Week 13 Growth Mindset: Grow by Watching Others

This past week I have worked on my growth mindset. I have been watching others as my growth mindset approach. I have done this by just watching others and their daily activities. For example, when I walk to class now I put up my phone and observe every one else. You would be amazed at the amount of people that do not use eye contact when walking past a person. I would smile or nod my head and the amount of people that became uncomfortable was amazing. I also watched people study in the library and saw their little habits. I saw one kid who just would stop tapping his finger and another girl who would stretch her arms every twenty or so minutes. I learn people's quirks without even really knowing them. It made me think about if someone were watching me, what would they know about me? It is interesting to think about and I have had a lot of fun with it. It has been a fun growth mindset to try out and it has made me think more about my life as well.

Grow by Watching Others (flickr)

Week 4 Growth Mindset: Sharing With Others

This week I was talking about this class to some of my friends. After describing the class and talking about what I do for the class, they were very intrigued. I got out my computer and let them read my blog posts and some of the other really great ones I have read. After that I let them look at the online UnTextbook and they enjoyed browsing through a bunch of the units. We talked about a few fables and fairy tales that we all enjoy and talked about where they might have originated from. It was a great way to include my friends into what I am learning in class. I shared with them my class and they shared their favorite stories with me! Who knows, they might even take this class next semester!

Friends Wikimedia

Growth Mindset

After learning about the Growth Mindset, I agree that it is better to praise the effort and strategies that kids use in order to accomplish something. This is better than praising the talent or intelligence because then the kids are more likely to try again. When kids are praised for them doing well then they feel like they can do nothing worse than perfect in the future. When they fail, they are discouraged and often give up. I do think that praising the process is better in the end for the kid's work ethics. It was very interesting to listen to and it made me think of how I talk to children no the daily basis. Also making kids think that a challenge is the comfort zone, then more kids will want to work harder in the future. It is an interesting way of thinking that I had never considered before. 

Some of the different Growth Mindset Challenges that I am going to try this semester are:

Grow-Your-Writing-Process - I am so used to writing papers the same way with the same format. I am usually not very creative when it comes to different writing styles and it would be a challenge for me to try something new. 

Talk About Mindset - I am lucky to have a couple of friends that are very interested in the same type of hobbies and activities as me and I think that they would find this theory very interesting. I will try to grow awareness of this theory and hopefully have a good discussion about it. 

Grow By Watching Others - I find that I learn the most when I watch other people. The way people interact, handle situations, and pass the time. I learn new ways of thinking and observe different perspectives of life. I feel like watching others would broaden my mind and challenge it like nothing before. 

I have never heard of Carol Dweck before this assignment, but I am happy I have gotten to know about her and her beliefs. I think I have always seen myself as average, as strange as that sounds. People always want to believe that they are destined for greatness, which I know I can be, but for some reason I know that I am not the smartest in the class or the fastest on the team. I have always just accepted reality and not told myself I was something different when I wasn't. I could change my mindset towards school, future jobs, etc. if I could just challenge myself. I am scared to challenge myself because I feel like I won't achieve it, even though I usually do. Here at school I have learned how to fight past my shyness and force myself to study even if I don't want to. I have learned how to take care of myself and accept that sometimes I just make mistakes. For the duration of the year I want to tell myself I can do things even if I feel like they are impossible. I think changing my attitude towards a Growth Mindset would benefit me overall. 

Growth Mindset (from the growth mindset memes blog)