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Mindset

Dwayne Harapnuik — April 25, 2013 — 1 Comment

Carol Dweck, Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, the author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (Random House, 2007) 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 that include:

There are three things that any of us can do to install a growth mindset in ourselves and those around us.

Recognized that the growth mindset is not only beneficial but it’s also supported by science. Neuroscience shows that the brain is mailable. Our brain changes and becomes more capable when we work hard to improve ourselves.
Learn and teach others about how to develop our abilities. We need to learn about deliberate practice and what makes for effective effort. When we learn how to develop our abilities we strengthen our conviction that we’re in charge of them.
Listen for your fixed mind set voice and when you hear it, talk back with a growth mindset voice. If you hear “I can’t do it” at “yet”.

Dweck recommends that we make the following changes to the learning environments we create and support:

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

In the TED talk The power of believing that you can improve Dweck summarizes the advantages of adopting a growth mindset and points to ongoing research and evidence of how powerful a growth mindset can be in improving a learning environment.

The move toward adopting a growth mindset parallels our need to constantly adapt to changes in our learning environment. The post Fixed Vs Growth Mindset = Print Vs Digital Information Age outlines just how important a growth mindset is as we move from the static print information age to the dynamic digital information age.

Carol Dweck’s work is being vetted and adapted by many other researchers and educators. Eduardo Briceño is the Co-Founder and CEO of Mindset Works (http://www.mindsetworks.com), an organization that helps schools and other organizations cultivate a growth mindset culture. In his TED talks he provides another voice to the the advantages of the growth Mindset.

Growth vs Fixed Mindset

Angela Lee Duckworth research into “grit” rather than IQ as an accurate predictor of student success also uses the growth mindset as a guiding theory. Students with the most grit are those who have adopted the growth mindset. Duckworth points to Dweck’s work as the primary source of research in this area.

The key to success? Grit

In the RSA ANIMATE: How To Help Every Child Fulfil Their Potential the RSA folks provide a wonderful visual perspective on the growth mindset.

Employers STILL Want Broadly Educated New Hires

Dwayne Harapnuik — April 11, 2013 — Leave a comment

Employers Want Broadly Educated New Hires, Survey Finds – Students – The Chronicle of Higher Education via kwout

The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) survey “It Takes More Than a Major: Employer Priorities for College Learning and Student Success,” reveals that most employers don’t think colleges are doing a very good job of preparing students for work. In response to the survey results, 160 employers and 107 college presidents agreed to sign a compact and work toward helping the public:

understand the importance of a “21st-century liberal-arts education,” comprising broad and adaptive learning, personal and social responsibility, and intellectual skills.

While I admire this initiative I am somewhat skeptical of its impact. Why? It was only 6 years ago that AAC&U conducted a similar survey that revealed similar findings. In the 2008 report How Should Colleges Assess and Improve Student Learning?) Peter D. Hart Research Associates revealed the following 6 Key Findings:

When it comes to preparedness for success at the entry-level, one-third of business executives think that a significant proportion of recent college graduates do not have the requisite skills and knowledge.
When asked to evaluate recent college graduates’ preparedness in 12 areas, employers give them the highest marks for teamwork, ethical judgment, and intercultural skills, and the lowest scores for global knowledge, self-direction, and writing.
Most employers indicate that college transcripts are not particularly useful in helping evaluate job applicants’ potential to succeed at their company.
Few employers believe that multiple-choice tests of general content knowledge are very effective in ensuring student achievement. Instead, employers have the most confidence in assessments that demonstrate graduates’ ability to apply their college learning to complex, real-world challenges, as well as projects or tests that integrate problem-solving, writing, and analytical reasoning skills.
Employers deem both multiple-choice tests of general content knowledge and institutional assessments that show how colleges compare in advancing critical-thinking skills of limited value for evaluating applicants’ potential for success in the workplace. They anticipate that faculty-assessed internships, community-based projects, and senior projects would be the most useful in gauging graduates’ readiness for the workplace.
When asked to advise colleges on how to develop their methods for assessing students’ learning, employers rank multiple-choice tests of students’ general content knowledge and institutional scores for colleges as conspicuously low priorities.

