Sir Richard Steele said, “Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.” Just as you would do drills to practice a sport before a game, you have to read and study before you complete assignments. In this course, having a growth mindset as a reader and learner is important.

What does it mean to have a growth mindset?

Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck describes a growth mindset as an attitude toward learning.  You’ve got the brains and the talent because you’ve signed up for this course and you are a college student! The key to your success is persistence and practicing.

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.

Having this attitude isn’t always easy.

When you miss a quiz question, for instance, you have to rethink your response. Nobody likes to miss points, and there may be many opportunities in this course to think about a missed response as a chance to learn more.

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?

Waymaker is designed to have a Study Plan. The screenshot below shows an example of what the Study Plan looks like in a course. As you dive into new material, you may encounter ideas that are new to you. That’s great—you’re learning! The Study Plan will help you organize your learning as you move through the course.

Accessing the Study Plan

In order to access the Study Plan, click on the study plan link in a given module to open it.

There is one study plan per topic; it contains all learning activities for the module except the graded quiz, which is included as a separate link in each module.

Accessing Learning Activities

All learning activities are accessed via links inside the tiles. Click the section to open it. Then click on the link of the learning activity that you would like to view.

Navigating Between Learning Activities

At the bottom of each learning activity page are three navigation buttons: Previous, Study Plan, and Next. “Previous” returns to the previous learning activity. “Study Plan” returns to the study plan. “Next” advances to the next learning activity.

Navigating to the Quiz

In order to access a quiz, you must exit the study plan and click on the quiz link in the module to access the quiz. The “Take Quiz” tile reminds you how to navigate to the quiz and shows any previous quiz scores for that module.

Let’s dive in deeper on each of these areas in our next section.