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Chapter 3: Believe You can Improve through Learning and Be Curious to Learn New Knowledge

An important skill or attribute of effective learner is having a growth mindset, thinking you can improve your ability and intelligence to learn new skills and knowledge through hardwork, training and perseverance. Watch the following video, the story of Jerry and Lily will help you understand more about the concept of growth mindset. 

We cannot control the circumstances and we do not always get to choose what happens to us or around us. But we can try our best to adopt a growth mindset whenever we face a challenge or a setback. Knowing about the growth mindset and reminding yourself that your intelligence and abilities can be developed over time may yield amazing results. Now, take a look at the table below, and find out which mindset you adopt, fixed mindset or growth mindset? 

Table 1.  Major Differences between Fixed Mindset and Growth Mindset towards Learning
  Fixed Mindset Growth Mindset
Intelligence Intelligence and skills are interent and cannot be developed Intelligence or skills can be developed and improved.
Effort Effort makes no difference Effort leads to proficiency
New Knowledge Refuse to learn, mainly because they think they know everything already Eager to learn
Challenge Avoid challenges to save face Willingly embrace challenges for growth
Failure/Setback See if as proof of incompetence and give up easily See if part of learning and perseve depsite failure
Criticism/Negative Feedback Ignore it or take it personally Welcome it and take action on it
Other People's Success See it as a threat that evokes feelings of vulnerability See it as source of inspiration and motivation

Why does growth-mindset matter?

With the growth mindset, you acknowledge any learning difficulties or failures and inspire improvement. For example, getting a C- on a paper can inspire you to improve, work harder and seek resources to help you get a better grade next time. Although getting a bad grade may be frustrating, you can adopt a positive mindset thinking and embrace the challenge and the opportunity to improve yourself. When you realize you can improve and see any struggle a sign of something positive, you will become more positive, and react (or respond) differently.

How to develop a growth mindset?

Here are some tips to help you develop a growth mindset and engage in your growth mindset path.

1. Acknowledge and embrace your imperfections

Everyone has their flaws, peculiarities, and weaknesses — imperfections. You may not be good at writing, but you cannot blame that for your poor learning ability. Hiding from your weaknesses or limitations means you will never overcome them. But learning to accept them will help you move on. Stop seeking approval from others. Always remember, there is no shame in admitting your inadequacy. A famous Chinese proverb says, "When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it - this is knowledge."

2. Seek out new challenges and embrace uncertainty

See challenge as opportunity, to make it easier for you to engage. You can try different tactics to help you explore new knowledge, develop a new skill, interact with a new group of people and navigate through unique circumstances.

Some students, when faced with a challenge, give up, saying, for example, “I do not know how to use that software.” Others approach the same challenge, saying, “I do not know that software, but I will learn it – I will look up videos and advice and teach myself. No worries.” When you embrace uncertainty, you look for resources to learn more, it opens up doors to possibilities you might never know existed.

Even though you may struggle or fail, the amount of growth you will experience through your willingness to learn new things will be robust and have a profound influence on your development. When obstacles get in your way, Power through. Do not give up. Seek support and reflect on the process - What did you learn from that experience?

3. Start using the word "yet" more often

Using the word "yet" creates a growth mindset and helps you change perspectives and become more receptive to learning. For example, whenever you catch yourself thinking, "I am not good at this," add the word "yet"- "I am not exceptionally good at this yet."

4. Value the process over the result

You put maximum effort and perform to the best of your ability in each specific moment during the process. If you focus solely on the outcome results in skipped steps, or worse, sloppy steps that either delay your arrival to the goal or stop it from getting there all together. Have present moment focus and put everything you have into the step you are taking. 

5. Listen to other people's feedback and learn from it

When you receive feedback, do not ignore it. Turn it around to find its meanings. The purpose of feedback is to make things better. Other people see your work from a different perspective and may have valuable suggestions for you. When you are open to other people’s feedback and suggestions, you are developing your growth mindset.

6. Get inspiration from other people

Avoid comparing yourself to others because no two paths are the same. Get motivated by other people’s success, get curious about what made other people successful, and ask them for tips. This will help you learn what actions they took and how they tackled the challenge to achieve success.

 

References

What is Curiosity?

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis

You may be wondering what the code above is. It is one of the longest words in the world, with forty-five letters. Do you know how to pronounce this word? And, what does it mean?

If you are curious enough, you may have already searched the word on the internet to find the answer.

einstein curious
Curiosity is a fundamental drive of the organism: a propulsive force that pushes us to act, just like hunger, thirst, the need for security, or the desire to reproduce. As Aristotle noted, we humans are born with a passion to know, and we constantly seek novelty, actively exploring our environment to discover things we can learn.

Curiosity is the lust of the mind - Thomas Hobbes
Learning, by nature, is curiosity - Plato

Why is curiosity foundational to learning?

  1. It makes your mind active instead of passive
    Curious people always ask questions and search for answers in their mind. Their mind is always active. It is like a muscle becoming stronger after physical exercise. More mental activity triggered by curiosity makes your mind become more robust.

  2. It makes your mind observant of new ideas
    When you are curious about something, your mind expects and anticipates new ideas related to it. When the ideas come, they will soon be recognized. Without curiosity, the pictures may pass right in front of you, yet you miss them because your mind is not prepared to acknowledge them. Just think, how many ideas may have been lost due to lack of curiosity?

  3. It makes your learning more memorable
    Curiosity leads us to what we think we can learn. Memory and curiosity are linked – the more curious you are about something, the more likely you can remember it. Curiosity helps you remember the details. When you are curious, you remember the details even the minor details. The degree of craving for new knowledge controls the strength of your memory.

  4. It makes your learning journey more enjoyable
    According to a study by Matthias and other researchers in 2014, they found that curiosity makes brains more receptive to learning. When you learn to satisfy a level of curiosity, it makes the learning journey more enjoyable. Adi Ignatius (2018) also found that people who are curious in their roles at work were 34% more creative, less reactive to stress and provocation, more empathetic with others and better at communicating.

How to increase your curiosity?

Curiosity is essential to lifelong learning and independent learning, and understanding what things that make you curious to learn is important. Our academic programmes and other activities provide opportunities for you to explore things around and help you find your curiosity factors. When you find them in your learning material, you will feel motivated to learn more about it. You can also increase your curiosity to learn. Here are some tips:

  • Question about anything
    If you just accept knowledge as it is without trying to go deeper, you would certainly lose the curiosity to know more. Asking questions is a sign of strength and wisdom-not weakness or uncertainty. Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, said, "We run this company on questions, not answers." He knows that you can keep finding better answers if you keep asking questions. When a teacher is teaching you a topic, for example, ask yourself: “What is it about?” “Why is it important to me?” “What is new?” “What else do I need to know?”

  • Use what interests you to retain what does not
    When you are curious about something, your brain is primed to absorb all information presented around that topic. That is why you should pair less interesting topic with another topic that you are knowledgeable about or interested in. You will naturally remember the more interesting information, and your brain will also associate the less interesting information with it, and that helps you understand it.

  • Be open about the unknown
    When you are afraid to admit you do not know something, you tend to find an explanation or something to cover it up so as to make youself look not so bad. Gradually, this will limit your ability to learn new things. Stop being afraid of not knowing something and be open about the unknown, and that will drive you to learn new knowledge and broaden your perspective eventually.

  • See learning as something fun
    If you see learning as a burden or something boring, there is no way you will want to dig deeper into anything. But if you see learning as something fun or something interesting, you will naturally want to dig deeper. So, try to find the fun side of learning and adopt a toddler’s mind to explore the things around.

 

References