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Dweck’s Developing a Growth Mindset Ted Talk was filled with vital information. The knowledge and insight that she imparted in this video gave me a huge context shift when it comes to the overall improvement of our students. Dr. Dweck highlighted the importance of implementing the growth mindset. Her content has inspired me to create a Growth Mindset Plan of my own at the secondary level.
The education video below represents what I stand for as an educator and facilitator. I aspire to create a learning environment that won’t separate students from their natural talents.
Growth Mindset Plan
It’s scientifically proven that the brain is malleable and once it’s stretched from its original shape it will never return. Prior to these college courses I didn’t know what the growth mindset was. I just knew the importance of staying positive. I even coined a quote “Diligence Demonstrated Develops Dreams” which shows that I unknowingly engaged in growth mindset action. The thing about the growth mindset approach is that it equips a person with humility and awareness. The moment we lose touch with our inadequacies, we transition from the growth mindset to the false growth mindset. Most people as they advance, they try to overshadow their humble beginnings with the good they’ve subjected themselves to, leaving behind the fixed mindset that once had them in a bind, due to their fear of failure, low-skill levels, and other things that may have served as hindrances when it comes to self-improvement. An individual who truly leads with the growth mindset identifies with their insecurities, but they don’t allow them to own real estate in their heads. They respond to those negative thoughts with optimism and they follow through with action.
“The world shrinks and shrivels at the expense of networking”
Personal Learning Communities
I am very open to the idea of joining Professional Learning Communities. They all present opportunities for me to establish a network of mentors or people that I could extract vital information from. These networks provide us with platforms to address the problems that stem from us educators, guiding our students into the path of becoming life-long learners.
Edutainment is an effective method when it comes to content production in these communities. Edutainment is a popular approach when it comes to appeasing an audience within a community, basically it’s entertaining and educating simultaneously. It seems to capture and hold an audience’s attention. There are a couple of social media outlets that captured my focus, gave me a context shift, and then converted me into a supporter.
Twitter: The first of the social media learning communities that I’m a part of is Twitter. I’ve become attached to this social media outlet because of the influx of information that I receive. Account users are limited to a certain number of characters, so we are all forced to simplify our individual thoughts and it has been a proven factor when it comes to teaching and increasing competence. The personnel that I follow on this platform are copywriters, teachers, administrators, and tech professionals. One of my favourite influencers and educational leaders is Charles Miller (@writingtoriches) writingtoriches.com certified writer that scaled an income of $1M/yr. This writing community costs me $149 a year and my rhetorical skills have improved tremendously since I’ve joined.
Pinterest: Pinterest puts me in the mind of a digital vision board, to me that’s all it really is. This platform produces content for us educators and classroom facilitators that stretch far beyond curriculums and preparing our students for tests, whether it’s classroom etiquette, life principles, work principles, accountability groups etc. the information that circulates on this platform is vital and I’ve grown tremendously as a result of me consuming the content on the regular.
Although I’m not a part of this community, I definitely have aspirations of joining. ISTG helps educators around the world to resolve issues using technology. As we advance further into the digital age I believe networking within this community will help me propel to another level as an educator and facilitator. After looking on their website https://www.iste.org I saw that it was just $64 to join. I have no issue with investing that amount of money, if it means that I’ll have the tools, relationships, and knowledge that this organization provides. This will have a monstrous ROI.
Currently I’m still on the hunt for more professional learning communities. Just as I want for my kids I’ve made a commitment to become a life-long learner, so I choose to model that everyday because I will never ask my kids to engage in something I, myself, haven’t immersed myself into. I’m all for establishing a network of mentors. I understand that there are people out here who could impart some vital information to me simply because they’ve been through what I’m forced to reckon with in this juncture of my career. There’s this quote that states when the student is ready the teacher will appear. This means that in order to learn we must take an objective approach. We must place ourselves in environments and communities where there’s an influx of information circulating.