I have never heard of Carol Dweck nor her TED Talk about improvement. I did enjoy hearing her perspective on how young children don't face enough challenges in school. When a child says "that was easy", Dweck states that it usually means the child has already been exposed to, knows how to complete that specific work, or if it was new material, then it wasn't challenging enough. I agree with her to a certain extent. While I do think children do need the challenges to be prepared for when their older, I don't think they need to be constantly challenged. I think that having a balance of children feeling that "this was easy" and "wow that was really hard" is good for them. It can give a focus for children to see what they are good and what they aren't that good at, that way the can put more effort when exposed to new concepts.
The growth mindset overall is a good idea to follow. It is good to challenge yourself in areas that you need improving on. For example, I absolutely do not enjoy physics. I suck at it and I don't understand it that much. But I did put in the effort and challenged myself to study for Physics 1 and Physics 2 when I took them in Spring 2018 and Fall 2018. With challenging myself and not giving up on learning physics, I managed to get a B in both courses and felt a huge feeling of accomplishment when I finished physics. Without that challenge, physics would have been like my intro to zoology class; easy, fun, and not a challenge at all. But without that mixture of easy and hard classes, the challenges would just overwhelm me. That is why I try to have a few "easier" classes when I take the harder classes.
The growth mindset overall is a good idea to follow. It is good to challenge yourself in areas that you need improving on. For example, I absolutely do not enjoy physics. I suck at it and I don't understand it that much. But I did put in the effort and challenged myself to study for Physics 1 and Physics 2 when I took them in Spring 2018 and Fall 2018. With challenging myself and not giving up on learning physics, I managed to get a B in both courses and felt a huge feeling of accomplishment when I finished physics. Without that challenge, physics would have been like my intro to zoology class; easy, fun, and not a challenge at all. But without that mixture of easy and hard classes, the challenges would just overwhelm me. That is why I try to have a few "easier" classes when I take the harder classes.
Hello again, Victoria! I pretty much agree with everything you said about Dweck's growth mindset. When I first saw the video, I was kind of blown away because it opened my eyes to mistakes I've been making in class. Feedback is so important to college students who are trying to improve themselves in every aspect of their field of study. Confidence and perseverance, however, are the drying forces to make feedback useful!
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