Can teaching kids how their brain works help them academically? Research says it can.
It’s the concept of mindset intervention that is changing the way students think about their own intelligence and academic ability. Mind intervention draws on neuroscience and psychological research to inform students that their intelligence can be developed. That is, their intelligence isn’t a fixed thing. It isn’t just what you were born with. The belief that some people and some groups are just smarter than others needs to be overcome.
Mindset intervention begins with a lesson teaching kids that intelligence can be developed.
Stanford University Professor of Psychology, Carol S. Dweck’s life work is centered on how and why people succeed, and how to foster the skills that make them successful.
In Dweck’s study, 7th grade math students were divided into two groups. The control group got eight sessions of solid, proven study skills. The growth mindset groups learned those same study skills and were taught the idea that their brains could grow.
Both the control group and the growth mindset group had declining math scores/grades. So what happened? The control group continued on their downward trend. The growth mindset group, showed some big improvements. The biggest group to show change was the low achieving students, just by learning that their brains could grow through hard work, and help from others was all the kids needed to jump start their success.
Establish a positive learning mindset.
Remember to teach your students that their brains can expand and they can do better and better through hard work and practice. By positively influencing student psychology, you can help students believe in themselves and achieve more in school.
To assess student achievement during the learning progress, we encourage teachers to use Edulastic’s immediate data and reporting features. The insights will allow you to guide student learning and assess what topics to focus your efforts on and teaching strategies are working.
Work on growth mindset with your students and aside from boosts in student morale, you may see improvements in student achievement.
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Otherwise, log into the site and put mindset intervention to work in your own classroom.