Growth Mindset Reflection & Plan Update

My original Growth Mindset Plan was created in November, 2022, just over a year ago in a previous class at Lamar University. Along with that Growth Mindset Plan, I also created a blog post on November 6, 2022, evaluating my mindset at that point and setting a goal going forward. While working on my Creating a Significant Learning Environment course at Lamar University in the Fall of 2023, I was able to revisit my Growth Mindset Plan, reflect on my progress over the past year, and update the Growth Mindset Plan.

Reflection over the past year

In reviewing my Growth Mindset Plan and my blog post from November 6, 2022, I have realized a few things about my growth mindset and the progress over the past year. One of the things that I've used over the past year to work on improving my growth mindset is the list of questions provided by Jeffrey (2016) that I reference in my Growth Mindset Plan. This list of questions is printed and hung by my desk at work since my job is where I seem to struggle the most with my mindset at times. When I feel like I'm getting "stuck" or that I may be dealing with a fixed mindset, I take a look at these questions and it generally helps get me back on the right track.

Another thing that I have improved upon is trying new things without worrying about if they will be successful or not. In the past I have struggled with not wanting to create a certain training or introduce a new idea because I worried that my teachers were already overwhelmed and wouldn't want to mess with learning it. While I will admit that sometimes that is still a struggle, I have started taking little steps and doing a little bit more each time. I am meeting with teachers more and inserting myself in ways that I know will be beneficial. This past semester at work I have seen teachers reaching out to me more than before and asking more questions. I think part of this may be due to the fact that I've started doing some of those things that my fixed mindset stopped me from doing in the past.

I still have some work to do on my growth mindset, but looking back at where I was a year ago I am happy with my progress. It's just one step at a time and slowly those steps really start to add up to something.

Updates to my Growth Mindset Plan

When updating my Growth Mindset Plan I added a couple of sections at the end of the plan. First, I added a section titled "How I can help my learners develop a growth mindset". This section talks about how I plan to help others develop their growth mindset and has some information from this current course mixed in with some information from the course when I originally created the plan.

Next, I added a section at the bottom titled "My own growth mindset reflections". This section discusses my initial mindset and then has links to two blog posts that I made a year apart (one of them being this post) regarding my own growth mindset. I liked adding this section so that I can continue to link future blog posts to it to watch my growth mindset journey.

This Growth Mindset Plan is something that I find valuable and like the fact that we revisited it again in this course. It is something that I need to revisit on a more regular basis and reflect upon going forward.

Growth mindset and a significant learning environment

When creating a significant learning environment I will make sure to keep in mind the importance of a growth mindset for myself and my learners. Without the correct mindset of all involved, the learning environment will struggle. If I cannot help my learners create a growth mindset, then my innovation plan will become just "one more thing" that they have to do and when they are finished with the course they will never look back at it again. For any learning environment to be successful, the learners need to know why they are learning this and what it will do to benefit them going forward.

Reference:

Jeffrey, S. (2016, December 26). Change your fixed mindset into a growth mindset [complete guide]. Scott Jeffrey. https://scottjeffrey.com/change-your-fixed-mindset/