From Confidence to Oh No What Did I Just Make…. The Journey Continues

If you have been following along on my learning project journey it has been awhile since I made my last post. I apologize if you have been extremely invested to see how my project is turning out. My last post was about making pillsbury cookies which I thought I aced. I have realized as I am getting older it is getting harder for me to ace things… I remember always getting high scores on assignments when I was a kid but now I struggle to get even close to the same grades, ultimately it feels nice when you ace something.

I think in not having many things I can think of where I did it perfectly in the last little bit making Pillsbury cookies, I felt a little bit over confident about my abilities as a cook. Someone commented on my last blog about putting ice cream between two cookies for a great tasting snack which ignited a memory I had going over to friends houses and their parents or grandparents made those larger Oreo cookies with the icing in the middle. Here is what they look like:

I remember how those cookies made me feel and I wish I could be frozen in time to go back with my friends and have one with a nice cup of milk. The simple days I tell you. Reflecting on it more gave me a greater appreciation for how great they were made because I thought mine were sub par compared to what I remember them being.

I believe my over confidence was my demise for how this recipe went in my mind. Pillsbury cookies were easy, just pop them in the oven. This one required expertise; mixing all the ingredients, making perfectly round cookies, having icing that was not too sweet, and having the cookies being baked perfectly so they weren’t too hard or too soft. These were a big step up from my last post and I questioned my ability to execute or why I found this recipe to be challenging.

In my reflection and application for learning I stumbled upon Overconfidence Bias and how it is harmful when investing money. Being a former business student I thought that this article would help me to understand why I didn’t execute as I could have. This is the definition the article provided for over confidence. “Overconfidence bias is a cognitive bias in which individuals tend to overestimate their abilities, knowledge, and skill in a particular area, leading them to make errors in judgment and decision making.” I think I over estimated my own abilities and skill which led to my poor execution of this cookie. I should have just stuck with making a simple chocolate chip but ended up trying to recreate a childhood favourite that my friends parents and grandparents had mastery in. They would be disappointed in me. I highlighted execution as one area I will need to be strong in if I wanted to master filet mignon at the end of this project so I thought it would be helpful for me in my learning to understand just why I didn’t execute as I wanted to. Here is a glimpse of my cookie I made I will post a video of the process on my next learning project post. 

Application for teaching: I think that understanding sometimes we are all over confident in our teaching abilities and the knowledge we hold. If it is true for us it must be true for our students too. I think it is great to instil confidence in our students and their abilities but we have to make sure we give them tasks that they can do great jobs on so they won’t get frustrated fornot being able to do something they thought they were great at. If you have other thoughts about this application for teaching please comment, I would love to know how to navigate overconfidence bias in the classroom.