![SASC - Student Academic Success Center - UNE [logo]](https://files.uneportfolio.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2022/02/SASCLogoSquare_Smaller-3-e1644936452801.jpeg)
Having a growth mindset helps students work more purposefully towards their goals. Coach yourself to have a growth mindset by asking these questions. Thanks to ICTEvangelist, @robfmac, and the people at MindShift for sharing. Leave a comment in which you tell a brief story about yourself that reveals the degree to which you possess a growth mindset in some activity in your life. Explain why having a growth mindset might be important to you as you begin this class, and what challenges you might face as you try to transfer your growth mindset from some other activity of life to this class. How might you overcome some of those challenges?
As of right now going into to college I do not have a growth mindset towards writing. I hope to change that during the course of the semester this year. My best advice is to focus on my writing and do as best as I can while writing it. I have a growth mindset for football and need to also have one in the classroom in order to succeed throughout college. My best advice for people who need a growth mindset is to focus in on writing assignments and be open to new ways of thinking.
Good advice Brendan. What factors might make it difficult to take your advice? What specific actions might someone take on a daily basis to build up to a growth mindset towards writing? How can you take what you know about your growth mindset for football and adapt it to writing?
I feel as if I currently posses a small amount of a growth mindset for writing. I normally stick to the same type of writing because that is my comfort zone. I do not have a lot of practice with writing long papers so I feel as if I will need to spend more time practicing and formatting the paper.
To someone who is seeking to have a growth mind set will need to learn, process and correct from their mistakes. It will be difficult and giving up may be a first choice but you will then not succeed. With a growth mindset you will most likely succeed in what you are focusing on.
Hi Morgan,
Would it help if I promise that you’ll develop a broader comfort zone for writing. The only thing it takes is practice, coaching, and motivation. Of course, as you get more experience in different fields in college, you’ll continuously be introduced to new writing tasks specific to those fields (like SOAP notes for nursing, lab reports in the sciences, rhetorical analysis in the humanities…). So the best approach is to develop confidence in two things: 1) a writing process that allows you to put words on the paper no matter what, and 2) your ability to learn new types of writing.
I would have to say that I possess a growth mindset to a mid degree. Having a growth mindset indicates that I am open to new ways of learning in order to improve in what I have trouble on. I’m going to have to face many challenges over this course but its up to me and my “mindset” to overcome the challenges.
Hi Josh,
I’d love to hear more about this. What experience in your life do you have when you’ve overcome a fixed mindset? What aspects of this course do you think might bring out that fixed mindset, and what actions can you take to resist and work towards learning with a growth mindset?
Personally, I feel as though I have a combination of both a growth mindset and fixed mindset. I am capable of understanding my errors and correcting them and that I am making progress in my ability to learn and so on. I am completely able to deeply engage into something, but it’s usually only when I’m interested in the topic. But I also know that when I see a failing grade or something like that, I get down on myself and tend to just give up because if I can’t do it then that’s it. With that being said, if there is something that I truly just don’t understand, I usually try to avoid it as much as humanly possible, rather than trying to improve. As for some advice if you’re really trying to get a growth mindset; don’t be too hard on yourself, it’s better to know that you can improve rather than making yourself feel as though something is impossible, confront what the error is, face it head on and prove to yourself that you’re capable of much more than you think you are, don’t be afraid to ask for help, asking for help shows you that you’re trying to improve and correct what you don’t know or don’t understand, and don’t get stuck on the failure of the moment. That’s the biggest one, we all struggle at times and that’s okay, it’s part of life, so rather than focusing on the fact that you didn’t get it in that moment, focus on the fact that you will get it at some point and work towards understanding it.
Hi Sarah, I think your advice is spot on.
I’m interested in that sentence where you say that you’re capable of deeply engaging, but mainly when you’re already interested in the topic or skill. I think one of the things about college that’s challenging is that you sometimes don’t get to choose what you’re learning, and you may not organically be interested in some of the topics or skills you need to master. How can you develop interest in a topic or skill? What does it take to become interested? Miller and Jurecic have some ideas; what do you think about them?
Explain why having a growth mindset might be important to you as you begin this class, and what challenges you might face as you try to transfer your growth mindset from some other activity of life to this class. How might you overcome some of those challenges?
