A new study in the scientific journal Child Development shows that if you teach students that their intelligence can grow and increase, they do better in school.
"Other children think intelligence is something you can develop your whole life," she says. "You can learn. You can stretch. You can keep mastering new things."
"If we gave students a growth mindset, if we taught them how to think about their intelligence, would that benefit their grades?" Dweck wondered.
So, about 100 seventh graders, all doing poorly in math, were randomly assigned to workshops on good study skills. One workshop gave lessons on how to study well. The other taught about the expanding nature of intelligence and the brain.
The students in the latter group "learned that the brain actually forms new connections every time you learn something new, and that over time, this makes you smarter."
Basically, the students were given a mini-neuroscience course on how the brain works. By the end of the semester, the group of kids who had been taught that the brain can grow smarter, had significantly better math grades than the other group.
"When they studied, they thought about those neurons forming new connections," Dweck says. "When they worked hard in school, they actually visualized how their brain was growing."
Dweck says this new mindset changed the kids' attitude toward learning and their willingness to put forth effort. Duke University psychologist, Steven Asher, agrees. Teaching children that they're in charge of their own intellectual growth motivates a child to work hard, he says.
"If you think about a child who's coping with an especially challenging task, I don't think there's anything better in the world than that child hearing from a parent or from a teacher the words, 'You'll get there.' And that, I think, is the spirit of what this is about."
Dweck's latest book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, gives parents and teachers specific ways to teach the growth mindset of intelligence to children. A new study in the scientific journal Child Development shows that if you teach students that their intelligence can grow and increase, they do better in school.
1 comment:
Dear Marika,
I am amazed nobody commented on this. It is such an important issue. I've seen the two approaches at work as a high school teacher. The lazier, snottier, more foolish students always gravitated to the teachers who handed out "you're smart" praise, and avoided the teachers who primarily praised effort (they avoided me :-).
I also observed how many students were terrible readers, and concluded that the problem is not just not enough reading as kids, but that the books were not captivating or positive enough.
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The About Us, Literary Approach and Articles explain the above in greater detail.
I think parents will find my reviews, especially of some titles, to be extraordinarily penetrating compared to anything on the Internet (or elsewhere for that matter). I have tried to include as many top titles as I could obtain, so you might be able to find a review of one you know... perhaps Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree.* If you have a title that you think fits the standards of the site, please e-mail us in the manner suggested on the Contact Us page.
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