The Innovator's Mindset | Connected Principals - 2 views
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John Evans on 15 Dec 14"Carol Dweck's famous book, "Mindset", was one that was (is) hugely popular with educators, not only in helping shape their work and thoughts on students, but also pushing learning in educator with their peers. There were two simple concepts shared that resonated with many readers; the "fixed" mindset and the "growth" mindset. Here is how the two differ according to Dweck: "In a fixed mindset students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits. They have a certain amount and that's that, and then their goal becomes to look smart all the time and never look dumb. In a growth mindset students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching and persistence. They don't necessarily think everyone's the same or anyone can be Einstein, but they believe everyone can get smarter if they work at it." The great thing about Dweck's work is that she found that you can move from one to the other. You may have a fixed mindset, but it is not necessarily a permanent thing. The other aspect is that you do not necessarily have a "fixed" or "growth" mindset and fall into one of those two categories in all elements. I have a growth mindset on (most things) education, but have a fixed mindset on fixing things around my house. So what I have been thinking about lately is the notion of the "innovator's mindset". This would actually go one step past the notion of a growth mindset and is looking at what you are creating with your learning. SImply it would go look this:"