Growth Mindset

What does it mean to have a growth mindset?

Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck describes a growth mindset as an attitude toward learning. She has found that people tend to adopt one of two general sets of beliefs about intelligence. People with a fixed mindset tend to think of intelligence as an “entity”—something that is part of a person’s essential self. According to people with this belief, intelligence does not change much regardless of what we do or what we experience. Other people have a growth mindset, and they tend to think of intelligence as being “incremental”—a quality that can change for better or worse depending on what we do and on the experiences we have. Some people are strongly committed to one or the other end of the fixed vs. growth mindset scale, while others fall in-between to varying degrees.

Using the Waymaker Study Plan with a Growth Mindset

If you have discovered that you have a fixed mindset, consider how changing your thinking towards a growth mindset can influence your opportunities for successful learning and growth. When you have a growth mindset as a student, you may have to redefine what it means to fail–or what it means when you get an answer wrong. Sometimes getting the incorrect answer or being wrong is part of the practice of learning.

1. Adjust your self-talk. A key sentence to remember is “I can’t do it — yet”. Consider feedback as information to help you as you continue to grow towards a goal, not as a final evaluation of your ability to learn and achieve. When you miss a quiz question, for instance, you have to rethink your response. Don’t think: What did I do wrong? Why did I fail? Think with a growth mindset: What did I miss? What more can I do to learn and improve?
2. Respond to feedback differently. Rather than viewing feedback as criticism of who you are, consider feedback as an opportunity to grow. In the Waymaker Study Plan, you will get feedback on many different types of assessments. Use the feedback to learn and expand your understanding.
3. Rather than quitting when you face setbacks, use them as an opportunity to adjust your approach. You may be learning that your current approach to learning is not leading to the success you desire. Seek out support from others, and try new ways of learning. Setbacks are an opportunity to learn about yourself and to discover what ways of working will be most effective for you.
4. Embrace challenging opportunities. Though it may at first seem easier to avoid situations that might be difficult or perhaps risk failure, embracing challenges leads to success in the long term. Consider how accepting challenges will help you become the person you want to be in the future.

How to Study Like a Pro

Waymaker courseware is designed to enable you to learn by doing. To use it to its fullest, make sure that you take advantage of all of the learning opportunities included in the course—the Show What You Know pretest, all of the embedded practice questions, the Self Checks, and the final quizzes.

All of the practice assessments you do are supported by research on learning that says that spaced practice, or review at different points in time, is a great way to move things into your long-term memory. There are three steps involved in establishing a long-term memory: encoding, storage, and retrieval.

1. To encode, you assign meaning to information.
2. To store information, you review the information and its meaning. Repetition is essential to remembering.
3. To retrieve information, you follow the path you created through encoding. This may include a number of memory triggers that you used when you were encoding.

Mnemonics are strategies to associate the information we want to remember with something else so that it is easier to remember. Using mnemonic devices such as using acronyms, chunking concepts together, making rhymes, or creating diagrams, can all help you with the process of encoding, storing, and retrieving information.

Active Learning

When you learn actively, you apply a variety of strategies to your course material, including reading, writing, reflecting, solving problems, organizing material, self-testing, and working with others. Waymaker courses encourage active learning and engaging with the content, but there are other activities you can do to promote active learning. For example, you can take notes, write down questions (and answers!) you have while doing the readings, elaborate on the concepts you are learning, create visual organizers like a mindmap or a chart, create flashcards, or explain the concepts out loud to a friend.

Not only is active learning a more engaging and fun way to study, it also allows you to use your study time more effectively. Contrast this with an activity like re-reading a textbook, highlighting, or reviewing notes, which are more passive ways to learn. Though you may be seeing the material, you are not engaging in an activity that requires you to store the information in your memory and practice retrieving it.

The Waymaker Study Plan is designed to help you move information into your long-term memory, but just reading and answering questions will likely not be enough to truly become a master of the content. Use the information from the Study Plan to inform your understanding of how you learn, and take the opportunity to use the feedback from the Study Plan to implement your own plan for improved learning. You’ll be a master soon enough!