Learner's Mindset

Post-secondary horticulture programs attract a variety of people who want to learn more for a new career, career advancement, or personal interest.  The students come with a vast array of educational experiences and personal mindsets. Each learner will bring with them different expectations and beliefs around what learning looks like, and how success will be evaluated.

I think it is important for an instructor to provide clear expectations from the start in order to reduce the learner's stress and minimize confusion.  Part of that introduction may include the instructor's learning philosophy, assessments types, and examples of marking rubrics or other grading methods.  This year, in the apprenticeship course on Work Planning, I am also including a video that I have prepared about the learner's mindset. We will discuss it during the first class.

One way to introduce a new topic is to employ a pre-assessment activity that will establish a baseline.  I sometimes use an interactive survey where learners can use their phone, tablet, or computer to respond.  This time I am using Mentimeter to ask the learners what their motivation is for being in this class.  There is a list of options and learners may choose their top 1-3 answers.

The responses show up in live time and create a great opportunity to discuss internal and external motivations. From there, one can segue to a discussion about fixed vs growth mindsets..  As a bonus, the information also informs the instructor if any changes to the learning environment are required based on the demographics.

In addition to this discussion, the learner’s mindset should be encouraged throughout the course.

There may be additional resources on the course website that will have more information about applying the learner’s mindset

There are formative assessments that will help learners identify what content they understand and where they need to spend some more time.

The summative assessments all have concise grading rubrics that allow the learners to assess the work before submission.

There is an option for students to send in drafts and receive feedforward with enough time to make changes before submission.

Finally, the learner’s mindset is imbedded in the course content as learners are asked to evaluate various landscape materials and task through different lenses. So, all of that information simply to provide some context for the video below.  Please take a look and let me know what you think!