Growth Mindset V.S. Fixed Mindset

Hello again. This post is about what we’ve had drilled into our heads for the past two months.

Close to the start of the year we saw a video of a cat who was trying to get into a hammock. He tried and tried for several months but kept falling off. He eventually learned a technique that worked all the time. Here’s the video.

We learned that you’re not just born with a certain amount of talent or a growth mindset. If you have a fixed mindset you can change. You can even just start off with finishing sentences like “I can’t do it” to “I can’t do it, yet”. It will move on to most other things you do.

We were asked to make sketch notes from a video called “Why you need to fail.”These were my sketch notes which are line the person said with drawing representing the line. This was my work.

The video that went a long with it is this one, if you want to watch and see what it’s about.

One of the assignments I thought I did pretty well was a paragraph about somebody you knew or a famous person with a growth mindset. I chose to do it about my grandpa. As I knew him he was really friendly and he was always looking at the bright side of things. Here’s what I wrote about him.

Last year there was a poster in my class which I noticed every day. It was a comparison of different things from a growth mindset vs a fixed mindset. I didn’t understand, but after this unit I can see the differences better. I noticed it again in one of the posts of our iTunes U course. Below is a picture of it.

Right now we’re in the middle of probably the biggest project of the unit. We had to create long-term goals for ourselves and have a picture of your face. After that we had to edit the picture a bit and put the goal somewhere on the picture. We’ve had a few drafts and we’ve been able to use new apps. We’ve undergone several critique processes. The goal had to be a sentence that was not too broad but not to specific. We had to find wording to make the goal sound the best possible.

 

Draft 1

Draft 2

Honestly, after getting this idea drilled into our heads for two months it was getting boring. But that’s just my opinion. Although I do recognize that it will be able to help us in the future.

Main subject for a week: Coastal Oregon in a packed bus.

I’m back. My class has a different program to most people. We use iPads for most of our work and get field studies. What is that. It’s basically taking a small and packed bus with your class for a week somewhere. Instead of being in a normal class, that week we explore outside, go to museums and interact real life with what you’re learning. You’re putting things that you learned into real life.

We were asked to still work a lot, except it’s not as bad when you’re on a trip. One of the big things we had to do was make a book about the trip. It wasn’t even that hard but it was long. If you want to read it, just click on it right down here. It’ll describe the trip better than this.

Anyways, every year for the past 4 years or so they take the grade 8 class to the coast of Oregon. It’s one of those trips you’ll never forget and you get to know every one else a whole lot better. Especially after having to sleep in the same room with some of your pals.

Usually it rains a lot there. My friend Jason bought a shirt with the Grumpy Cat and it said “I went to Oregon once, it rained.” Luckily for us we didn’t get much rain.

The food there was great, but when you’re on a field trip it’s usually going to be good. We ate at DQ, Pig’N Pancake, Cabela’s, Nisa’s Thai and a lot of other places. We went to a chain buffet called the Golden Corral, man, was it good. It had cotton candy and a chocolate fountain. The breakfast kind of got repetitive and I’m used to something a bit different at home. We went zip lining, and on a boat tour.

While we were on the boat, our net pulled some eggs that even our science teacher who studied marine biology and the marine biologist guide had no idea what it was. The shells were like translucent rubber.

We also stopped at big department stores occasionally and we had, let’s say, little adventures. You could check things out and “test” couches.

The scenery was amazing. You’re just driving on the highway 100 meters above the water, and you can see the big waves that start from way out. Here are a few pictures.

That about wraps it up in the post. Like I mentioned before, the book has more pictures and certain descriptions about things we did. It also might have reflections.