Learning Theories

Information Processing/Cognitivism

This learning design will begin with the objectives of defining and differentiating between patterns of fixed vs. growth mindsets and how they may help and hinder perceptions of learning as a grad student, as well as experiences transitioning into the professional world. (Christensen, 2021) For this reason, engaging in acquiring, organizing, and retrieving this knowledge will be important, especially since students will be applying this knowledge with later objectives of developing their own vocabulary around growth mindset that they can use as graduate students, as well as creating a personalized action plan to help them implement a growth mindset. By including content such as videos explaining the differences between a fixed and growth mindset, as well as videos that include celebrities talking about their own growth mindset, participants will be able to have a visual, text, and audio approach to learning this content. Learners will also apply their learning through knowledge checks that are multiple choice or matching.

Social/Cognitivism

Although students will be engaging in this learning experience independently, by interacting with learning materials such as videos, this will provide an opportunity to learn by observing the behaviors of others based on realistic scenarios both in grad school and in the professional world. This will promote attention and lead to retention, reproduction, and motivation to apply a growth mindset in the student's own life. By including opportunities to anonymously contribute thoughts and feedback to group discussion forums, as well as participate in optional live workshops, this will further motivate social proof and community around the topic of growth mindset.

Constructivism

It would be ideal to incorporate a follow-up check-in after a month to one semester after completing this course. This will allow students to share how they have been using their personalized action plan in their grad school life, whether they have made adjustments, and what else they may need. By allowing space and time for participants to apply their learning in the real world and having one or more frequent check-ins, this will serve as reminders to the students to implement their learnings, as well as continue applying their learnings. This will be accomplished through email follow-ups in which students will answer multiple choice questions around their mindset, as well as detail their progress. This will allow for both a measurement of progress after the completion of the training, but it will also offer periods of reflection for learners to demonstrate their own growth.

Therefore, although the course will motivate students to start implementing these new learnings as soon as possible, this includes a change of mindset for many. For this reason, check-ins after course completion will be a better way to assess if, how, and to what extent students are applying their learnings.