When learning to ski for the first time when I was four showed a great deal of growth mindset. My dad has always been a big skier so he still wanted to be going up to New Hampshire weekly, and every year for the first four or so years of skiing it was not like riding a bike, I had to relearn it every year. I was not happy about this I would get ridiculously angry when I would fall. However now I am still skiing every weekend in the winter and there is nothing I would rather be doing because it grew to be my favorite thing to do. I never cared for high school but knew I wanted to go to college, I now know that my mindset must grow for this now too so I can succeed while still enjoying myself. I need to be able to look back at high school as if it was the first four years of skiing, in college I need to be constantly improving skills like my ability to manage time wisely, being organized, and self disciplined and maybe college will become one of my favorite things as well.
Hi Matt,
No need to copy the prompt language into your post.
I think it’s interesting that you acknowledge that high school wasn’t really your thing, but that you really want to succeed in college. Surprisingly, many people do “flip the switch” when they get to college and become committed and self-directed learners. But it takes commitment and considerable changes to learning habits acquired in high school. What will you have to change in order to flip the switch?
Leave a comment in which you tell a brief story about yourself that reveals the degree to which you possess a growth mindset in some activity in your life.
Explain why having a growth mindset might be important to you as you begin this class, and what challenges you might face as you try to transfer your growth mindset from some other activity of life to this class. How might you overcome some of those challenges?
A story about my growth mindset is when I started to play chess it was just a fixed mindset at first just so I could be in a club picture for college, but then I got better at it which made me realize that I could make my own strategy and make my own moves, then I grew into the game and started my own strategies which grew until I became chess class president, so not only did i have growth but I also got rewarded unknowingly. which made me become better and faster at making moves to beat my opponents.
Hi Caleb,
No need to copy and paste prompt language in your responses.
That’s a fascinating story about wanting to be in a chess club to pad your resume and then finding out that you had a passion for the game. Your story reminds us that it can take time to develop enough fluency in a skill before you start to see its creativity and power. Hold onto the idea that with fluency comes creativity. What will you change about your approach to school and writing in order to develop that fluency in writing?
To have a growth mindset is to really believe in yourself and what you can do. I believe that I have a pretty good growth mindset for myself because I do not let things bother me or bring me down and I believe in myself. My advice to someone seeking to develop a growth mind set would probably have to be not to give up when life gets tough, if you just give up like that you will regret it because you will later fid out that you would have been able to do the task or solve the problem you just needed not to give up.
Hi Cailin,
In what aspect of life did you develop this approach to learning? What do you anticipate might be challenging about learning to write for college? What will it take to over come those challenges?
When I was young my father enrolled me in karate. From the beginning I was not very good at it but my dad forced to go. He knew that it would benefit me later in life and it was so he could sleep a bit better at night knowing that I could protect myself. Of course my 10 year old self didn’t see it that way and I hated it for a while. But eventually I realized that it was a lot of fun and the people I met were some of the best people I have ever met. So I eventually began to rise in the ranks. but as that happened it began to get harder and harder. I had to put more and more time into it and the things I had to learn became more and more challenging. Eventually I came to one of the biggest tests in my life, my black belt test. I was spending more than 30 hours a week either teaching or getting taught. But either way I was constantly learning. When teaching kids, they ask a billion questions which forces me to know my material and of course I was getting taught usually the same day. So my learning curve was VERY high. I always had a growth mindset because I wanted to learn. If I had a fixed mindset then i would never have made it and would have failed, which I have learned from experience failing multiple karate tests. So know for pretty much all of my life experiences I always try to have a growth mindset.
Hi Jarrett, it sounds to me like your karate experience can be a reminder of what it takes to learn something complex. You’ve done it once, you know what it takes, and what it feels like to struggle and to attain mastery.
What do you anticipate will be challenging about learning to write for college this year? What motivation do you have for working through the same kinds of doubt and struggle as the act of learning to write in this new way get more challenging?
I think in the past year or so I’ve started to develop a growth mindset. It’s not all quite there yet, but I’m working on it. When I was younger, I definitely shied away from challenges, but it was only out of fear of embarrassing myself. I hate failing, I hate not being the best at what I do, so anything I was unsure of or just didn’t know I tried to avoid at all costs. Now, however, I’ve begun viewing my challenges very differently. I see them now as a way to grow, a way to improve upon myself. My crossfit coached back in high school told me “Any day where you do not improve upon yourself, is a day wasted.” I constantly think of that and try to apply it any challenge that I encounter. For anyone else looking to develop a growth mindset, all I can say is, be open. Knowledge is power, and instead of viewing something as “Well, I cant do this” view it as “Soon, I will do this.” What’s the point of staying complacent? We were born with brains, we should use them every day to try and become the best versions of ourselves. So again, if you struggle finding a way to develop a growth mindset, be open and strive to improve upon yourself every day.
