Foundations: Growth Mindset

[elfaidi-ghassen]

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Growth Mindset, as term, it was coined by Carol Dweck, the term "mindest" gets thrown everywhere, that one should have a positive mindset, but Carol Dweck has a specific meaning for "Growth Mindset", which is believing in the malleability of intelligence", i.e. the way I like to put it, "you can do it if you try hard enough"
But I think it is worth mentioning that Carol Dweck, did conduct a study that involved more than 10 thousand students over 65 schools and found 3% improvement in GPA.
I also recommend reading this article on Wired, which explores the result of a meta-analyses conducted to reach a conclusion about the actual effect of Growth Mindset.

It just seems telling someone "you should have a growth mindset" or "you can learn new skills and develop new talents with persistence and grit", doesn't seem to have a lot of impact in people's performance, perhaps because everyone kind of already knows that. but when someone feels frustrated and can't seem to move forward, knowing that "you can do it if you persist", probably won't fix the problem.

Ultimately, children can give up in their studies, not because they don’t have a growth mindset or they haven’t been taught in their preferred learning style but because they honestly don’t understand how to learn the sometimes difficult topics they’re learning. -- Uncommon Sense Teaching

Also when I read:

When you find yourself questioning your abilities, reflect on the successes you have already achieved while learning to program -- TOP

That part kind of sounds like it's from a self-help book, it's not giving actual solutions, and I'm sorry for being harsh on that, but I myself used to read tons of self-help books and liked motivational talks, vague advice: “Believe in yourself, think positive, work hard!” does sound good, and could give some motivation, but at the end of the day, none of that actually mattered in the long term.

What actually helped me is understanding how I learn, investing my time in learning theory has helped me tremendously, why? because it helped me diagnose my own problems and understand why I struggle.

Therefore, I suggest removing the section on Growth Mindset, and instead of that, giving more exposure to the importance of understanding how we learn (so called metacognition). because that will give the learner a mental framework by which they can reason about why they are struggling, and take action.

At the very least, I think this needs to be discussed.

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Foundations

Lesson Url

https://www.theodinproject.com/lessons/foundations-motivation-and-mindset#growth-mindset

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teadriven

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[rlmoser99]

Thank you for this thoughtful issue. At first glance, I was hesitant to change this lesson because I remember this section being very helpful to me when I was going through the Foundations course. But reading it back after your input has made me see it in a slightly different light. You raise a valid concern about the vague "self-help" language.

One thing I'd like to be mindful of as we discuss metacognition and learning theory: we want to avoid reinforcing the "learning styles" myth (the idea that people can only learn through their preferred modality like visual, auditory, etc.). Research has shown this concept to be as overstated as some of the growth mindset claims. The Odin Project is intentionally text-heavy because reading technical documentation is a core skill for professional developers. While it may feel uncomfortable at first for some learners, building comfort with text-based learning is itself an important metacognitive skill to develop.

I'll leave this open for other maintainers to weigh in as well, but I do think it's worth discussing what a more balanced version of this lesson might look like. Perhaps we could reduce the motivational emphasis and expand our current metacognitive content in the "Learning Process" and "What to do when you're stuck" sections.

[KevinMulhern]

☝️ co-sign!

giving more exposure to the importance of understanding how we learn (so called metacognition). because that will give the learner a mental framework by which they can reason about why they are struggling, and take action.

I'd be very interested in hearing more about this! Could you write up a very high-level version of what you have in mind for it please @elfaidi-ghassen?

[elfaidi-ghassen]

Thanks for asking @KevinMulhern, here's a high-level outline of what I have in mind. It's not perfectly organized yet, but I think these topics would genuinely help learners.