This report focused on assessment and learning and offered some very specific and practical recommendations that, if followed, should have resulted in a different findings in the latest AAC&U survey. Why hasn’t higher education made any progress in this area over the past 6 years? Theodore Sizer, the former Harvard Graduate School of Education Dean and Educational Reformer, argues in his book, The Red Pencil, that little has changed in education since his experiences in the information and test based classroom he endured in 1946. Why does higher education perpetually find itself in a state of paralysais by analysis?

We need to heed the advice often attributed to Albert Einstein. Although he never actually offered the following quote this notion of challenging conventional thought is still useful:

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

We can stop this insanity only if we stop hiring so many traditional risk adverse leaders and faculty. As I detailed in my post Pick Two – Innovation, Change or Stability we need to search out individuals who are outside-of-the-box thinkers with entrepreneurial spirits and unconventional career paths if we really want to bring about the changes we so desperately need in education.

In 21st century learning, Innovation critical thinking, liberal arts, thinking

Fixed Vs Growth Mindset = Print Vs Digital Information Age

Dwayne Harapnuik — April 5, 2013 — 7 Comments

If we really want to take advantage of all the opportunities that the digital information age offers, we need to move away from fixed mindset to growth mindset thinking. 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.

The fixed mindset, or as it is more often referred to as innate intelligence, was the widely accepted theory of cognitive development until 60’s when UC Berkley professor Mark Rosenzweig replicable studies made the case for the environmental impact on brain development and plasticity. It is now widely accepted that the brain remains plastic and adapts to our constantly changing environment which is foundational to Dweck’s argument for the growth mindset.

This notion of adapting to a constantly changing environment is also important when we consider our move from a static print information age to the dynamic digital information age.

The emphases of the print information age and print culture include:

development of systems of cataloging and retrieval
emphasis on memorization
information as primary, analysis as secondary
centralization of instructional space
learning as hierarchical, “objective,” and categorized
standardization paramount

Therefore, the greatest challenge of the print information age is finding existing or fixed information. A learning environment that is based on the print culture will emphasize memorization and regurgitation of standardized information.

In contrast the emphasis of the digital information age and digital culture include:

systems of communication & interconnection
emphasis on participation
analysis, critique & “remixing” as primary
information as a “commodity”
centralization of creation & production
emphasis on community & social interaction

The greatest challenge of the digital information age will be assessing Information and making meaningful connections between existing information and new information that is developed. A learning environment that is based on digital culture will emphasize, creation, communication, and participation as primary and hold information simply as a commodity or a product of interconnected human endeavours.

Considering that we have moved into and have been in the digital information age for at least the past two decades we need to consider our roles as educators and look long and hard at the changes we need to make to our learning systems. The following questions are central to how I will be responding to how I see my role as an educator in the 21st Century:

If I imagine my primary job as a teacher is to serve information, am I helping solve the current informational problem or make it worse?
And given the vast complexity of the informational network, if I insist on my centrality, does that establish or harm my credibility as a teacher?
If assessing information – and the wisdom & experience that requires – is the central challenge of the current informational age, are teachers more or less necessary?

Helping learners assess the vast amounts of information that is available and giving them necessary skills and abilities that they need to make meaningful and useful connections is more important than it has ever been. Learning is an active and dynamic process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current/past knowledge. The making of meaningful connections in the digital information age is key to the learning and knowing.

We need to move from fixed mindset thinking and the passive educational environment of main lecture points, rubrics, individual competition and standardized testing to growth mindset thinking of active learning, dynamic interactivity, critical and analytical thinking, collaboration and meaningful projects.

