1.5 Fixed Mindset Characteristics

I think my strongest characteristic of experiencing a growth mindset has been my openness to contructive criticism. I did not find it discouraging, but as a learning opportunity to improve. If anything it would encourage me to try harder given the feedback I had to work with. I was able to incorporate the criticism into self-awareness and idenitify the tools I need to continue to improve. This has been most helpful in challenging my implicit biases.

Growing up, I was fortunate to have many people within and outside of my family who believed in me and encouraged me to keep trying my best no matter what difficulties I was facing. Their belief in me boosted my confidence.  As a result, I became encouraging of others, and the more I encouraged my students and my colleagues I received a lot more encouragement. Though a growth mindset may start within a close circle of immediate family, friends, and community members it has the potential to spread over large national and international areas. Therefore, a growth mindset has no boundaries.

I wasn’t familiar with the concepts of growth mindset/fixed mindset while I was an undergraduate, and as I reflect on my own college experience, one takeaway is that getting good grades does not equal exhibiting a growth mindset. I was not quick to engage, ask questions, or admit that I did not know something in college; and while I ended up with good grades, I now see ways that my learning experience could have been much richer and more fulfilling if I had exhibited growth mindset characteristics.

One practice that is helping me build a growth mindset is to reflect on how I respond when my knowledge and skills are “tested”. In my current experience, this could be a teaching evaluation, a question from a student that is difficult to answer, or an inquiry from a colleague about the rationale for my preferred teaching practices or pedagogy. Do I see these conversations as a threat or as an opportunity for personal growth? Am I taking time to reflect on and engage with critiques that others may have, or is my objective to simply convince people that I am right? And am I staking my sense of identity and self-worth on a public image of being “smart” and having everything figured out?

When students ask me questions about their curriculum I am unable to answer, I tell that one of my best qualities as an Academic Advisor is my willingness to admit my ignorance and refer them to an office/person that can answer the question.  Sometimes the question pertains only to that specific student; other times, the question will involve an issue or policy that triggers my own investigation into the proper answer so that I’ll have it ready for the next time.  Decades of operating this way has made me a valuable asset to students and colleagues in ways that would never have come into being if I’d simply stuck to my job description.

I’ve had two wonderful supervisors in my decades in my job; one at the beginning and the current one.  In the middle, I had a supervisor who actively discouraged any attempts at growth on my part.  In time, I learned to embrace a fixed mindset as a survival tactic.  When that supervisor was replaced by someone who actively nurtured the staff, it took me a long time to be able to trust that I could resume my previous level of engagement with my field, esp. in terms of professional development.  Those experiences–all of which took place well into my adulthood–makes me ever so much more conscious of and careful about the impact I can have on the lives of my students in the classroom and in the advising session.

Today, I’m an avid scuba diver. But, I had a very long road to get where I am today and I have a lot more to learn. When I first started, I definitely had a beginner’s mindset: I didn’t know what I needed to know and I was awash in all there was to know. And, because diving is skills-based and academic (you need to understand a lot about physics and water), I was also terrible at it. However, I desperately wanted to do it, so through many, many, many trials, I worked to get better at it. I did a lot “wrong,” but since I didn’t have the pressure of the semester or a grade, my instructors would gently correct my mistakes and I would do it again. I built a great deal of confidence over time because once I knew a skill, I really knew it. I’ve tried to apply a lot of that to my classroom teaching, thinking about how to offer many opportunities to try and try again instead of a one and done approach. This growth mindset has served me well in both diving and teaching because I think about the evolution of learning in a different way now.

Reflecting on the rich experiences shared here, I am struck by the varied ways we all approach cultivating a growth mindset in ourselves and in those we teach or advise. The openness to constructive criticism that Carrie mentioned is a foundational aspect of embracing growth. J. Elizabeth, the way you incorporate feedback into metacognitive assignments is an excellent practice, offering students a structured way to learn from their experiences.

Deborah’s questions about how to foster receptiveness to constructive criticism are crucial. Building rapport and boosting confidence are indeed vital. The “sandwich” method Casandra discussed can be a gentle and effective way to deliver feedback, although I agree that fostering an environment where constructive criticism is naturally more “appetizing” might reduce the need for such strategies.

Jean-Yves, your experience highlights the infectious nature of a growth mindset. Encouragement breeds encouragement, spreading from personal circles to broader communities. Seth, reflecting on how we respond when “tested” is a powerful personal audit for growth mindset—it’s all about seeing challenges as opportunities.

