I have been working in higher education for almost two years now. In those two years I have met and talked with thousands of students who were looking for college advice on what they are doing to get the necessary things in for college admissions. I have noticed that most of these students do not have a growth mindset because they assume registering for housing and classes will be done for them and they won’t have to worry about anything but applying. We need to educate our students the power of a growth mindset and how much they can accomplish if they adopt that mindset.
Differences between Growth and a Fixed Mindset
Before we jump into details on how to educate our students, we need to understand the difference between the growth and fixed mindset. To start, please take a look at this chart. It shows some of the differences of the two mindsets.
Fixed Mindset
A fixed mindset keeps you in the places that are familiar to yourself and hides all of the branches you could possibly go down. Your too focused on proving yourself and you hate the idea of new challenges and unfamiliarity. We unfortunately see a lot of students these days that have this mindset. Having a fixed mindset will keep you grounded yes but it never presents you with the opportunity to grow and explore new ideas and places. It takes your fears and worries and magnifies them so you are scared and not motivated to do more in your career and life. It makes you stay doing the same old thing that you are doing and never gives you the opportunity to explore beyond what you are comfortable with.
Growth Mindset
Even though most of our students fall in the Fixed Mindset category does not mean there is not room to change their views. When they learn how to adopt the growth mindset, they will realize how much easier it makes their personal, educational and professional lives different. The Growth Mindset helps you step out of your comfort zone and gives you the motivation to explore new ideas. It helps students to focus on the positive and the process instead of the end result. It allows the student or adult to be inspired by the success of others which leads them to go down the right path with their career.
The power of the Growth Mindset
Video Resources
Growth Mindset in the ADL Program
When I first started in the ADL program, I only had a small understanding of the growth mindset. After taking the first two courses where I was introduced to these things, I finally could see how it has affected me and my life. I see myself as one who adopts a growth mindset. I am constantly improving myself and before I started in higher education I had never even thought of getting a masters degree because I thought it was too hard and not necessary. Thanks to the growth mindset I eventually realized that I loved higher ed and I did not want to give it up. I did not know then about how the growth mindset pushed me to pursue my masters degree. Now that I am in the ADL program I realize that it has been with me all along.
I feel like the growth mindset will help me in the ADL program because it will push me to make my assignments in my classes better and to participate in the discussions and readings more. When I was in college for my Bachelors degree I never had the growth mindset in mind when I was doing my assignments and I was never pushed to work beyond what the minimum was. Now that I am in my masters program, I finally adopted the growth mindset which is currently allowing me to push myself harder to make my assignments better.
It's Not Just About Ideas 