Archives For mindset

Beloit Mindset List: 2016

Dwayne Harapnuik —  September 10, 2012 — Leave a comment
http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/2016/

The Mindset List: 2016 List via kwout

What started as a witty way of saying to faculty colleagues “watch your references,” has turned into a globally reported and utilized guide to the intelligent if unprepared adolescent consciousness.

The Mindset list will help faculty understand just who their freshmen students are and where they are coming from. Understanding your learner and their preparedness for learning is the first and most important step in creating and effective learning environment. While the Mindset list is definitely American and some of the cultural norms identified are also uniquely American the list as a whole paints a very accurate description of the North American freshman entering college or university for the first time.

In Technology & Culture ,
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Motivating Learners-As Simple as a Change in Mindset

Dwayne Harapnuik —  January 3, 2011 — Leave a comment

Carol Dweck, Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, the author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (Random House, 2006) and the article Even Geniuses Work Hard posits that if students with a Fixed Mindset believe that intelligence is an inborn trait and is essentially fixed they:

  • Tend to view looking smart above all else;
  • May sacrifice important opportunities to learn—even those that are important to their future academic success—if those opportunities require them to risk performing poorly or admitting deficiencies;
  • Believe that if you have ability, everything should come naturally;
  • Tell us that when they have to work hard, they feel dumb;
  • Believe that setbacks call their intelligence into question, they become discouraged or defensive when they don’t succeed right away;
  • May quickly withdraw their effort, blame others, lie about their scores, or consider cheating.

In contrast Dweck explains that students with a Growth Mindset believe that they can develop their intelligence over time and subsequently will:

  • View challenging work as an opportunity to learn and grow;
  • Meet difficult problems, ones they could not solve yet, with great relish;
  • Say things like “I love a challenge,” “Mistakes are our friends,” and “I was hoping this would be informative!”
  • Value effort; they realize that even geniuses have to work hard to develop their abilities and make their contributions;
  • More likely to respond to initial obstacles by remaining involved, trying new strategies, and using all the resources at their disposal for learning.

To help motivate students to adopt the growth mindset Dweck recommends that teachers create a culture of risk taking and strive to design challenging and meaningful tasks. This will require teachers to learn to encourage and reward effort, persistence and improvement rather than simply reward results and test scores. It will also mean that instructors will need to educate student on the different mindsets. Dweck offers many key recommendations in the article that include:

  • Emphasizing Challenge, Not “Success”
  • Giving a Sense of Purpose;
  • Grading for Growth.

To help teachers learn more about a growth mindset Dweck and her colleagues have developed growth mindset curriculum that can be accessed at www.brainology.us.

Read the full article…

In Engagement, Learning , , ,
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Mindset for the Class of 2014

Dwayne Harapnuik —  November 5, 2010 — Leave a comment

http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/2014.php

Beloit College Mindset List via kwout

A student in my EDUC 652 class posted a link to the Beloit College College Mindset list for the Class of 2014. Since 1998, Beloit College has released the Beloit College Mindset List. It provides a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college this fall.

The list include 75 items in addition to a generous description of the student who will graduate from College in 2014. The following is only the first 5 points:

For these students, Benny Hill, Sam Kinison, Sam Walton, Bert Parks and Tony Perkins have always been dead.

  1. Few in the class know how to write in cursive.
  2. Email is just too slow, and they seldom if ever use snail mail.
  3. “Go West, Young College Grad” has always implied “and don’t stop until you get to Asia…and learn Chinese along the way.”
  4. Al Gore has always been animated.
  5. Los Angelenos have always been trying to get along.

This is a really good reminder of how important it is to really get a good understanding of where are learner are at. Unless you grew up at the same time and in the same conditions your cultural attitudes will be different. I am not saying that we need to bend to our young learners whims and unrealistic expectations, we just need to be aware of why they assume and expect what they do and take this into account when we create learning environment in which they can flourish.

In Learning , ,
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Life = Risk

Dwayne Harapnuik —  May 11, 2010 — Leave a comment

If you haven’t failed you haven’t lived…

[youtube]RmTxr7OsPj0[/youtube]

In Innovation , ,
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Mindset List for Class of 2013

Dwayne Harapnuik —  February 9, 2010 — Leave a comment

Considering that recognizing your learner’s preparedness for learning is crucial to effective instruction and learning, the following information can be very helpful in understanding just where our current students are at, what they have grown to expect and what they take for granted. All educators should look to these sorts of list and other cultural indicators to help understand just who is in their classroom and what their needs and expectation are.

The following excerpt was taken directly from the Beloit College Mindset List for the Class of 2013:

Each August for the past 12 years, Beloit College in Beloit, Wis., has released the Beloit College Mindset List. It provides a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college. It is the creation of Beloit’s Keefer Professor of the Humanities Tom McBride and Public Affairs Director Ron Nief. The List is shared with faculty and with thousands who request it each year as the school year begins, as a reminder of the rapidly changing frame of reference for this new generation.

Students entering college for the first time in the fall of 2009 were generally born in 1991.

  1. For these students, Martha Graham, Pan American Airways, Michael Landon, Dr. Seuss, Miles Davis, The Dallas Times Herald, Gene Roddenberry, and Freddie Mercury have always been dead.
  2. Dan Rostenkowski, Jack Kevorkian, and Mike Tyson have always been felons.
  3. The Green Giant has always been Shrek, not the big guy picking vegetables.
  4. They have never used a card catalog to find a book.
  5. Margaret Thatcher has always been a former prime minister.
  6. Salsa has always outsold ketchup.
  7. Earvin “Magic” Johnson has always been HIV-positive.
  8. Tattoos have always been very chic and highly visible.
  9. They have been preparing for the arrival of HDTV all their lives.
  10. Rap music has always been main stream
  11. …

To read all 75 items please proceed to the full Mindset List for the Class of 2013

In Learning ,
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