Maddie's Thoughts on Growth Mindset

Growth mindset is a very interesting topic. To be honest, I had never heard about this theory until writing up this blog post and watching videos of Carol Dweck speaking about what she loves to teach.  I agree with Dweck when she said kids should be wanting to be challenged, we shouldn't just let them slide by.  She also said that we should make challenging our goals because if it was easy, then that means we already know how to do it and wouldn't be growing in our knowledge at all.  While being at OU, I have learned that different classes have taught me different things about my learning style.  For example, in the chemistry and other sciences classes, I would barely float by; I could never learn the information, and my brain wouldn't process it when someone would teach it to me, so I solely got a good grade in the class just because of the extra credit assignments, I never felt like I truly learned anything.  I would study so much for all the tests, and then the day after the test all the information would be out of my head.  On the other hand, in the classes I am interested in, such as psychology and nutrition, I tended to always look for more opportunities to grow in my knowledge because I genuinely wanted to learn and knew it would help me out in my future career.  Another point to bring up is that I have a class this semester about Understanding Dance, and I am not too excited about it.  I have never been interested in the drama/theatre topics, so I feel like I could use growth mindset techniques to help me want to learn the material, and to help me get the most out of the class. Overall, I would be very interested in learning more about growth mindset because I feel like it can be very applicable to not only school, but many other areas of my life as well. In the end, dreaming is a form of growth mindset, in my opinion, because it helps us think of unlimited possibilities for different scenarios, instead of staying in a fixed frame-of-mind.

(Growth Mindset Dream Quote; Picture from Pixabay)