I am obsessed with what I will call the "positive psychology" learning trend. This is the umbrella term I use to group a related set of ideas about how people learn, theories that have to do with attitudes and mindsets. Here are a few of the sources that demonstrate what I mean by "positive psychology":
- Carol Dweick's Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
- Skip Downing's On Course, particularly the section on "victim/creator mentality"
- Angela Maiers' Classroom Habitudes: Teaching Habits and Attitudes for the 21st Century
- Angela Duckworth's notion of "grit" (clip above) is great example of the postive psychology trend
A quick Google or Youtube search will uncover a trove articles, inteviews, and clips about growth mindset and "grit". Luckily, my courses are skills based, i.e., how to read for content and craft, how to compose texts. So I can use the articles and youtube clips that increasingly inform how I teach as content students can read and respond to in writing. I typically have a content focus in my classes; one of my classes focuses on the Filipino Experience and another is focused on the African American experience. But I've found many ways to incorporate positive psychology material into all my classes. I use one or two pieces at the beginning of the semester to set a "we can all learn" tone. Throughout the semester, I strategically introduce other pieces as the need arises.
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