When looking at the links below, for the cohesive module project, you will notice on the “Understanding by Design” section there is a picture of a hockey team I coached. That team was what you could consider a team that used both Growth Mindset and UbD. However, we did this a year before Dr. Dweck came out with the Growth Mindset definition and knowing exactly what the terminology meant we were using. In assents, I was asked to make a team and coach these kids who had tried out for other teams and were cut. Since I was asked to piece together this team, I tried something new to the hockey world with these players, I taught them a system from scratch that they had never seen before. We practiced and practiced and learned and learned what we couldn’t do and what we could do better. We went 12-0-1 our first 13 league games. On our 14th we lost, but not by much and every player had the flu. We continued and went on another 5-game win streak. We finished the regular season 22-2-1 and finished the playoffs 5-1 and won the state championship. Our overall record with scrimmages and tournaments was around 54-13-3. Every tournament we played in were at least a level higher if not 2 levels higher. The players believed in the system and they believed in each other. The biggest learning part though was our practices. We had over 120 hours of practice ice time while most teams had 40-60 hours. Whenever we were asked about ice time, we took it, even if that meant the parents had to pay more. We joined an house all-star program that needed a team for a rink an that gave us another 13 games and 13 hours of practices. The kids knew they had nothing to lose and all to gain. They tried knew things all the time and success happened 99% of the time. The 1% of time they didn’t work they learned what they could do better next time. A mixture of talent, work and believing in themselves and believing into learning something new and not afraid to fail, is what made this team so successful.
Final Thoughts on Progress of
Growth Mindset at HTT
In reflection on the Growth Mindset Plan I wrote for HTT back in November, I am not too sure that I would change anything as of right now. While some might say, “That’s not using Growth Mindset!” if I’m not changing anything. Well, here is what I have to say about that. Right now, nothing is broken and everything is working great and progressing very well. We might not have had enough time to see anything change yet or witness any failures that we couldn’t come back from. We can always improve what we do and how we deliver the information, because people learn differently from each other. When it comes to the plan though, I find that if we follow what was written out in the plan, Dwecks “Determine Your Mindset” test first and support it with, “Change Your Mindset Model,” everything is working out. The students/athletes have been very open minded for the change and the outcomes of using it. Now only if we could utilize this type of mindset for the teachers moving onto online education during this time in our country. Lot’s of teachers having a hard time letting go of the pencil and paper.
One thing I have noticed is, when creating the Understanding by Design model, it is almost necessary to have a Growth Mindset attitude. Having this type of mindset and attitude will allow new things or new experiments and allow for mistakes to happen with a learning outcome. With allowing failure as an option, UbD and Growth Mindset can be utilized to the most productive learning tools. Society doesn’t agree with failure and that is because they don’t how to learn from failure. Sometimes the best ideas and best learning possibilities comes from failure. Using the UbD allows working out of the box while the Growth Mindset allows learning no matter what.
While I believe currently we don’t have anything needs adjusting in the plan, we will be implementing a specific UbD model that is learner center built up by tools and skill machines. When the machines and tools come in the plan will be implemented.