Denise, your career journey illustrates the significant impact of leadership on growth. The ability to admit ignorance and seek answers not only models growth mindset for students but also enhances our roles as educators and advisors.

I believe a growth mindset can fundamentally alter how we approach learning and teaching, encouraging resilience and a lifelong commitment to personal and professional growth. How do you all see these principles playing out in your settings, particularly with new or challenging students?

Looking forward to hearing more insights!

Having beginner’s mind is essential When I am in the zone of having a beginner’s mind and seeking the right mentors, I am able to do my personal best. Sometimes character flaws such as ego, wanting to compare myself with others or a desire to escape comes up when I am out of ideas and I just want a rest. It is then that I try and read for inspiration. This helps me stay in a growth mindset. Another helpful approach to stay in the growth zone is to be still and to listen to my inner voice. As a busy New Yorker, this is not always easy. I have to intentionally take time to be still.  I try to meditate daily for one or two minutes. It may not sound like a lot of time, but it actually helps. Also, free writing in a journal is amazing. Sometimes, I just list ideas or write random notes on how to improve myself or use the same technique to plan the initial stage of a project. I have been investigating more ways to brainstorm, as this helps me to think aloud so to speak.

When promoting growth-mindset in my classroom, I am thinking about how to consistently promote growth mindset. For most projects, I provide student exemplars and also examples of my attempts at the project. I talk out what I discovered along the way. This has worked well to allow them to see my growth mindset and vulnerability. This works with most students. There are still some non-believers who choose to want to satisfy the assignment and nothing more. If they are open to it, I will invite them for a private conversation about growth mindset, but they also have to be willing, open and ready.

Summarily, I continue to try and keep a beginner’s mind. This means continual awareness of character flaws when they come up. I am finding new ways to speak about growth mindset in my classroom and design projects and working teams around growth mindset. I am no means there yet, but I am working on it.

From my deeply Catholic background, I think I had a fixed mindset about learning and living. It was only when I realized that I was letting the word should guide a lot of my thinking that I really began to grow. Should was keeping me locked in place and frustrated. Focusing more on what I could potentially do and what small changes I could make or small steps I could take that things started looking up. I try to share this lesson with students.

As a clinical instructor in a healthcare environment, I exemplified a growth mindset and a solid commitment to learning. While conducting nursing skills training for students, I encountered a medical device I could not operate. In a display of transparency and eagerness to expand my knowledge, I approached a registered nurse for assistance in front of the students. Subsequently, I effectively demonstrated the operation of the device to the students. By openly acknowledging my lack of expertise, I conveyed the importance of continuous learning and seeking guidance, fostering a growth mindset.

To counter a fixed mindset, I have embraced constructive criticism(which can be difficult)  and interpreted mistakes as valuable learning opportunities. I am dedicated to embracing challenges, a crucial mindset in the ever-evolving healthcare field, and focusing on continual learning and development.

Working in the health and wellness industry for two decades I have worked with people to get healthier in their everyday lives, becoming stronger and more resilient moving from “I can’t” to “I can, I will, and I have”. A beautiful sight indeed to facilitate and be a part of that process of self-discovery. I was fortunate to have learned to never judge a book by its cover and allow space for the fire of the human spirit to shine bright through believe and action. From my own experience, continued growth and process of self-discovery I share firsthand knowledge and observations across age, class and culture of what is possible when one finds purpose, passion and spends mindful time on any endeavor.

I remember taking a college-level pre-calculus course the summer before my freshman year for college. I struggled with it and not for a lack of trying. I visited the graduate instructor’s office hours weekly and spent hours trying to work out the problems. As this was a 6-week summer course, somewhere beyond the midpoint, I noticed the graduate instructor’s frustration and my confidence diminishing. Until that point in my academic studies, I’ve sailed through math courses without much difficulty. After consulting with my academic advisor, they suggested dropping the course so that it wouldn’t affect my incoming grade adversely. I never took pre-calculus again and instead used other math courses to fulfill my math curriculum. I developed a fixed mindset when it came to pre-calculus and never rose to the challenge. Something that I learned later while watching a Ted talk by Carol Dweck was the power of “not yet”. Instead of seeing that failure as an inability to do pre-calculus, I can reframe it as I wasn’t ready yet so that it creates a bridge to approach the subject again in the future.

