Monday, March 30, 2009

Stanford Podcast

I recently watched a video podcast made by Stanford University. The podcast was titled "Growth" vs "Fixed" Mindsets in Learning. At first there was some debate over each mindset, then they decided to teach children the growth mindset in an educational setting. The first half of the students went through an eight session workshop studying work skills and personality skills. The second half of the students only received study skills. They said the study skills were great and they thought they would be motivating, but the end result was not good what so ever. This was because they had no personal motivation to put their studies into practice.

The group of students with work skills and personality skills did exceptionally well. They were taught with the Growth mindset method. "Your brain is like a muscle, it gets stronger when it is used." Their connections increased over time and their intellectual skills grew as well. They are now doing research to see if race car drivers can benefit from the growth mindset.

I believe this type of growth mindset needs to be used in every classroom. A student can be taught anything, but they will not learn it unless they can use it themselves and see it in practice. It is completely true that your brain gets stronger if you use it. I want my students to understand this.

4 comments:

  1. Samantha I believe that the brain has to be used as well. When I was in the seventh grade my social studies teacher would always tell us that "a mind is a tremble thing to waste". I agree with you that as a teacher we must motivate students to use their mind through practice.

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  2. Great job - i totally agree with this study - we are always learning!

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  3. Excellent. As the old saying goes, "if you don't use it, you lose it!" The brain is a muscle that must be exercised...not for sure a muscle, but you get the point ;)

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  4. I turned your questions into a blog post. If what I did doesn't work, let me know.

    http://mrcsclassblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/answers-to-ms-mason-questions-my.html

    Mr. C

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