Growth Mindset: Self-Directed Learning

When browsing the Growth Mindset links, I came across an article called "Three Questions to Thrive as a Self-Directed Learner" (read it here). I figured this would be a good read because I am always looking for different approaches to learning (also, what's better than three simple questions?).


Question 1: What do you know? What do you not know?

The key here is to be self-aware. Understanding what you do/don't know is vital to being able to move forward and learn new things!


Question 2: How do you achieve goals to learn something new?

The next step is to identify how you learn! Maybe you are wanting to learn how to bake a cake - do you choose to follow a YouTube tutorial, go to a cooking class, or maybe just wing it? It doesn't matter which way you choose - as long as it fits your learning style!


Question 3: How do you show what you know? What you can do?

This is probably the part that I struggle with the most - being able to represent/communicate myself and my abilities with the outside world. I think it is so important to not sell yourself short. And while yes, there is such a thing as bragging, no one will get to know how cool you are until you give them a little piece of what makes you, you! I like to take pictures of my quilling and post it on social media - it is a nice way of saying "look at this cool thing I did". It is also important to use your self-learned skills to your advantage on things like resumes - for example, I always like to put my GPS skills on there. I have been making maps with a GPS since I was in junior high. This is a unique, self-learned skill, which is quite useful in many situations.

I think this is a nice breakdown of different steps you should take to learn something new! (Source: Beth Kanter).