Week 1 – What is academic development?
Welcome to our academic development journey! Over the next eigth weeks you will explore what academic identity means, looking beyond just skills and knowledge, in the deeper sense of identith, values and purpose. This journey starts with a look within. How have your beliefs, experiences, and environment shaped the way you see yourself in educational spaces?
In this first week, we will beign by unpacking the concept of academic identity, a complex and personal sense of who we are within an academic space. This is not something thats fixed, it is continuesly shaped by the different experiences we encounter along the way. Therefore we invite you to reflect on how you see yourself as a learner and a thinker, and to consider how your background and aspirations influence and shape your place in the academic world. This is the moment to take a step back, slow down and ask yourself meaningful questions to help you shape and achieve your ideal academic identity, whatever that means to you.
Learning goals for this week:
- Understand the concept of academic identity and explore how personal beliefs, experiences, and societal expectations shape one’s academic self-perception.
- Analyze the role of mindset in academic development by reflecting on Carol Dweck’s concept of “yet”.
- Critically reflect on one’s own academic identity by identifying personal strengths, areas for development, and envisioning the characteristics of an ideal academic.
Your tasks for this week:
- Whatch the TED Talk on the “Power of believing you can improve” by Carol Dweck
- Read this article on academic identity and what it intails
https://doi-org.proxy-ub.rug.nl/10.1159/000445817
Homework Journal Reflection
- Write a short reflection (1-2 pages) on the following questions:
What does being an “academic” mean to you? Do you identify as one?
What characteristics does the “ideal academic” have? How does one acquire these?
What are your strengths and areas you want to develop?