always felt like I didn't really learn much in those classes. I learned how to give the correct answer - what I would call memorization-based classes. You don't learn the whole process - the why, the how, the little details - you just learn what it is and how to do it. I've had many other classes though in chemical engineering where I was graded on my attempt and the quality of that attempt. I might still be completely wrong, but when I'm wrong, I'm not completely discouraged because I can see where I can improve. When most of my exams are two hours long and only have two questions on the exam, it'd be very discouraging if we were graded purely on correctness when a simple error can screw up a multi-page calculation. The idea of always being able to improve really resonates with me over the standard discouragement I feel when I screw up on an assignment in some classes. On the first day of one of my classes this semester, the professor said "When you get something right, you don't learn anything. You move on. But when you get something, wrong, that's when you have the opportunity to really learn something and grow from your mistakes."

(From Growth Mindset memes, made with cheezeburger)