Week 15 Growth Mindset: Making a Meme

For this challenge, I made a growth mindset meme. This was my first time making a meme and I found Cheezburger to be really easy to use. 

Always try to raise the bar. (Image from Cheezburger)

Week 14 Growth Mindset

Image from cheezburger

This image really captured my attention because of how stealthy that cat is in the background. The message is also really powerful. It is so easy to just give up when things are going bad or you are having a hard time, but if you embrace the challenge then you can gain the confidence to reach your true potential. Here is a diagram of what growth mind-set looks like when compared to a fixed mind-set:

Source: Growth Mind-set vs. Fixed Mind-set

Week 13 Growth Mindset: Harnessing Stress

This week I took a look at the article: How Harnessing the Positive Side of Stress Can Change Student Mindsets by Katrina Schwartz and also the TED talks video: How to Make Stress Your Friend by Kelly McGonigal.

The subject of stress and how I deal with it is very interesting to me. I find that I can become paralyzed by large amounts of stress, which negatively affects my academic performance. I have always been led to believe that stress is damaging to our health, but after reading this article and watching the video I came to realize that stress can be used as a tool to rise to a challenge.

It is believed that just changing your mindset about stress can help you to live a longer, more fulfilling life. People that view stress as bad for their health showed a much higher risk of dying than people that viewed health as a tool.

I have dealt with various levels of stress throughout my time in the Army and through sports, but the times that I overcame the negative effects of it were when I felt confident in my abilities to address the situation. I was able to harness the rush of adrenaline and make clear headed choices and actions. The countless hours of preparation gave me confidence.

For some reason, harnessing stress in the world of academia is not as easy for me. I know I spend a lot of time studying, but every now and then I freeze up due to anxiety. This article and video gave me some great advice on how to think about my responses to stress when I feel the negative effects consuming me.

By changing my mindset about stress, I believe that I can more effectively deal with my anxiety and perform at my best, even in the most stressful situation. I highly recommend reading this article and watching the video. Below I have embedded the video. Check it out!

How to Make Stress Your Friend by Kelly McGonigal

Growth Mindset: Multiple Intelligences

I have encountered the concept of multiple intelligences before, but it was refreshing to see it explained through a comic. After watching the short video about Multiple Intelligences by Marek Bennett, I learned that Howard Gardner and other researchers pioneered this concept. They concluded that there are 8 different intelligences, which include: linguistic, logical-mathematical, visual-spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, and naturalistic.

Multiple Intelligences by Marek Bennett

I have often heard that people learn in different ways and I always thought that I am more of a kinesthetic learner, meaning that I like to be hands-on. My favorite part of the video was the quote "While the linguistic and mathematical intelligences are important in their own right, they function most strongly in combination with other intelligences." I feel like a premium is placed on these two intelligences in the academic setting, especially in my chosen field of study, and this decreases the proficiency in the other intelligences. This video was a great reminder that we should focus on expanding and using all intelligences and not let certain ones dominate our lives.

Growth Mindset

I have personally never heard of Carol Dweck, but I do think I have encountered the philosophy of the Growth Mindset sometime in the past. After watching some of the videos with Carol Dweck explaining the Growth Mindset and the results that have been achieved upon employing this strategy, I have to say that my interest is piqued. These videos revealed to me that I have a tendency to fall into the fixed mindset, which makes me feel discouraged and guarded against new challenges and learning. In the past I have generally picked up new concepts very quickly and never had to apply myself very strenuously to many tasks. I think that never having to really push myself allowed me to become complacent and not seek out new challenges and also to never really grasp what it means to retain information effectively. I have come to realize, quite to my dismay, that this habit of a fixed mindset is greatly detrimental to my success in my chosen field of chemical engineering because the course work is very demanding and requires a relatively thorough knowledge of almost every previous course that has been covered. The course that I am most worried about this semester is kinetics because it is the one area of understanding that separates the chemical engineer from all other engineers and I would like to do well in it. I suppose that I should be excited for the challenge, according to the growth mindset, but I still have the expectation that I should make a good grade, which is obviously a characteristic of a fixed mindset. I absolutely plan on using the growth mindset to not only further my capacity for knowledge retention, but to also strengthen my personal relationships. I have no doubt that this subject will be a valuable asset to assist me in becoming a better person in all areas of my life. I cant wait to see what new discoveries await me and how I will change.

A Meme From the Growth Mindset Memes Blog

Image Source: Cheezburger.com