Growth vs. Fixed Mindset – The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it feels too hard, feels like it’s taking too much time, or just not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset.

How do we cultivate a growth mindset in our children?

How do we develop and support our NextGen thinkers & doers analytical and critical thinking skills; the tools needed to be successful?

Eliminate the fear and allow our children the time and space to fail and succeed. Helping students build their confidence in themselves and their abilities while embracing the idea that failures will lead to opportunities to learn and grow is pivotal! Whoa! That’s huge for 7-year-olds, 10-year-olds, and especially for us adult-crowd.

STEM/STEAM learning experiences offer great opportunities to develop a powerful GROWTH MINDSET! And STEAMwhiz is taking on this challenge as labs are being designed with more exploration time, space for success & failures, and a focus on self-reflection and confidence.

STEM is hard for everyone. Grades ultimately aren’t what matter. Curiosity and perseverance matter. ~ tweeted by Lead Engineer of Blue Origin, Ben Cichy

Growth Mindset Attributes

Taking on Challenges

You look forward to the next challenge.

Learning from Mistakes

You reflect on what you learned from the mistake and apply it to trying again.

Accpeting Feedback

You see criticism as supporting your learning, and you learn from it.

Practicing

You enjoy the process of getting really good at something. You may set your own practice plans.

Perseverance

You “stick to it” and keep working confidently until the task is complete.

Asking Questions

You ask questions of the educator, the task, and most importantly yourself.

Can you program a robot to put out a fire? This is the question that is driving STEAMwhiz’s Winter Semester.  Yes, this is an exciting & fun challenge but the main goal of this challenge is to develop creative problem-solvers by exploring the world through an analytical & critical thinking lens.

How is this accomplished?

Using “The Art of Problem-Solving” SW students are breaking down this large, complex problem into manageable, bite-size pieces. Through this process, students have been introduced to programming using Scratch– a coding language with a simple, block-style visual interface that allows anyone to create games, animation, digital stories with their own, unique instructions. SW students will gain important strategies for designing projects, solving problems, and communicating ideas, not a prescribed “recipe” to follow. Through their Scratch coding practices & challenges, they will learn how to apply these strategies to their own, ultimate, coded STEAMwhiz Fire Robotic Arm.

Keep Thinking & Doing @ Home

Keep that “thinking & doing” spark alive at home. Sign-up for a free Scratch account @ https://scratch.mit.edu/. Click the “create” button and make that cat do something. Try adding new sprites or backgrounds. What happens when you create a variable for your game? Feeling stuck? Click on the “Tutorials” tab and learn how to Animate a Character or Code a Cartoon. Remember to have fun! Mistakes will happen, errors are inevitable, but it’s how you respond to those challenges that matter. Fail forward into success!

Got a little ‘thinker & doer’ @ home? Download the Scratch Jr. app from Google Play or the Apple App Store. This is a great option for pre-readers ages 5-7 years old.