I shouldn’t be surprised, but I often am, when someone does what you do here and makes a strong connection between ideas and values learned through disciplined physical activities (like crossfit) and learning. It sounds like you have a general philosophy of learning that will serve you well. But everyone has limited time, energy, and resources they have to decide to allocate to learn something. Not everyone can learn everything. So how do you set priorities? Even in college, you’ll probably need to prioritize some subjects over others. What factors will inform your choices?
I believe that I had a growth mindset when it came to me actually starting to get good at lacrosse. I had to do the same stick skill drills over and over again until I actually had pin point accuracy with my shooting and my passing. During these repetitive drills that my summer coach had me running I wasn’t thinking about how much time and effort that it was taking for me to actually get good at what I was practicing I was instead thinking about how after putting in this much effort and this much time how I would be happy with and proud of myself. My Coach didn’t reward me wen I was doing okay with it instead he would say “you’re doing good for now but you can do better.” And him saying that always drove me to do better no matter how good I thought I was doing or how good other people thought I was doing, there was always something I could improve on and get better at doing.
Hi Alex,
So you sound like you were pretty motivated to learn those stick drills. How much does motivation play in deciding when to invest the time, energy, and effort into learning a complex task? What does it take to become highly motivated to learn a task that might not (at the moment) seem directly relevant to your goals?
I believe that I have and will always have a growth mindset. I may struggle with some challenging things at first and I may want to quit or give up, but I will never actually give up or quit. I will always accomplish the task given to me. I will always have a positive outlook on any situation or problem thrown my way. I’ll take my broken leg for example. I broke my leg the day before football camp, and I contemplated not coming to campus until everyone else moved in. I didn’t want to face the embarrassment and pain I know that I would go through. Sure enough, I came anyway, and the cast comes off tomorrow, and I will be one step closer to being back to full health on my journey to recovery.
Hi Paul,
Do you have a growth mindset about everything? Or are there some parts of your life where it’s harder to invest the time, energy, and effort to learn something complex? After all, we all have limited time and resources to invest when it comes to learning. What factors for you explain when you decide to invest your learning resources in something, and when you decline to invest?
I do believe that i have a growth mindset. I am a very open-minded person and always think that there is ways to improve myself. I also believe that i have the majority of the traits a growth mindset person has. I have not yet mastered anything so theres always ways to grow and make myself a more intelligent well-rounded individual.
Some advice i have for people who are seeking a growth mindset is to always believe in yourself and never give up. If you do not believe in yourself you are limiting yourself on what you can do. If you believe you and do something you can and will.
Curiosity, openness, engagement, creativity, persistence, responsibility, flexibility, and metacognition are some of the keys parts to possessing a creativity mind. When writing, any writer must keep these few things in mind if they want to successfully create a paper. Overall, a successful paper is what all writers strive for. When it comes to possessing the habits of a creativity mind I believe I have already done so to an extent. When writing I always try to focus on these key parts. Not only that but I always put extra time into my work to make sure it sounds nice and lives up to expectations.
To some extent I fit the idea of a creative mind. There are still ways that I need to become more creative. On the survey I put down for creativity that I still really need to work at it and figure out ways that would make me a more creative person. In the second question asked, it says do you have any advice for someone who needs to become more creative well I’m that person so I will take any advice.
🙂 It’s always good to recognize one’s own areas of growth! But I’ll bet you’ve acquired some good advice to pass along. What’s one thing you think a person could do to develop the habit of mind of creativity?
A growth mind set is a group habits that not only help you in ways of doing working but also in the ways of living life to a fuller meaning. The growth mind set for me has pushed to me to be who I am today. I mainly use Curiosity, to understand the word and everything around me in a complex way. Another strong habit that I use is Engagement, for anything I do that I feel has an important impact on my life weather its school, family, relationship, or sports I always give it my all. My best advise to give is to be aware of whats going on and don’t just go with the flow, make your own path.
I would say the degree that I possess on habits of a creative mind is somewhere in the middle. Some traits such as curiosity and openness I feel I have down. Other traits though like creativity and flexibility I need to work on. My advice to someone trying to develop a growth mind set is to become more engaged in activities and put more effort in your work.
