We are almost over with the first week of Innovation Academy, surprisingly, at the same time we are close to be finished with our first project as students in the IA. We began with this new program on Monday, and on that same day we began as well with the IWeek project. This project separated the big group of innovators from different grade levels into three groups, it was kind of a competition among us. Each group was assigned a certain target, in our case we had the new 6th graders; our goal was to develop three different problems that these kids were facing regarding their transition from 5th grade to secondary and finding three possible solutions so that in some way the problem disappears of in the worst case, diminishes. On the first day we went to observe the kids to their classes to be able to have a better look of what they problems were and how did they feel in this new journey. I came to a conclusion that many kids were lost, meaning that they couldn't find there classes. Even though we walked pass by them, they didn't even look to us to ask about where they could find their next class, I felt like a monster to them since when we walked by them, they looked very intimidated. It was kind of funny but i realized that the same thing happened to me when i was new in secondary. I would've liked if someone did something about it so that we would relate not only with our friends in the same grade level but with older kids as well. In that moment i knew that this was the problem that we needed to solve in the IWeek.
As a sixth grader i felt quite intimidated by the new system we had in school, the fact of having to move from class to class and having in that time only 3 minutes to get from one class to another was quite terrifying! I walked by the older kids and was afraid of asking help to find a certain classroom. I would have appreciated an older class of students dedicate a project to make us feel more welcoming and more comfortable in secondary school. During this project i think that i put my total effort it making it the best for this group of 6th graders since i feel that i was once one of them and would have wanted everything to go awesome, just as it did.
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Innovation Academy has barely started and we are almost in the middle of a project in which we need to solve a real problem by coming up with a real solution. I just think this is awesome! This is one of the reasons why i chose the IA; I knew that we were going to do projects and learn knew things that not only helps us to improve our abilities as students but also it relates with something that is going on in the real world. After reading the book "Mindset" I realized that in the IA we will be working definitely with a growth mindset, a mindset that can take in feedback and not perceive it as something harmful but instead something that will make your work better, a mindset where failure is not a terrible thing and doesn't convert you into a failure but instead it empowers you to learn from your mistakes and therefore make it better and better, and finally a mindset where you are open to challenges and being able to stretch yourselves instead of staying in the "safe zone" all the time. This is truly a great mindset that will help me achieve more things in life only by stretching myself, working hard and being able to the opinions and ideas incoming from everyone.
I am very excited to keep on going with this new experience and new system in which we will learn many things and improve many of the abilities we have as students. I am ready to put my effort to 100% and adapt my mindset so that it always represents a growth mindset. I am proud of being able to have this opportunity as a learner and actually do things and work on projects you are passionate about. Mr. Bonnici, Mr. Topf and Mr. Cotter, along with all of the students in this new i hope we have a very nice year in the Innovation Academy Mindset by Carol Dweck is indeed a book that I would recommend to every person in the entire school and even to people outside of it. It is amazing how the author can describe the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. One of the things that impacted me the most was when the author talked about how you could develop yourself and be smarter and smarter by working hard all the time. I always thought that the smartest people would be smart forever and needed to work at all to do good at school, they would just know everything but certainly the book has demonstrated me otherwise! One of the examples that I liked the most was the one about Thomas Edison, the famous inventor of the light bulb. I thought that his idea all of a sudden popped in his head and he was able to develop it all by himself, but the truth is that he had a group of talented and hardworking scientists that all worked together to achieve one goal: the creation of the light bulb. All of this means that the word success comes through a big process of effort and perseverance, nothing will come by itself, you will always have to work hard to achieve your goal.
