Week 15 Growth Mindset: OU and Me

Caption: The library at The University of Oklahoma. Link.

I think that there are definitely some areas in which OU could improve their approach to growth mindset. However, I think that there are some things about colleges that inherently can't be changed and will always go against growth mindset. GPAs are necessary and cannot be abolished altogether, but they encourage students to try and achieve a certain grade instead of to try and learn. I think one way of maybe helping this would be to encourage students to learn from their mistakes. If students do poorly on a test, maybe they can retake the test and write a paper over what they learned to show that they are learning form their mistakes instead of just being punished by them. This way, GPA is still held up but there are more ways to encourage learning from mistakes. It's hard to think of ways that the university as a whole can encourage learning and growth, but I think that professors can encourage this by putting less pressure on students to perform well on tests and put more emphasis on assignments that encourage them to better understand the base topics that they are in the classes for. College seems to inherently not encourage growth mindset because of the emphasis on getting good grades instead of learning the topics. If less emphasis was put on testing, I think that this could be combatted.

Week 15 Learning Challenge: Reading Yoga

Caption: Yoga poses for book lovers. Link.

I particularly love reading and I particularly love yoga, so I really liked this graphic. It grabbed my attention because I think reading and yoga are two introspective activities that really relax me and make me forget about the worries of the world. I think that everyone should read, because reading is important and you can learn so many valuable lessons from books. I also think that everyone should do yoga though, and I don't think nearly as many people do. It's such a great activity that causes you to focus on being one with your breathing and your body and challenges you to forget about other things going on in your life that might be causing you anxiety or stress. Do yoga and read, my friends!

Week 15 Backup and Review: Weapons of Mass Creation

Link to source.

Caption: An old-fashioned pen. Link.

My favorite note from the announcements this week was the graphic about pens being weapons of mass creation. It's interesting to think of pens being capable of so much, but they can't do it themselves. It's like saying guns kill people. It's not true. They're weapons of mass destruction that need someone to incite that destruction. Similarly, pens do not write. Pens are a means to mass creation, but they need a creative person holding them in order to affect their creation. 

I'm not super involved on campus, but I am graduating a week from Saturday, so that's exciting! Everyone can feel free to come to that if they'd like. 

Week 15 Famous Last Words: Keeping up Training

Caption: A runner. Link.

My famous last words for this week: I ran a half marathon on Sunday. It was hard because I hadn't been training as much as I should have. However, I was still able to run the whole thing and I had a great time. My boyfriend ran it, too, but we ran it separately. I couldn't keep up with him, to be honest! Instead, I ran with my sister-in-law. It was easier for me that way because she hadn't been training even as much as I had been for it, so I could easily keep her pace and I didn't ever get too winded or feel like I couldn't keep going. I'm running another half marathon this saturday and I kind of can't believe I'm actually doing that. I feel like a crazy person agreeing to do two half marathons within six days of each other. I love running and this week has taught me something important: training is essential! I think that if I can occasionally go out and run 10 miles, I'm fine to sign up for half marathons whenever I please. However, this isn't how I should approach them anymore. I need to keep up training in order to keep reaching better, faster times. I can't keep approaching them like "I can do this"; Instead, I need to approach them with "I can do this better." Otherwise, what's the point of doing them still? I did one and if all I care about is completing them, then why do I keep going? Why don't I just stop now? Instead, I need to let my drive to be better keep me going and inspire me to keep training. I've learned this week just how vital training is and that I need to keep training hard if I want to do better. I can't keep approaching each new feat with the same goal. Otherwise, it's silly to even be setting goals. I need to approach each new race with the goal of doing better than I had before and to keep training harder. 

Week 15 Tech Tip: Canvas Notifications

I had already set up my Canvas notifications. I don't like the idea of missing any assignments, especially since I'm enrolled in this online class. I get fairly paranoid about it. So I have my canvas notifications set up to send me a daily update about what's been going on in my canvas account, as well as to notify me anytime anything gets posted anywhere in my classes. I get emails anytime grades are posted, files are uploaded, announcements are shared, etc. It gets annoying at times because I do get a lot of emails. However, I'd much rather receive too many annoying emails than to accidentally miss something big!

Week 15 Reading Notes: Adam and Eve Part A

Bibliography: Genesis, Link .
Caption: Adam and Eve. Link.

Reading Notes: I remember learning the story about Adam and Eve in Sunday School when I was young. My church always used the King James version of the bible, so this was familiar enough to me as is. I think that the creation story is really interesting and I like that Eve is made from part of Adam. I think it creates a cool bond between the two characters. I very clearly remember learning about the Fall in sunday school and I thought it was interesting to revisit it for my reading this week. I  like the character of the snake and think that it would be interesting to write a story from his point of view. Perhaps including the backstory of the snake or the part where he is told his mission would be an interesting addition to the story. I don't particularly like the Punishment stories as much, because I think that there was too much punishment for Eve's action and I think that Adam shouldn't necessarily have been held accountable.

Week 15 Wikipedia Trail: from Nanoparticles to

Link 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanoparticle
For my capstone class, we have to write a lot of papers about nanoparticles. I know a lot of detail about them, but I thought that it would be interesting to break it down to the rudimentary wikipedia page and see what it has to say about the topic.

Link 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity
I thought it would be interesting to read more about gravity because I have never been very good at physics. I thought it was particularly interesting to learn more about the history of the theory behind it.

Link 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet
I decided to follow the wikipedia trail to the planet page because I thought it would be an interesting read. I don't know much about astronomy and I thought that it was interesting to learn more about what criteria an object must meet in order to be considered a planet.

Link 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tycho_Brahe
I had heard the name Tycho Brahe before and I vaguely remembered that it was astronomy related. I thought it was interesting, however, to learn more about the life he led besides his contributions to astronomy.

Caption: Tycho Brahe. Link.