~ True Brilliance ~

As you know, I love to share cool stuff I come across that is related to self-learning and mastery learning. Here a short little piece I found exceptionally enlightening. Because this is a short blog entry, I have cut and pasted the entire thing, but you can visit the blog by clicking here:

http://didithrodrigo.blogspot.com/2009/02/in-face-of-true-brilliance.html

Yesterday, the Learning and Motivation class I am attending tackled mastery vs. performance motivation and approach / avoidance modalities. In a nutshell: A person with mastery orientation is interested in learning for learning’s sake. A performance-oriented individual on the other hand is interested in learning in order to get a grade. A mastery-oriented person approaches challenge and new knowledge and tends to avoid misunderstanding and confusion. A performance-oriented person approaches easy victory and avoids looking inferior.

For a few moments, the class struggled with confusion over mastery-orientation avoidance and performance-orientation avoidance. Weren’t they the same thing? Then, Phil Pavlik, a research scientist here at the PSLC who is auditing the class with me, put everything in perspective.

He said: To me the difference is do you want to avoid looking stupid or feeling stupid.

And that, my friends, is true brilliance.