• What happens when we learn

  • Initial learning / working memory / long-term memory
  • Why it's natural to struggle when you start learning a new concept
  • Focused and Diffused mode

• Deliberate practice and active recall (the idea of "stop and think")

  • The good kind of pain: "Think first, experiment later"
  • Why thinking can be challenging
  • Why the rubber duck method works so well
  • Why "active learning" is not about physical activity, it's about mental engagement
  • It takes time: consolidation of knowledge -- but once a concept becomes a chunk, it becomes a powerful tool for reasoning

• The importance of foundational knowledge (prior knowledge)

  • The importance of having "chunks" of knowledge, and how they are essential for reasoning and problem solving
  • Concrete example: a child who has not learned the multiplication table will struggle when studying division -- when they see 12/4, they don't feel it's 3, because they haven't internalized that knowledge. They have to laboriously work it out each time -- and may start to wonder if they're simply not cut out for it
    • Another example: studying physics without having internalized math. Each problem is not only a physics problem -- a significant portion of mental effort goes just to working out the math
  • Programming example: internalizing how HTTP works
    • A developer without this chunk will struggle to debug problems -- but worse, they will miss learning opportunities. Error codes, redirects, cookies, CORS -- none of it connects without the underlying model
    • Foundational knowledge compounds: it lets you make the most of other material you learn and the problems you encounter
  • Implicit knowledge in learning content: learners can struggle without knowing why, because they don't realize they're missing a foundational chunk
  • "I can just Google it" is not always true. Some knowledge needs to live in your head

• The illusion of learning: the problem with following the path of least resistance

  • key term: offloading = delegating mental effort to external sources (Google, calculators, AI tools)
  • how the working memory can trick us into the illusion of learning
  • Common example: highlighting every line in a book you're reading
  • How note-taking can become an illusion of learning
  • Practice, practice, practice

• Procrastination

  • The Pomodoro technique as a practical tool for getting started
  • Turning studying into a habit

• Reading as a skill

  • Being good at English doesn't automatically make you a good technical reader -- that's a separate skill that takes deliberate practice
  • For learners whose first language isn't English, there's an extra layer: technical writing borrows heavily from math ("maps to", "is bound to", "evaluates to"), and those expressions take time to internalize. This is normal and worth naming explicitly

• Passion: why it matters, but isn't a prerequisite

  • Passion isn't something you need at the start -- it grows gradually after every achievement: understanding a tough concept, mastering a new skill, deploying your first working website. Those moments where you feel capable are what build passion, because you start to feel you are good at it

• Why it's worth investing time in understanding how you learn (metacognition)

  • It gives you empathy toward yourself and your mistakes
  • You start to reason about your own learning: "Am I missing a chunk?" "Am I in the illusion of learning?"

[mao-sz]

To what extent do we want to dive into this in this lesson? What is the intent and scope of this lesson?

What I'd like to be cautious about is this lesson turning into some deep dive into learning theory, which is certainly beyond the purpose of this lesson, which ultimately is some basic preparation and understanding that "learning ain't gonna be easy"/"motivation isn't enough because you need grit and discipline".

I'd also like to be cautious of language such as "internalise". While I understand what's meant by it here, words like this are very commonly misunderstood to be more like "memorise", and we very commonly encounter people struggling and frustrated because they're trying to "internalise the knowledge" which it's revealed to essentially be them trying to memorise everything then "test themselves" with the projects.

Memorisation is absolutely not the goal at all, and TOP is designed so that people gain awareness of things through the lessons and that's what helps guide their practice via the projects. Even the awareness of "that lesson before mentioned something related to this topic" is sufficient "knowledge that lives in the head" to start Googling and experimenting. People do not need to spend time trying to memorise things in lessons to "prepare for projects", and people will do that and they already do that because they understand that as "internalising what I've learnt".

[elfaidi-ghassen]

That concern about "internalize" being mistaken for "memorize" is fair, but I think the underlying issue is the false dichotomy between conceptual understanding and skill. These tend to get treated as separate things, you "learn" a concept and then practice it in projects, but they're really two sides of the same coin.
The projects aren't just where you apply knowledge, they are part of how the knowledge solidifies in the first place.
I think the terminology is worth clarifying, but the concept itself doesn't need to be avoided.