In Learning, Learning 2.0, Meaningful Connections digital age, fixed mindset, growth mindset, Information age, mindset, print age

How the iPad will change IT forever

Dwayne Harapnuik — September 23, 2011 — Leave a comment

How the iPad will change IT forever – Page 1 – Leadership via kwout

I have to preface this post with the statement that I haven’t read Nathan Clevenger’s book, iPad in the Enterprise: Developing and Deploying Business Applications, so I am only dealing with the content of this excerpt from his book.

Clevenger makes the argument that widespread use of iPads in the enterprise is simply part of the consumerization if IT. The consumerization of IT is simply the use of consumer technologies in the enterprise and the rapid growth can be attributed to the following:

First and foremost, the price points make mobile devices far more accessible than other computing devices. Second, the massive diversity of applications, and the ease of purchase and installation of these applications is very different from what IT departments are typically used to.

Mobile devices like the iPad are inexpensive, easy to use, and require virtually no traditional IT department support. The following two quotes really capture the essences of why this change is happening:

As perceptive CIOs seek to transform their rigid, legacy ridden infrastructures into agile, efficient, service-driven delivery mechanisms, they must adopt a pragmatic approach to managing the risks of consumer IT while embracing the benefits. Otherwise, the CIOs risk being sidelined as the ‘enemy’ by their constituencies

and

It may involve painful changes in the status quo of corporate IT, including, as Blake said, how IT groups have to “shed our arrogance” to give the underlying technology a chance to succeed.

At the heart of these two quotes, CIO and IT departments risk being sidelined as the ‘enemy’ and they need to ‘shed their arrogance’ and realize that IT no longer needs to be in control of the technology because technology has developed to the point where it simply works and doesn’t require the support is once did. When you use an iPad you don’t have to deal with installation, configuration or licensing issues because that is handled through Apple’s infrastructure and for the most part these devices just work. Other than getting your user id and password for network connectivity or connectivity to the organizations email system, one doesn’t need IT support. A user can simply use the device to do what they need or want to do.

In 2003 most IT departments rightly ignored the warnings in Nicholas Carr’s book, IT Doesn’t Matter, because back then IT was still a “mysterious dark art” that required special skills and abilities to simply get your email to work or to access documents from anywhere. Today, with devices like the iPad technology, traditional IT support is unnecessary because the technology is advanced enough to simply work.

To be fair to my colleagues in IT they do matter and they won’t be going away any time soon. They just need to realize that they must give up their control of the things that no longer need control. I know the IT professionals I currently work with are excited about the fact that working with iPads and Adroid tablets will enable them to move away from supporting basic functionality and allow them to focus on the really exciting and challenging task of moving to a fully digital work environment. I am fortunate enough to be working with a group of forward thinking IT professionals who see technologies like the iPad as catalysts that will usher in a new and exciting world of opportunities for learning and for growth.

In IT iPad

IT Leadership in Higher Education: Moving from Supporting Infrastructure to Supporting Innovation

Dwayne Harapnuik — April 6, 2011 — Leave a comment

The literature dealing with the position of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) in Higher Education is filled with surveys of what characteristics the CIO must have, what priorities a CIO should hold and to whom the CIO should report. Throughout most of this literature a consistent theme emerges—we seem know what the CIO should be doing, who they should report to, and even what the CIO should look like in the future, yet we repeatedly see that the CIO are often incapable of fulfilling the goals and roles prescribed.