As a high school and undergraduate student Algebra and statistics were topics I feared and disliked. I always had to put much more effort and often felt the explanations and instructions were in some alien language. It felt as if concepts were well beyond my mental capacity. Because I was embarrassed to ask for help from classmates and instructors, I started to solve all/any problem sets on the topics being taught. I passed these courses because I learned to solve “typical” problem sets without understanding the topics. These experiences reinforced the fixed mindset thought that these were topics that I would never truly understand.

This was until I started undergraduate research in a biochemistry and genetics lab. I loved the lab and the research/experimental mindset came naturally. Designing experiments, performing growth assays, and genetic analysis required that I use many of the Algebra and Statistics concepts I did not understand from lectures and textbooks in the past courses. However, within the context of statistical analysis or understanding the meaning of my data graphs, I began to instinctively understand statistics and algebra concepts that seemed impossible to grasp in the past. I remember feeling empowered and thinking that if I could grasp algebra and statistics, I could figure out anything else! Interestingly, soon after I started teaching Genetics at Brooklyn College, a student who failed the first of 4 exams told me she was failing because she was not good at math… Unlike me, she did ask for help. She not only passed the other three exams but in her final exam she obtained a 97%. I later got a note that described the feeling I had as a new undergraduate researcher; “I never thought passing genetics was possible for me. Passing this course has taught me that I can learn anything”. I kept the note and read it when I feel a fixed mindset creeping up on me again.

As I reflect on my own experiences, I think that I have long had a bit of a mix of mindsets. I believe that I got to experience a growth mindset when I was learning outside of a lot of the formal structure of education, such as when i was reading things of interest on  my own or participating in informal learning activities. I think that within formal educational contexts, I often fell into a more fixed mindset. At times, for example, I struggled with technical subjects like math, chemistry, and language and didn’t necessarily believe that failure or feeling lost in the classroom was part of a growth experience. Of course, as I grew up, I did come to the realization that life itself teaches you to pick yourself up and try again when life hands you setbacks.

I believe in the growth mindset. I remember a teacher in high school telling us that we could go far in our studies if we put our minds to it. His way of helping us was to give us opportunities to succeed in his subject. He was demanding, but he kept telling us we could do it if we tried hard. From then on that has been my leitmotif: to keep going despite our difficulties and obstacles.

I feel that I have the strongest growth mindset as it relates to my research- I will often need to learn a new methodology or literature (or sometimes both!) to be able to work on the research questions that I am interested in, and I strive not to let that stop me. Learning new methods is hard and messy and full of mistakes, but incredibly satisfying when I can get it to work! One example is how I was recently able to automate downloading a large amount of entries from the Congressional Record. I was going to do it manually, until my undergraduate research student challenged me to figure out the workflow for automating. It was a bumpy but ultimately exhilerating process!

I am completely in love with this entire thread and all of the takeaways from individual posts! The growth/fixed mindset is a new concept for me. Applying it to different personal and professional situations has been enlightening as I seem to embrace both of them at different times.

I love skating (ice and quads) and have to constantly battle the inner voice telling me not to try something because I won’t get it as quickly as other skaters. Or I’ll start to learn a new move, become frustrated, and then walk away. But then there’s the growth mindset that reminds me everyone learns at a different pace and starts from the beginning.

I keep two expressions at the front of mind even when not on skates: “If you look down, you fall down” and “If you’re falling, you’re learning.” It helps keep me looking forward and trying new things.

Silly as the example sounds, and I take it from the module text, I am not a “people person” and I do not interact comfortably with people I do not know. This has made entering into new situations and contexts (e.g. beginning college or grad school, starting a new job, going to a conference where I do not already know people) very difficult. When I have allowed my discomfort to get the best of me, I have found experiences like conferences overwhelming, unsatisfying, and alienating. On the other hand, when I have pushed myself, telling myself it is my professional responsibility to meet people, I have overwhelmingly been greeted with kind responses, interest, occasionally “I have read X that you wrote and really liked it”, and more often than not I have ended up going for drinks with people and expanding my scholarly network.

Overall, what I learned from these occasions is that I am able, even if uncomfortable, to talk to new people, but I must make the effort. I also learned that I must remember that a bunch of medievalists are likely going through the same basic feelings, wondering who would ever find them interesting enough to talk to: the answer is all of the other medievalists probably think you are pretty interesting.