I have never heard of Dr. Carol Dweck before, but I really believe in her concept of a growth mindset. It's frustrating to see your grades that say failure or whenever you attempt an online assignment and the word "incorrect" appears repeatedly. In fact, it's so aggravating that I give up. I become so discouraged that I would rather have someone tell me the answer than to learn what I am doing wrong. However, I had a math professor who didn't grade our homework assignments based on the correct answer. He graded our effort to complete each problem, then he explained where we made a mistake. I learned much more quickly and more effectively with this method. I wasn't afraid to calculate the wrong answer anymore. Instead, I attempted each problem. Sometimes my answers were bizarre, so I recalculated my answer. I would redo each problem until I felt that this could be a reasonable answer. The point is that I continued trying because that's what mattered to my professor. Over the course of the semester, I began to understand how to solve the calculus problems and was calculating the right answers. It was much more encouraging to hear my professor say, "Nicole, great job you were on the right track!" than to hear "No sorry that answer is wrong." I am definitely excited about learning more about the growth mindset because I feel like there are students just like me who learn better in this manner.
The growth mindset challenges are stimulating! I actually started the "Talking About Mindset" challenge today without knowing it was a challenge! I was so intrigued by Dr. Dweck's Ted talk that I turned to my friend next to me and asked her if she has ever heard about growth mindset. It was a fascinating conversation, and we share very similar ideas about the concept. I can't wait to hear other people's opinions about growth mindset.
I also began to look at mindset memes. The one below really stood out to me because I quote the same Japanese proverb all the time! It's a great way to say
never give up.
Great post Nicole! I especially liked the story about your math professor.
ReplyDelete(+Laura Gibbs sent me here)
Oh wow, this is so good to hear, Nicole: growth mindset is really popular among math teachers (I've gotten to know some really nice math teachers online as a result!), and there are so many people who really need that boost in math, instead of just hearing "wrong" all the time. And I love the idea that you already wanted to talk to someone about this. You can probably guess from this assignment that I really enjoy just hearing from other people how they learn, what's important for them as they keep on learning. Writing is kind of like math in the sense that you can meet a lot of students who will say "I hate writing" kind of like the way they might say "I hate math" ... so I really hope to make this class a good writing experience for everybody, and of course I get to enjoy all kinds of wonderful stories that way too. I'm looking forward to having some time next week to start exploring people's stories in the blogs and also watching the projects get started as you guys make the class happen!
ReplyDeleteOH LOOK: somebody left a comment already. I shared your post at Google+ (which is such a great networking space for teachers), and James is someone from that G+ network... so you have an audience there now too! Super! :-)