Post #18: "Growth" vs. "Fixed" Mindsets

This pod cast, from Standford University News, was brief and to the point. It is a video cast of two women discussing how students use two very different mindsets to either grow or stay the same mentally. When a person learns a specific trade and not much more, this is known as a "fixed" mindset. One is not trying to understand more than they feel is necessary to successfully complete a job or task. This is how most of us are taught in school. We only want to do the bare minimum to get by. This is simply not enough if you really want to succeed at something, instead of just being good at something.
These women discussed an experiment that was tested at a local school in which students were introduced to an eight session workshop on how to improve one's study skills. Half of the students were simply given the study skills needed to complete a task, the other half were given the study skills and the growth mindset lesson. The second half were taught that their brains were like a muscle and that intelligence is something that can be improved. The first group of students had a steady decline in their grades at school. The second half showed a great improvement in their grades and overall attitude toward learning and life. The improvement was so great that other teachers at school began to recognize these students as participants in this workshop. This growth mindset was later applied to race car drivers. These drivers learned to admit their mistakes and overcome them. They greatly improved their ways of thinking on and off the track.
This discussion has affected the way I look at what and how a student perceives learning. It is simply not enough to learn how to do something. One must learn to utilize optimal performance in the way something is learned and the way a task is completed. This "fixed" learning closely resembles the dreaded "burp-back" education that educators, such as Dr. Strange, have profusely denounced. I want my students to be curious about learning and life. I don't want them to just feel smart, I want them to be smart, and to teach it to others.