Week 1, Growth Mindset

The Growth Mindset by Carol Dweck is a new concept for me in that I was not aware of the name of it. I have a child and I have studied psychology a little. Praising children for things that are not well deserved or earned can create consequences for the child later when that is not how the world works. I am looking forward to learning more about the Growth Mindset.

 Having to have an A in a class is not the most important thing, learning something in the class is the most important thing. I stress this in my household, because all three of us are students. My daughter is a freshman this year at Norman High, my husband is a full time college student with all online classes through OSU IT, and I am a full time student at OU. There have been times when I did not get an A in a class because I had to miss some classes because of an illness. It does not mean I did not learn to an A standard, I may have learned even beyond that standard and it's just not reflected in the grade. It is also an opportunity to see what I could have chosen to do differently. 

All people learn differently. I think it is good to challenge ourselves and push our limits to see what we are capable of. I really like the story that the professor shared with us of how she was exposed to an open style of learning as a child. I would love to see more of those choices available for children. I do not agree at all with the current standards of learning in schools. It wastes their time and potential. 

When I was in seventh grade, nearly a million years ago, my math class was set to work at your own pace. There were kids in the class that finished the book and moved onto the next grades book. I never made it past the fiftth chapter the whole year. Consequently I was behind in math the next year when I moved to a different state. It left a permanent deficiency in my math abilities, and in my faith in myself. It was not until 2006 when I decided to go back to college that I had to teach myself math to pass my college math courses. The campus I went to in Mountain Home Arkansas did not have professors for anything below College Algebra. It was an online course. I gained more confidence teaching myself, and facing the challenge rather than to give up.

One thing that I have found in my learning style is that I hate to work in groups. I am old, and I am used to doing things on my own, not as a team. Well, what I learned is that even todays generation don't work well in groups. It is something that I had to do in nearly all of my classes at OCCC. One of the reasons for this is because we are a global society and many other cultures work as groups. Many career fields these days require work groups as well. It causes me stress, it does not make things easier, it only makes things more difficult.