Innovation, mindset and grit

In our second class in Innovation and ICTs we were divided into groups in order to talk about what innovation meant for us. Once this debate finished, we reached a consensus about how being innovative had much to do about how the teacher manages to control ICTs and to catch the students' interest but how if they were unable to use them it would become tricky. After this, we talked about le Petit Pan and George Couros as two main innovative figures.

Afterwards, it was also very interesting to see Carol Dwell's Ted Talk about Growth Mindset and how we should develop it, as it came up as a surprise to finally hear an expert talk about how kids should not be discouraged and dwell in self-pity once they are unable to come up to a solution for a problem. Carol Dwell says that it is important to have a growth mindset and to have the ability not to give up with problems when we cannot find a solution and to think that we don't have the means yet. I also think it is very interesting the idea of praising the students in a wise way and using both the yet and not yet as a way of reinforcing students' confidence and perseverance(Developing a Growth Mindset/ Carol Dweck 2014).

In fact, Angela Lee Duckworth's idea of grit is somehow related as it is this idea of perseverence that we need to have in order to achieve long-term goals instead of throwing the towel when we are faced with any obstacles in our way to achieve our goals. Both of these concepts break up with the idea that we should try hard in order to obtain an immediate reward, and focus on going further in order to achieve a goal which might be further away, but will be more rewarding once we manage to achieve it.

I have to admit that before this class, I had never even heard of Le Petit Pan and that terms such as grit or growth mindset were unknown to me and I am happy that thanks to this class I have come across them. I think it was really interesting how Carol Dwell put up different examples of success by employing a growth mindset method.

Sources

Developing a Growth Mindset / Carol Dweck. (9th October 2014) Found in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiiEeMN7vbQ