Final Reflections
Growing one's mindset both as a student and an educator takes hard work, patience, and time. After undertaking and beginning this journey for myself, and now having culminated the experience of trying to grow others' mindsets, I have found no other life lesson more valuable than this: you can improve. I wish I had had an educator or mentor before graduate school tell me that the trick was believing you could, and everything else follows. As I embark the next chapter of my educational career, I am excited to continue working to grow my own growth mindset and use that experience to help those around me, like my advisees and students, so they can view their talent, intelligence, and overall abilities in a whole new light.
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We all do some form of self-regulation in our day-to-day lives, though for some it may be much harder than for others. For example, in this video, students learn to self-regulate by saying "no" after having a certain amount of cookies. As we get older, these processes and decisions become more subconscious and it can get to the point where we feel and think negatively of ourselves. Though much research continues to be needed to solidify the link between self-regulated learning, most psychologists and researchers agree that the beginning step to stopping negative self-talk -- such as "I'm not good at Spanish" or, for me, "I will never be a great teacher"-- is by first acknowledging you engage in it. Noticing that I had a fixed mindset and that I thought and felt so negatively about my future as an educator was my first step in realizing I had the ability to change this!
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Next, I reflected... a lot. I had never been one to keep a journal, and though it took a long period of adjustment from viewing my reflections as just observations of a researcher and teacher to my own personal ones, I found journalling compelling. In the same way I was asking my students to have that metacognition about their learning and realize where they were hindering themselves from growing their mindsets, I too needed to learn to be more metacognitive and journalling brings me closer to being so. Realizing that this journal was for myself, and no one else, was crucial too in helping me be messy with it, honest, and reflective of what my life looks like from day to day. Some days I write pages full of complete thoughts. Other days I just jot down bullet point lists or scattered words describing my emotions. As long as they are dated, these entries always transport me right back to the headspace I was in when I wrote them and help me to stay on top of the anxieties and negative emotions I feel, especially when it comes to teaching. I can later on go back and insert a note adding what it was that triggered this emotional reaction and describe what I can do next time in order to feel more positively about my growth as an educator.
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My only regret is not starting this journey sooner and, if you're like me, I recommend just taking the leap and begin by acknowledging where you can grow and improve, not only for the positive effects it can have on your career but on a personal level as well. Growth mindset has impacted how I approach pretty much everything in my life now, from my personal relationships to looking for a job to starting a new hobby. As long as I keep believing that I can improve my abilities no matter the discipline or field, there will be only positive learning experiences from here on out.
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