Search Results For how+to+succeed | 44 Results

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 fixed mindset, growth mindset, intelligence, mindset

NewSchools

Dwayne Harapnuik — June 16, 2010 — Leave a comment

NewSchools Venture Fund is a venture philanthropy firm working to transform public education through powerful ideas and passionate entrepreneurs so that all children — especially those in underserved communities — have the opportunity to succeed. The following video documents their development, vision and mission:

NewSchools Summit 2010: A New Policy World from NewSchools on Vimeo.

In 21st century learning, Innovation, Learning, Video - Wednesday Watchlist educational reform, Learning, newschools, reform, school

Six Things That Innovative Universities Do Well

Dwayne Harapnuik — February 25, 2010 — Leave a comment

I consider myself a student of learning which means I MUST also be a student of innovation. I follow a Blog called Innovations and the archived post Six Things That Innovative Companies Do Well caught my eye. I have modified these six things to suite academia rather than business. Here is my take on the Six Things That Innovative Universities Do Well:

Question Everything – I agree with article’s author, that this is the most important factor in innovation and the most difficult to embrace. Like corporations, Institutions create big political and organizational impediments to change, making any challenge to the status quo a risky proposition. Innovative [institutions], on the other hand, reward challenges to conventional wisdom and take pains to position change as a positive part of the [institutional]/corporate culture.
Accept failure — Without the willingness to be wrong or to even fail innovation will never happen.
Don’t leave the innovation to the engineers/consultants – simplicity is often the best option for meeting the needs of learners. Engineers/consultants/specialists are great at designing elegant solutions to complex problems but these solutions often lack the elegance of simplicity. Faculty have the closest contact with the learner and will most ofen have the best solutions.
Learn constantly – If you don’t prepare people to do their work/teach/learn differently, they’ll never change. It’s human nature for people to avoid situations that may embarrass or humiliate them. Businesses [Institutions] that ask people to embrace change without preparing them to handle it set themselves up for failure at best, revolt at worst.
Try, try again – Institutions too often bail out of good ideas because they don’t succeed quickly.
Be wary of market research – Innovative institutions are in touch with their learners. Use research on the desires of the learner to validate your assumptions, but not to create your courses and services. The consumerist attitude of the learner should NOT drive the learning environment development but is should influence how we communicate with learners.

In Innovation academia, Change, education reform, Innovation, universities

The Cost of Status Quo

Dwayne Harapnuik — February 18, 2010 — Leave a comment

Christensen (co-author of Disrupting Class) uses the following two statements attributed to Albert Einstein to emphasize the need for a new perspective:

“The significant problems we have a cannot be solved with the same level of thinking we were using when we created them.”

Einstein’s definition of insanity: doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results.

If we don’t change our level of thinking to encompass the systemic problems within which our schools are embedded and if we persist in believing that the problems of our schools can be solved by only improving, we will never succeed (Disrupting Class, p. 156).

On a similar note in a conversation with Susan Ives editor of Land & People, Yvon Chouinard founder of Patagonia warns:

I always say that there’s no difference between a pessimist who says, “Oh, it’s hopeless, so don’t bother doing anything,” and an optimist who says, “Don’t bother doing anything, it’s going to turn our fine anyway.” Either way nothing happens.

In 21st century learning 21st century learning, educational reform, Innovation