This year in Mindset, I’ve been fortunate to be part of dozens of generative, productive conversations about students, experiential learning, careers, skills, badges, research on learning and interdisciplinary teaching, publishing, industry and, of course, change.
Mindset developed a rhythm of podcasts and projects and at the same time has had to stretch to meet new challenges. With the news of Orbis joining Symplicity came the opportunity for Mindset to enter new and different conversations. Just in the last 30 days, Mindset was invited to host and contribute to student conduct and student engagement conversations, speaking to audiences in Canada, US, UK, and France. Mindset continued with established projects on several campuses about their programs and the deep learning and recognition of students in their course and activities.
Across the year we’ve collected experiences and reflected a lot, and spent a lot of time on the idea of Skills Development. So we’re thinking about skills differently. We’ve shifted some of our expectations from this:
Go to college (have a major), get a job (pretty closely related to that major).
To this:
Go get some skills, work a bit, develop some working knowledge. Go to a university to study and learn about your interests in depth AND do join some activities that make learning practical. Then find a career path that lets you practice your craft.
Reflection has led us to discover insights. We’ve had to develop nuanced approaches in the products we offer that aim to better connect students with skills to employment opportunities that make sense for them. Like students discovering their paths in life, reflection and insight led visible pathways no one considered. And this is how we change our mindset. Our mindset about learning is changing and we’re making tools that help you use our products to support students in new ways.
