In Search of Quality Teaching

As I conclude my coursework in EDLD 5318 and finish creating my first fully-online course, I've been tasked with some reflection on the course development process and how it relates both to my learning philosophy and the concepts of online learning and quality teaching in general.

What Have I Done?

With this post, I am wrapping up my fourth class in the DLL program. One-third of the way to my master's degree in education. My master's degree in education. That phrase has always intrigued me. I don't know if this is true for other languages, but I love the way that, in English, we tend to say "I'm working on my PhD," or "I'm getting my HVAC license" as opposed to, say, "I'm working on a master's degree." It's a very optimistic way of phrasing it--it expresses an assumption that there's a high school diploma, a bachelor's degree, a tech certification, a doctorate, whatever, just waiting out there for each and every one of us, and meant just for us. We don't have to create it out of thin air. We just have to take the steps to go get it.

Grow, Prune, Repeat...

It's time now to step back a little over 4 months (or approximately 237 years, depending on how you measure--time is subjective and relative, especially if you're a grad student and a music teacher around the holidays) and revisit my very first assignment in the DLL program, my growth mindset plan. It's really more of a presentation of a plan than a greatly detailed look at the plan itself, but that's neither here nor there for now.

Where Do We Go From Here?

As my first class in the Digital Learning and Leading program draws to a close, it's a logical time and place to take stock of what I've learned so far and where that learning will take me.

Quite possibly the most significant concept in the program for me has been the idea of the fixed mindset versus the growth mindset. In studying this concept, and in figuring out how to present it and advocate for it to my colleagues and students, I feel as though I have been given the words and framework to understand a concept that will revolutionize the way I learn and the way I teach. All the other concepts presented in this course (and the ones that follow) mean very little without embracing the fundamental principle that anyone and everyone is capable of unknown growth. No matter how much choice and ownership students have over the most authentic projects imaginable, if they don't believe they can learn, they won't.

A Growth Mindset Plan

Unless we believe we can improve, we can't. A belief that growth is possible is Step Zero toward meeting any goal.

Our students often come to us in the grips of what Dr. Carol Dweck, in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, calls a "fixed mindset." It is a belief that intelligence and ability are essentially static, and that efforts to improve are pointless and even a sign of inadequacy. To be honest, we often carry that mindset in our own lives. In order for learning and improvement to take place, our students (and we ourselves) must be encouraged to develop, in Dweck's words, a "growth mindset," a belief that intelligence and ability are not predetermined, and that effort, struggle, and even failure are not catastrophes, but opportunities.