Wayne Brown, VP Technology at Excelsior College and the originator of the Chief Information Officer Effectiveness in Higher Education report series lists the following responsibilities for a CIO:

Business Partner – Organizational strategic planning and revising business processes

Classic IT Support Provider – Foundations of IT support and responsive department

Contract Oversight – Relationships with IT vendors, contract negotiation, and contract supervision

Informaticist and IT Strategist – Ensure security and accuracy of institutional data and alignment of IT department with the institution

Integrator – Integration of all internal and external systems

IT Educator – Evangelist for computer use and understanding; educator of employees on how IT innovations bring value to the organization (2009)

Brown points out that Classic IT Support and Contract Oversight are the two roles in which CIO’s report success while the Business Partner and IT Educator roles are viewed as least important and the area where CIOs rate themselves as least effective. Keeping the systems running, while procuring more technology seem to be the two things that CIOs are able to consistently do well. Business partner and an IT educator and innovator are not. The predominance of literature suggests that the type of focus required to provide the five nines of reliability and provide safe and secure environments are diametrically opposed to the focus that innovation in education require.

As a result of this large body of research, there are repeated demands that higher education not “attempt to use models or paradigms for higher education CIOs that do not fit (e.g. the business model)(Lineman, 2007).” There are recommendations ranging from splitting the this top IT position in two and establishing the position of Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to be responsible for maintaining the IT infrastructure while the CIO is responsible for the innovation and leadership. Other recommendations include having the CIO report to the Chief Academic Officer (Provost) or splitting the report between the academic and financial sides of the academic house. Other literature suggests the position of a Senior Academic Technology Officer.

In the article Run IT as a business: why that’s a train wreck waiting to happen, Bob Lewis fleshes out the warning and provides a very specific list of what the CIO and their IT shop should and should not do. The list includes:

… provide alternatives to internal customers, chargebacks, SLAs, and all the other baggage associated with the “standard model.”

… that IT must be integrated into the heart of the enterprise, and everyone in IT must collaborate as a peer with those in the business who need what they do.

Nobody in IT should ever say, “You’re my customer and my job is to make sure you’re satisfied,” or ask, “What do you want me to do?”

Instead, they should say, “My job is to help you and the company succeed,” followed by “Show me how you do things now,” and “Let’s figure out a better way of getting this done. (2010)”

Perhaps Debra Allison offers the most succinct summary of what the CIO position must evolve to in The Future CIO: Critical Skills and Competencies ECAR bulletin:

The position is evolving from a focus on technology leadership to a focus on institutional innovation. With these changes, the CIO cannot afford simply to respond to requests but must also proactively work to capture opportunities that drive the institutions success (Allison, 2010).

With the requisites for institutional innovation being so different then what is required for building and maintaining that IT infrastructure, is it fair to expect one individual provide such diverse leadership. If you go back in the IT Leadership or governance literature for the past 20 years you will find that many of these warning and challenges have been repeatedly voiced.

References

Allison, D., H. “The Future CIO: Critical Skills and Competencies” (Research Bulletin 15, 2010), Boulder, CO: EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research, 2010, available from http://www.educause.edu/ecar.

Brown, W. “A Study of CIO Roles and Effectiveness in Higher Education” Campus Technology Viewpoint, 2009, available from: http://campustechnology.com/articles/2009/05/13/a-study-of-cio-roles-and-effectiveness-in-higher-education.aspx.

Lewis, B. “Run IT as a business: why that’s a train wreck waiting to happen” InfoWorld, 2010, available from: http://www.infoworld.com/d/adventures-in-it/run-it-business-why-thats-train-wreck-waiting-happen-477?page=0,0&source=footer.

Lineman, J., P. “The Corporate CIO Model and the Higher Education CIO”. EDUCAUSE Quarterly. Volume 30, Number 1, 2007 available from: http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Quarterly/EDUCAUSEQuarterlyMagazineVolum/TheCorporateCIOModelandtheHigh/157433.

Staples, M. “Making Room for Yes: It Starts at the Top” (Research Bulletin 17, 2010). Boulder, CO: EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research, 2010, available from http://www.educause.edu/ecar.

Albright, Michael J., Nworie, John. “Rethinking Academic Technology Leadership in an Era of Change” Educause Quarterly. Volume 31, Number 4, 2008 available from: http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/EQM0814.pdf

In Innovation, IT Change, CIO, leadership