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Week 5 - Leadership

Mindsets
Mindsets are beliefs; how you think about yourself, your intelligence and talents, what it is you can and cannot do. Ultimately, this affects how you perceive other people and their abilities, talents and capabilities, what they are and are not capable of.
One of the flipped learning tasks before the session was to complete a quiz to explore your own mindset
Intelligence
In the session we will address the question of whether Intelligence is innate and, therefore, cannot be developed beyond what you are born with. Claxton (2008) notes that "intelligence [has] become defined as the kind of mind that responds most readily to the peculiar demands of school."
Dweck's Theory of intelligence
Dweck (2006) descried two different views of intelligence. The previous view is that there is a fixed intelligence that can be measured using an IQ Test. No matter how much you learn, or how hard you work, your intelligence stays the same. Her view of intelligence is that  the brain is malleable: it is like a muscle that can get stronger and work better as you learn and stretch yourself. Over time, you can get smarter. This leads to two contrasting views of mindset, fixed and growth:
Fixed Mindset
People with a Fixed Mindset believe that the abilities and capabilities they have are fixed traits. Their intelligence is set, they are talented at certain things and not others. They believe that it is whether or not someone is talented at something is what allows them to be successful at something or not. Intelligence is fixed and can be measured.
Growth Mindset
People with a Growth Mindset believe that their intelligence, and abilities can be developed and grow. Through hard work, dedication and time, people can learn new talents, learn new things and become more intelligent. Teaching a growth mindset encourages learning, develops relationships and self efficacy. The brain is malleable, it can grow, stretch and expand. The harder you work, the more you can learn.
Ways to Develop a Growth Mindset
By changing the language we use. The power of 'not yet' in the classroom. "I have not learnt this yet" shows a growth mindset, rather than saying "I can't do this", or "I failed" which shows a fixed mindset. Changing the way we talk in the classroom, 'What we are learning' rather than 'Here is the work to do'. What is it that we value? Do we value the end product or the learning process? (Dweck, 2006)
Myth Busting
During the class session we will be making 'myth busting' stop motion videos where we bust myths relating to human brains and growth mindset. One of those we mention in class is 'False Growth Mindset'
“It all started when my Australian colleague Susan Mackie informed me that she was seeing more and more false growth mindset. This is when educators think and do all sorts of things that they simply call growth mindset. And then I started noticing it, too.” (Dweck, 2016, January 11). 
Stop Motion Movie Making
Stop motion is an animation technique that physically manipulates an object so it appears to move on its own. An object is moved in small increments, then individually photographed, creating the illusion of movement when played. Dolls, LEGO® and clay figures (claymation) are often used since they are easy to re-position. Stop motion films can also involve humans, household appliances etc. for comedic effect.
Stop Motion Tools
You can make stop motion movies manually using generic video editing tools like VideoPad or iMovie, or use a dedicated stop motion tool such as those listed below.
Stop Motion Studio (for iOS or Android)
Dedicated stop motion app for smartphones and tablets. It includes many features such as frame-by-frame preview at different speeds, fade in/out, select, copy, paste, reverse and delete frames, green screen, themes etc.
Stop Motion Builder (iOS/Android)
This app allows users to create stop motion videos by taking pictures frame by frame with their cell phone camera and adding sound effects and music.
Pic Pac (Android)
Stop motion movie app for Android that can also do time lapse.
A simple and easy to use animation app that will capture frames using either camera on your iOS device
Time-lapse and stop-motion app for iOS.
Windows based software, frame grabber, for creating stop motion and time lapse animation.
Frames Per Second (fps)
One of the main question you need to think about when making stop motion movie is how many frames per second (fps) you will use. The more frames per second, the smoother the action is, but the longer it will take to make the movie. Typical options are:
  • 2 fps - recommended by Slowmation
  • 10 or 15 fps - bouncy type of animation used on Instagram/ Facebook
  • 24 fps - cinematic
Growth Mindset in Leadership
If you want to include the role of growth mindset in your leadership assignments, you might consider some of these ideas. 
Growth mindset in a leadership context comes from a belief that those we lead can be motivated to improve and grow their practices. This choice usually involves including many stakeholders in decision-making, over-communicating the vision, mission, and goals, building shared values, and providing specific, targeted, timely feedback. Dweck (2006) reports on a number of studies of CEOs that suggest that CEOs with a fixed mindest, who believe in natural talent rather than growth, are less successful over the longer term than growth mindset CEOs, even if the former can achieve short term success.
A Growth-Minded [Leadership] Choice (Diehl, 2013) might be one that:
  • Validates and addresses staffs fears and barriers
  • Communicates the vision explicitly
  • Provides support to those who lack knowledge or skills
  • Creates an opportunity to share research and information
  • Allows everyone access to growth opportunities
  • Shares the work load among all staff  
An Oracle blog post (Oracle, 2015) suggests that leadership is all about the willingness to grow and change and to help your people do the same. The Harvard Business Review (2014) suggests that organizations focused on employees’ capacity for growth will experience significant advantages.
References:
Claxton, G. (2008). What's the point of school? Richmond: Oneworld.
Diehl, E. (2013). Leading Change with a Growth Mindset. Community.mindsetworks.com. Retrieved from http://community.mindsetworks.com/blog-page/home-blogs/entry/leading-change-with-a-growth-mindset
Disidealist. (2014). The Growth Mindset: Telling Penguins to Flap Harder? Retrieved July 26, 2016, from https://disidealist.wordpress.com/2014/12/05/242/
Dweck, C. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. Random House.
Dweck, C. (2016, January 11). Recognizing and Overcoming False Growth Mindset. Retrieved July 26, 2016, from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/recognizing-overcoming-false-growth-mindset-carol-dweck
Dweck, C. (2016, January 13). What Having a “Growth Mindset” Actually Means. Retrieved July 26, 2016, from https://hbr.org/2016/01/what-having-a-growth-mindset-actually-means
Harvard Business Review. (2014). How Companies Can Profit from a “Growth Mindset”. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2014/11/how-companies-can-profit-from-a-growth-mindset
Hilton, A. (2017). Prominent Scholar Calls Growth Mindset A “Cancerous” Idea, In Isolation. Huffington Post.Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/prominent-scholar-calls-growth-mindset-a-cancerous_us_5a07f046e4b0f1dc729a6bc3
Oracle. (2015). Are You Leading With a Growth Mindset? Retrieved from https://blogs.oracle.com/sandye/entry/are_you_leading_with_a

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