Growth Mindset Extra Credit

How To Spark Curiosity in Children Through Embracing Uncertainty by Linda Flanagan

Source: Mind Shift

The thing this article really hit on I have always dealt with is uncertainty of the unknown. This really plays on my mind when I am up for a checkride in the flight department. This is due to the uncertainty of the multitude of questions that the examiner can ask you during the oral exam. There is always that gut wrenching feeling before the oral exam because you never know if you are prepared enough or know enough to get through the exam. 

Addressing and enforcing the feelings of uncertainty and discomfort that it brings. This is a good idea to let the students know that its okay to not be perfect on every subject. However, if this done at an early age in my opinion it needs to be followed by some sort of task to help fill that void of uncertainty. Like the author says give the students some sort of project where they are tasked to find mistakes within something. However, this would have to be something outside of the students general class material (like English when finding grammar errors). I think the idea presented about giving a student an assignment that gives them the chance to fail is a good idea, but the assignment shouldn't hold any weight on the students grade in the class.  For instance, I could see in some classes where the student is given an assignment to do ahead of the course material being taught. This would give the student an opportunity to branch out and find the unknown when they can't figure out the homework assignment. However, the assignment like previously states should only be for completion and not graded for correctness. As I feel if it were a weighted grade then the student would lose interest and the whole idea of enforcing uncertainty would be lost. 

The last thing that is talked about in the article is how Cueva-Dabkoski has changed her mind-set since being in college. I thought it was interesting on how she set a goal for herself in trying to do personal research she wanted and do so in a certain time frame. This would be interesting for college's to integrate this into the freshman orientation classes they take in their first year. This would give a new student a learning objective to find research about new things they are interested about. This may even give the student ideas towards paths they want to pursue as a career or could help enforce the student in the degree choice they want to declare. 

Curious Cat from Laura Gibbs Blog
Source: Growth Mindset Blog

My Take on Growth Mindset

When reading the words Growth Mindset, nothing really clicked for me on what the subject was really going to pertain and what it truly was. Before listening to the videos from Carol Dweck's videos I had never heard of this type of learning and have never heard of any teacher trying to implement this version of teaching. However, after listening to the videos and reading some of the descriptions I have really thought about it and kind of relate some of the things to my every day life of being a aviation student. In the department of aviation we do a lot of self grading and grading that is based on how we feel about that certain lesson that we've done that day. For example, for each flight lesson we have a syllabus ticket that goes to that lesson and it has a list of items that are suppose to be taught and practiced for that lesson. Then at the end of the flight you and your instructor go over those items and discuss what went wrong and what went right during the flight and if there are any areas that need to be worked on. By doing this sort of system of doing a post flight brief you and your flight instructor are able to obtain feedback from each other and see what progress is being made and also if the instructor themselves need to change the way they are teaching something. I have greatly noticed a difference in my flights when I have flight instructor that communicates with me before and after a flight, rather than a instructor that just gets in and gets out and no feedback at all. 

So I see where there can be an effective system of teaching and learning in the education system. However, as it was pointed out can it be effectively put in place with a normal grading system of right or wrong and getting a percent based grade on the number of points that are received. I believe that they way the classes is structured where it is based on completion and writing about what they have learned during the assignment is more effective than the student just getting points based off of right and wrong answers. 

Meme taken from Growth Mindset and Feedback Cats by Laura Gibbs