Class 1: Familiar Faces, tilting towers and belief mindsets.
- Tom Hogan
- Nov 19, 2019
- 3 min read
Updated: Dec 15, 2019
The first official class and my first "official" post now that I have actual content to reflect on. After a late start, today's class was spent discussing course housekeeping, introducing key concepts and everyone's favorite first week activity, breaking the ice. It was pleasantly surprising for me (or a worrying sign of global warming) that there was actually very little ice for me to break. It seems that nearly 50% of the class for this spring semester were already aquainted with me through at least one class last semester.
Our topic of reflection for this lesson is based upon the Ted talk 'The power of belief - mindset and Success' by Eduardo Briceno (2012)
Throughout this talk Briceno emphasises that with the right frame of mind we can reach our true potential as human beings, or something sappy like that.
He describes two mindsets which people use everyday in sport, study, their occupation, anything that requires a mindset and these are reffered to as the Fixed Mindset and the Growth Mindset .
A Fixed Mindset is characterised by the belief that success is determined by ingrained levels of ability, the common example being that someone is good at maths because "they are smart" whereas others may believe they "aren't a maths person" and thats just the way things are and this cannot be changed. The growth mindset challenges this by viewing all qualities as things which can be grown and developed with patience and dedication. Suddenly a someone who is 'good at maths' becomes 'someone who has developed their maths abilities to a level I haven't reached yet.'
Studies have shown that students with a belief that they can increase their own intelligence rather improved their grades over a 2 year period whereas those who believed their level of intelligence (high or low) was a fixed quality saw little improvement to their grades.
He contends that a growth mindset should be actively enshrined in children from an early age and points to numerous studies which have proven the hypothesis that a growth mindset makes children more proactive and motivated to grow.
The idea of growing your abilities rather than accepting what you haven't had isn't new, it dates back to at least the first Rocky training montage. I feel that in regards to university I have a growth mindset, I view myself as not yet fully formed and growing my abilities is really why I'm here. I'm sure everyone has experienced a fixed mindset in a negative sense, when you just can't quite get the hang of something, but this Ted Talk introduced me to the idea of a fixed mindset of positive qualities about yourself and how that can have negative impacts on you too. Notions such as "I am gifted" can lead people to not put in as much effort according to Briceno. I'm not so sure if this is always the case. At least for me whenever I can say I am good at a skill I know it has come from practice and that is why I have a confidence in myself to perform that skill.
Fixed and Growth mindsets will definitely be on my mind throughout the rest this semester and I'm interested to try and catch myself when I am thinking in a fixed mindset about something as per his final advice.
I will try my best to keep a record of what topics cause me to think in such a way so stay tuned for that.
-T
TedxTalks 2012, The Power of belief -- mindset and success | Eduardo Briceno | TEDxManhattanBeach, Youtube, Nov 18, viewed 19/11/19 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN34FNbOKXc
University of Edinburgh 2019, Gibbs' reflective cycle, webpage, 20 march. Viewed Dec 14. https://www.ed.ac.uk/reflection/reflectors-toolkit/reflecting-on-experience/gibbs-reflective-cycle
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