At the beginning i began to learn about the two different mindsets there were and due to the questions at the end of the chapter to see which mindset you had, i considered myself a fixed mindset student. This certainly amazed me a lot, i never knew that i could be that closed upon the idea whether your intelligence was the same forever or if you worked hard you could increase it, i always thought that the people who born smart would stay smart forever which is incredibly not true. Any person can word hard and achieve great things and therefore expand their intelligence. Over the chapters i began to change immensely my mindset because that by having a fixed mindset, due to the examples that Carol said, i would't achieve anything great in life. On the other hand, by changing myself to a growth mindset, i could see things differently and clearly from another perspective than before. This is one of the few books from which i have learned so much about myself and the people around me and the different types of mindsets they possess. I am going to try very hard to stay with the growth mindset so that in general i can be a better person in society and achieve greater things. I think that everyone should read this book because it definitely changes the perspective in which you see everything in this crazy world. This was my first week of vacation as a future Innovation Academy student. For the winter vacation we are supposed to read a book called "Mindest" by Carol Dweck, i certainly do not like to read fiction books because i see them as very boring, instead i enjoy reading books from which i can learn something or whether the content of the book can relate to real world issues. That is the main reason why i enjoyed immensely the first few chapters of this new book called "Mindest".
In life there are two types of mindsets; we have in one hand the fixed-mindset and in the other hand we can see the growth-mindset. Let me ask you a question, only by looking at the name, which of these two mindsets do you think would be better to possess as a learner? The one where it says the word "Growth" or the one that mentions the name "Fixed"? I personally would choose the "Growth-Mindset" only by looking at the name because it represents a mindset that would help you grow your mind and therefore grow as a learner. Well, that is exactly what it is. A growth-mindset is a type of mindset that loves to take challenges even if you are not sure whether you will fail or not because failing in a growth-mindset is an opportunity to learn from it instead of seeing yourself as a complete failure. In the process of learning you need to know that when you fail, you will always learn something from it which will allow you to do better and better next time. "As a New York Times article points out, failure has been transformed from an action (I failed) to an identity (I am a failure). This is especially true in a fixed mindset." We can see this in all of the fixed mindsets, they think that by failing they will become a complete failure instead of overcoming themselves and being able to learn from their mistakes. People with a growth mindset succeed when they get to stretch themselves and become open to challenges while people with a fixed mindset only when things are safely within their grasp but if things get too dificult or too challenging then they loose interest because it will test how smart they are. Carol Dweck explained it perfectly when she followed pre-med students that were going through their first semester of chemistry, students with a fixed mindset lost interest in the class as soon as things started to put somewhat challenging because they felt that they needed to put more and more effort and they didn't feel smart, whereas in the other hand, students with a growth mindset managed to succeed throughout the entire year because they managed to stretch themselves to new challenges and if they failed in one teat or assignment they would learn from it. Everybody should know that by failing you do not convert yourself into a complete failure but instead it is an opportunity to learn from it and therefore be able to do better next time. For Innovation Academy, one of our tasks during the winter vacation was to create a new 30 day habit. Let me tell you something, it may sound easy but it actually isn't! It requires lots of commitment and compromise to be able to do it everyday. Building a new, positive habit may sound a bit boring but it actually is very important since it can change what type of person you are and it can make your life easier. We as human beings create habits in order to achieve something or in my case a personal goal. We can't just say we want to do something and do it, we need to build a habit in order to be able to complete it and reach your goal.
In my case, my habit was to wake up before 9am everyday and do exercise every other day. I know it may sound as an easy thing to do, but in vacation it is clearly not! I am a person that likes to wake up at 12am all of the days of the vacation or on the weekends because i simply like to sleep more. One day i realized that i needed to change that awful habit so that i could enjoy the day to its potential. Thanks to the opportunity given by Innovation Academy to build a new habit, i was able to propose myself that i would wake-up before 9am and do exercise at that time whether it is going out for a run or going to the gym every other day. Now that the winter vacation is over, i feel that I've been able to enjoy everyday to its full potential instead of waking at 12am and being lazy all day long. I must admit, it certainly wasn't easy, i had to get my body used to waking up so early but after a week i got used to it. Thanks to this new habit that i managed to build over the winter vacation i have learned that if you propose yourself something or put yourself a goal, by building a habit you will be able to achieve it. After this i think that i will be creating positive habits by myself in order to become a better person and improve many aspects of my life. |
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