Neuroplasticity and Mindset
Neuroplasticity and Mindset
Transcript
Every semester I teach a lesson to new students on growth mindset and I start with a question, who here's a math person? Usually about half the class raises their hand. Then I ask, who's not a math person? The other half raises their hands. And then I tell them the trick, everyone who raised your hand is wrong.
There's no such thing as a math person but our belief about whether we are or are not a math person changes how we learn math. The idea of a math person is an example of a mindset. In general, a mindset is a set of ideas or attitudes that we have about something, especially when those ideas are seen as being difficult to alter. It's a personal ideology, a set of assumptions that we use to filter the world around us. When it comes to learning, there's two broad categories of mindset. The first is what's called a fixed mindset which is the idea that intelligence is something we have a certain amount of that can't change that either we are or are not a math person and that's it. The second category is what's called a growth mindset or the recognition that intelligence can grow and develop in response to effort and good strategies.
Growth mindset is a recognition that anyone can learn math and that the more work we put in, the better we'll get. The reason mindset matters is that what we believe directly influences our behavior and by influencing our behavior, influences our learning outcomes. Say you believe that you're a math person and that math is a challenge that you will be able to rise to. When you sit down in class to lecture or you sit down with your textbook to do homework, you're working from the assumption that math is gonna make sense and that you're going to be able to learn the material.
When it gets difficult or when something doesn't make sense, your response will be to ask a question or ask for help and you'll probably keep trying and keep trying new strategies until the idea starts to make sense. On the other hand, if you think you're not a math person, then every time the material gets challenging, you're first thought is probably something like, what's the point of this? I'm not gonna be able to learn this anyway. I know I've had those thoughts myself especially when looking at a really difficult test in front of me.
A fixed mindset assumes that there will be a limit on abilities, a ceiling on what you can learn, and so when you approach learning with a fixed mindset, you interpret negative feedback as proof that you found and hit your ceiling and subconsciously you give yourself permission to stop trying. Now, I wanna be clear, mindset is not magical thinking. It is not believe and therefore succeed, it is not a cat poster. What it is is working from the assumption that you'll be able to be successful so that if something isn't working and if you're not finding success, instead of saying, is this my ceiling? You focus on more useful questions like why isn't this working and what could I be doing differently? Because there's always something you could be doing differently.
Maybe the problem is that you don't have enough prior knowledge and you need to go back a few steps. Maybe it's that the study strategy you're using isn't the most effective strategy for the material or that you're not putting in enough hours and practice to achieve mastery. Whatever the challenge might be, a growth mindset looks to identify and then meet the challenge, asking for help and taking advantage of resources along the way. I'm not a cognitive psychologist, so I won't go into the science here but you should know that the ideas behind growth mindset are how it really works.
Our brains learn and change and adapt in response to our effort. And importantly, that process of learning and changing and adapting our brains, what's known as neuroplasticity, takes work. It doesn't always feel easy and more often than not it's not meant to. Feeling like it's a challenge to learn something new isn't a sign that we're not going to be able to learn. In fact, to a certain extent, it's a sign that we are learning, that we're putting in the effort that we need to change our brains.
My favorite part of teaching this is that for the vast majority of my students this is not new information. I work with nontraditional students, students who come from community colleges, from the military, from the workforce, students with families and lives outside of the university.
My students are not afraid of hard work and they're not afraid of a challenge. Talking about growth mindset, recognizing that struggle is a part of success and that anything worth doing is worth working for is really just reminding ourselves that what we already know to be true in life also applies in education.
What we know is that there's value in hard work, that there is always more than one way to accomplish your goal, that success can mean different things at different times, and that when we're presented with a challenge, the important question is not can I do this but is it worth the time and energy that it's going to take or me to be successful? Keeping that in mind helps me and has helped my students to re-frame some of our learned reactions in the classroom. I hope it's helpful to you.
There's no such thing as a math person but our belief about whether we are or are not a math person changes how we learn math. The idea of a math person is an example of a mindset. In general, a mindset is a set of ideas or attitudes that we have about something, especially when those ideas are seen as being difficult to alter. It's a personal ideology, a set of assumptions that we use to filter the world around us. When it comes to learning, there's two broad categories of mindset. The first is what's called a fixed mindset which is the idea that intelligence is something we have a certain amount of that can't change that either we are or are not a math person and that's it. The second category is what's called a growth mindset or the recognition that intelligence can grow and develop in response to effort and good strategies.
Growth mindset is a recognition that anyone can learn math and that the more work we put in, the better we'll get. The reason mindset matters is that what we believe directly influences our behavior and by influencing our behavior, influences our learning outcomes. Say you believe that you're a math person and that math is a challenge that you will be able to rise to. When you sit down in class to lecture or you sit down with your textbook to do homework, you're working from the assumption that math is gonna make sense and that you're going to be able to learn the material.
When it gets difficult or when something doesn't make sense, your response will be to ask a question or ask for help and you'll probably keep trying and keep trying new strategies until the idea starts to make sense. On the other hand, if you think you're not a math person, then every time the material gets challenging, you're first thought is probably something like, what's the point of this? I'm not gonna be able to learn this anyway. I know I've had those thoughts myself especially when looking at a really difficult test in front of me.
A fixed mindset assumes that there will be a limit on abilities, a ceiling on what you can learn, and so when you approach learning with a fixed mindset, you interpret negative feedback as proof that you found and hit your ceiling and subconsciously you give yourself permission to stop trying. Now, I wanna be clear, mindset is not magical thinking. It is not believe and therefore succeed, it is not a cat poster. What it is is working from the assumption that you'll be able to be successful so that if something isn't working and if you're not finding success, instead of saying, is this my ceiling? You focus on more useful questions like why isn't this working and what could I be doing differently? Because there's always something you could be doing differently.
Maybe the problem is that you don't have enough prior knowledge and you need to go back a few steps. Maybe it's that the study strategy you're using isn't the most effective strategy for the material or that you're not putting in enough hours and practice to achieve mastery. Whatever the challenge might be, a growth mindset looks to identify and then meet the challenge, asking for help and taking advantage of resources along the way. I'm not a cognitive psychologist, so I won't go into the science here but you should know that the ideas behind growth mindset are how it really works.
Our brains learn and change and adapt in response to our effort. And importantly, that process of learning and changing and adapting our brains, what's known as neuroplasticity, takes work. It doesn't always feel easy and more often than not it's not meant to. Feeling like it's a challenge to learn something new isn't a sign that we're not going to be able to learn. In fact, to a certain extent, it's a sign that we are learning, that we're putting in the effort that we need to change our brains.
My favorite part of teaching this is that for the vast majority of my students this is not new information. I work with nontraditional students, students who come from community colleges, from the military, from the workforce, students with families and lives outside of the university.
My students are not afraid of hard work and they're not afraid of a challenge. Talking about growth mindset, recognizing that struggle is a part of success and that anything worth doing is worth working for is really just reminding ourselves that what we already know to be true in life also applies in education.
What we know is that there's value in hard work, that there is always more than one way to accomplish your goal, that success can mean different things at different times, and that when we're presented with a challenge, the important question is not can I do this but is it worth the time and energy that it's going to take or me to be successful? Keeping that in mind helps me and has helped my students to re-frame some of our learned reactions in the classroom. I hope it's helpful to you.