Today, let’s look at the eight ways you can combine and adopt a growth mindset in your digital collaborative learning for the 21st century. But first, let’s define what a growth mindset is and look quickly at its opposite, the fixed mindset.
In the 1990s, human motivation researcher Carol Dweck became interested in students' attitudes about failure. She noticed that some bounced back quickly from setbacks while others seemed to have more difficulty when faced with unexpected challenges. After considerable study of the issue, Dweck coined the term ‘growth mindset’ to describe the underlying beliefs people have about learning and intelligence. When people believe they can improve and become smarter, they understand that trying harder and empowering themselves to succeed helps them do so. As a result, they put in extra time and effort, which leads to better learning and higher achievement.
By contrast, a ‘fixed mindset’ is when people think of intelligence as something that is static and incapable of growth or change. Students with a fixed mindset have the attitude that a subject or topic areas is too hard to learn. “I can’t do it,” they imagine. “I made a mistake. That means I’m not good at this. I don’t get it. I’ll never be as capable as others. I shouldn’t have to do it. I give up.”
Have you ever had similar thoughts about something that didn’t come easily to you? High school Algebra II and Geometry way back in the early 1980s were my own stumbling blocks. At some point in the 10th and 11th grades, I got lost and felt like I could no longer understand either subject. I closed my mind, basically gave up, and received quite a few failing grades in the process. That’s a prime example of Dweck’s fixed mindset and the unfortunate results.
Years later, I had to redouble my efforts to pass both courses in order to finish my bachelor’s degree and get accepted into graduate school. So, I know about discouraging challenges, the time, effort, and sheer will necessary to overcome them. But that’s a story for another time.
Now, let’s talk more closely how we might adopt and combine the growth mindset to our digital collaborative learning. First, change your attitude. A major part of adopting what Carol Dweck calls a growth mindset involves adjusting your own attitude and approach. You have the capacity to learn and develop new skills and knowledge. And occasional failure provides us with a valuable lesson plus related learning experience in our academic and personal growth.
Second, envision the favorable result you want, plan, practice, and work consistently to get there. People who are good at something – whatever that might be -- are skilled because they have worked to build up their abilities over time though repeated effort. It’s not unlike developing skills in a particular sport or learning a musical instrument. In other words, you are in control of your abilities by way of the effort you put into increasing your knowledge and skills whether that is studying more often, working with a tutor, or allowing yourself more time to complete an assignment by simply procrastinating less and starting your work earlier.
A third pointer? Focus! When it comes to adopting a growth mindset in connection to your work for this or other courses, another important practice involves a conscious focus by you on the process of getting better or improving your skills, abilities, and knowledge. View occasional setbacks or mistakes as learning opportunities and ways to improve. Challenges are not something avoid. Rather, they are something to push through.
Fourth, become more receptive to constructive feedback your receive from your classmates or instructors along the way. Rather than becoming defensive about negative results, related critique, and taking those personally, choose instead to use that feedback to your advantage. Instead of ignoring criticism, greeting unexpected feedback angrily, or just shutting down, make up your mind to learn from it instead. Integrate that feedback into your approach as you retool and revise how you approach later assignments or projects based on that feedback.
Five, embrace challenges and difficulties. It’s great when we pick up new knowledge and skills with relative ease, but learning is not always quite that easy. A key part of the growth mindset, however, is the realization that intelligence and ability are things that can be developed as we’ve already established. That honest admission to yourself leads, in turn, to a renewed desire to learn plus an increased tendency to accept and face any related challenges head on.
A sixth way you can adopt and combine the groth mindset with your digital collaborative learning is this. Choose to view effort as a path to mastery of a challenging subject area, topic, or task better enables you to persist in the face of early setbacks or mistakes, whether those are your own, or a student learning team member’s. Remember, playing the blame game is neither helpful, nor productive. What WILL help the situation is a conscious decision to double down, work harder, and put in the time necessary to learn and excel.
Persistence is a seventh key part of Carol Dweck’s growth mindset. When you choose to adopt that method for addressing challenges, you developan unshakable stick-to-it-ive-ness. In other words, you avoid getting discouraged and giving up easily if, or when a subject, task, or process requires elbow grease. Instead, you assess the situation and determine what you need to do to move forward in a more productive way.
Last, view challenges and your work to overcome them as key to your intellectual growth. Avoid seeing the extra effort necessary to improve your knowledge, skills, and abilities as a pointless waste of time. Remember, learning is not always easy. Contrary to what some might think, occasional mistakes and setbacks are not a reason to fall to pieces, complain about, or expect someone else to fix for you. None of that puts you in charge of your own learning.
By contrast, adopting a growth mindset empowers you to persevere in the face of challenges and increase your skills or abilities as you navigate those same difficulties. Through the adoption of a growth mindset, you come to view challenges as opportunities to grow, train your brain, embrace, and overcome current weaknesses in your knowledge and skills.
Follow the advice presented here, and you too can improve your approach to learning, routine collaboration with your student learning team. More broadly, remember that intellectual agility is a vital 21st century employability skill that has direct bearing on your long-term participation within the globalized digital economy, so you want to do your level best to cultivate that flexibility now.
-- Prof. Schwartz
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