I believe that currently my growth mindset on a scale of 1-10 would score around a 7. My experience with learning has always had a focus on ‘yet’ and while I disagree with the word, the general idea is agreeable. Any ranking system will generate competition and that is not how the schooling system should be set. Learning is not about beating your friends or trying to be the best. It is about improving yourself.
Anyone who wants to develop a more creative mind needs to change the basis of their thinking from impossible to possible. And they need to realize that the reward system is flawed. They need to reach past their comfort zone. And only reach past it because they want to, not for any other reason. Learning is mostly about the individual. Yet, too often, the individual is forgotten.
I agree with your sense that competition isn’t all that useful in an educational setting. That’s why I grade and give feedback the way I do. But eventually the university forces me to give you a letter grade. Why do you think it matters to the University to rank students?
I also want to know more about what you mean by this sentence: “They need to realize that the reward system is flawed.” It sounds interesting and insightful. But I need a little more to know what you mean.
I believe that I possess habits of a creative mind. I am curious, creative, engaging, and flexible. Some things I could work on however, are persistence and meta cognition. My best advice for someone seeking to develop a growth mind set is to self evaluate. You have to reflect on your habits to be able to better improve your own thinking and learning. Another piece of advice is to think deeper into things. Be curious, ask questions, take on challenges, adapt to new ways of learning and thinking. Making habits of being curious, open, engaging, creative, persistent, responsible, flexible, and metacognant are the key to having and using your creative mind.
To a degree, i possess the habits of a creative mindset. For example: When it comes to being creative, openness, flexibility, and metacognition it shows that i hold some of the key components to a creative mindset. However, when it comes to engagement curiosity, or responsibility i can sometime slack in those topic and need to improve a bit more. My advice to someone seeking to develop in the growth a creative mindset is to, always be willing to work at something that your not necessarily amazing at. Or to keep doing repetitions in one of the topics you don’t understand or do well in.
Repetition is useful, and purposeful repetition that evolves in response to constructive is even more useful. How do you know when the feedback you’re getting is useful?
I think my creative mind is expanding from what it used to be. I am defiantly more curious about what goes on around the world. I think the best way to develop a growth mindset is to be more open to accepting new ideas, and also to be engaged in what you are learning. Even if you don’t succeed the first time, try again.
I currently possess a higher to medium range of growth mindset. I tend to be very curious about everything around me while being open to new ways of thinking . I tend to engage in all activities without a persistent attitude and the responsibility that my work is my own and how it is when finished is up to me. I don’t end up getting very creative with my work because I like to follow all rules of engagement. On the other hand I can be flexible of other peoples methods that are different from my own. I don’t always know what I am doing or how well I am doing it, but I always manage to get my work done.
My best advice for those who are seeking a to develop a growth mindset would be to follow you own intuition. If that doesn’t seem to be getting the job done the way you want then you try to step outside of your comfort zone to expand your knowledge of how your mind works.
Hi Andrew, I think a lot of us will sympathize with this line: “I don’t always know what I am doing or how well I am doing it.” There’s often so much to do that it’s hard to stop and notice the process you used to Get Stuff Done.
But, as Ciara writes below, the payoff for noticing your own process, evaluating it, and keeping what works and changing what doesn’t can be huge. It’s worth keeping notes about what works for you and what doesn’t, and experimenting with strategies to see if you can improve your learning efficiency.
I believe I am very open-minded person and always believe there is room to grow. I don’t find myself the worst or the best at anything. I think it is important to always have an open mind and be adaptable and acceptable to change. I do find myself with more growth in the persistence and metacognition ranges though. Overall I am confident that I am open-minded and somewhat creative.
My advice would be to keep your mind open and don’t just settle for one way to solve problems. Remember that you always have a crowd cheering you on whether it be family, friends, or teachers. Be okay with change and or new strategies in life. But most importantly, believe in yourself and know you have worth.
I think that quality of being flexible and open to new ways of doing things is really important during your first semester especially. There are so many adjustments to make.
It’s also important not to flex every time. Eventually, in order to get better, you have to have a repeatable process, and a relatively small set of strategies you can rely on. So, experiment, give yourself time to learn, monitor what works, reuse what works wherever it works.
I feel like I do have a strong ability to have the habits of a creative mindset. Having a creative mindset means you must have , but aren’t limited to; Curiosity , openness, engagement, creativity, persistence, responsibility, flexibility, and meta-cognition. For all of these I would say I have a fair chance of maintaining my creative mindset. For someone looking to seek a bigger mindset in life I would recommend working on the issues at hand with another person and see what they together can accomplish. Two heads are greater than one.