Neuroplasticity and Growth Mindset

Learning Competencies

By the end of this exploration, you should be able to:

• Describe how neuroplasticity is relevant to learning
• Describe what Growth Mindset is and why it is important

Summary

Until recently, the conventional thinking was that our brains were hard-wired at birth and therefore unchangeable. In actuality, our brains are like malleable plastic that is constantly being reshaped by our daily experiences.

Science has also revealed that our beliefs about ourselves, what we think and feel about our abilities and our beliefs about 'success' and 'failure' hugely influence our outcomes.

In this exploration, we'll challenge you to think about how neuroplasticity and a Growth Mindset will boost your capabilities in learning.

Time Box

Neuroplasticity

Neuroplasticity makes your brain extremely resilient and is the process by which all permanent learning takes place in your brain, such as playing a musical instrument or mastering a different language. Neuroplasticity also enables people to recover from stroke, injury and helps create new ways of functioning and behaviour for those experiencing autism, ADHD, learning disabilities, depression, addictions, and reverse obsessive-compulsive patterns.

Neuroplasticity has far-reaching implications and possibilities for almost every aspect of human life and culture, from education to medicine. Its limits are not yet known.

Shared via BrainHq

Your Brain on Learning

According to neurologist and educator Judy Willis (and suggested by a research-rich chapter in the second edition of Developmental Psychopathology, among many other publications), neuroplasticity is defined as the selective organising of connections between neurons in our brains.

When people repeatedly practice an activity or access a memory, their neural networks -- groups of neurons that fire together, creating electrochemical pathways -- shape themselves according to that activity or memory. When people stop practising new things, the brain will eventually eliminate, or "prune," the connecting cells that formed the pathways. Like in a system of freeways connecting various cities, the more cars going to a particular destination, the wider the road that carries them needs to be. However, the fewer cars travelling that way, the fewer lanes are required.

Neuroscientists have been chorusing "cells that fire together, wire together" since the late 1990s, meaning that if you perform a task or recall some information that causes different neurons to fire in concert, it strengthens the connections between those cells. Over time, these connections become thick, hardy road maps that link various parts of the brain -- and stimulating one neuron in the sequence is more likely to trigger the next one to fire. Thus, says Willis, "Practice makes permanent. The more times the network is stimulated, the stronger and more efficient it becomes."

Changing Brains in the Classroom

It turns out that if you tell students about this, it can affect their brains too. Researchers Lisa Blackwell of Columbia University and Kali Trzesniewski and Carol Dweck of Stanford University published a study in the journal Child Development in 2007 that found that both morale and grade points leapt when students understood intelligence is malleable. Not only did those students who already believed this do better in school, but when researchers actively taught the idea to a group of students, they performed significantly better than their peers in a control group.

Willis also found this to be true in her middle school classroom. She says her students were more motivated to study when they knew that they were all fully physically capable of building knowledge and changing their brains.

Here are a few tips for making your classroom friendly to malleable brains:

• Practice, practice, practice. Repeating an activity, retrieving a memory, and reviewing the material in various ways helps build thicker, stronger, more hard-wired connections in the brain.

• Put information in context. Recognising that learning is the formation of new or stronger neural connections makes sense to prioritise activities that help students tap into already-existing pathways (for instance, by integrating academic subjects or creating class projects relevant to their lives). In other words, nix the rote memorization. "Whenever new material is presented in such a way that students see relationships" between concepts, writes Willis, "they generate greater brain cell activity and achieve more successful long-term memory storage and retrieval."

• Let students know that this is how the brain works. Breaking through those neuro-mythological barriers that paint intelligence as predetermined may ease students' minds and encourage them to use their brains. Willis notes, "Especially for students who believe they are 'not smart,' the realization that they can change their brains through study and review is empowering."

Shared from Edutopia

Growth Mindset

According to psychologist Carol Dweck, known for her research on an individual’s implicit theory of intelligence, “In a fixed mindset, students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits. They have a certain amount, and that’s that, and then their goal becomes to look smart all the time and never look dumb.”

“You’re so talented!”, “You are gifted – a natural!”, “You’re doing so well in school. You must be really smart!” – children receive these messages (or their negative counterparts), along with many other messages daily from their peers, parents and teachers. Are these just words, or do they mean more? How are children affected by the words we use to praise, coach and criticize them?

Dr Dweck’s research, compelling and thorough, challenges this widely held belief, or ‘fixed mindset’, by demonstrating how powerful a ‘growth mindset’ can be in achieving success and happiness.

Shared from Onedublin

Human Skills tasks

Keep your answers on a document which you will later turn into a blog post.

1. Research Neuroplasticity

   • Discuss how understanding the principles of neuroplasticity benefits people.
   • Discuss how you might engage with the principles of neuroplasticity for your benefit.
   • What are some of the ways to increase your neuroplasticity?
   • Link to a resource that you found particularly useful or engaging.

2. Research Growth Mindset

   • Discuss what it is and why it is relevant.
   • In this exploration, did anything surprise you? Change for you?
   • How will you integrate growth mindset into your learning journey?
   • Link to a resource that you found particularly useful or engaging.

3. Blend with your learning plan and strategies

   • Reflect and discuss how these understandings may shape or influence your learning plan and strategy.

Optional Resources

• Habits & Growth Mindset
• Fixed vs. Growth: The Two Basic Mindsets That Shape Our Lives