Thoughtful Learning Blog ›

Blog Posts for Brain-based Learning

Insightful articles about 21st century skills, inquiry, project-based learning, media literacy, and education reform.

Help Students Clear the Way for Critical Thinking

Submitted by King on Fri, 2012-05-25 08:13

In order to get students to think critically, you need to help them break through their mechanical thinking and manage their emotional thinking.

What is mechanical thinking?

When students think mechanically, their brains are just repeating looped recordings of thought without considering them. For example, students might have the mechanical thought, “I'm not good at math.” It just crops up in their brains whenever they look at a math problem. Often that little mechanical loop doesn't even relate to reality.

Why do we think mechanically?

Group Expectations

Mechanical thinking is useful for routine tasks like walking, riding a bike, keyboarding, driving, playing an instrument, and other activities that have become part of muscle memory. To learn any of these skills takes a lot of critical thinking, problem solving, and practice, but once the skill is learned, it is stored in the cerebellum at the base of the brain. Often a person can do something with great ease but can't explain how to do it to anyone else. The skill is no longer conscious. But to learn new skills, students need to think critically.

How can students break through mechanical thinking?

When students are thinking mechanically about a topic in school, they are recalling old ideas about it and are not engaging the material in a new way. Most often, mechanical thoughts manifest themselves in statements that shut down possibility. You can teach students to recognize such statements, stop them, and replace them with questions that open up possibilities:

Mechanical Thinking

(statements that stop thought)

Critical Thinking

(questions that start thought)
“I'm not good at math.” “How can I improve my math skills?”
“That's not the way Mrs. Jones taught us.” “How many ways are there to do this?”
“There was only one reason for the Civil War.” “What different factors led to the Civil War?”
“Current Events is boring.” “How do events right now shape my future?”
“Our group never accomplishes anything.” “Why is our group getting hung up?”
Read more

Creating a Growth Mindset in Your Students

Submitted by King on Mon, 2012-03-26 23:00

Belief that you can become smarter and more talented opens the doorways to success. That’s what twenty years of research has shown Carol Dweck of Stanford University. She has identified two opposing beliefs about intelligence and talent, beliefs that strongly impact our ability to learn.

Mindset Chart

Though the fixed mindset has traditionally held sway, many recent studies show that the growth mindset better represents our abilities. Our brains are much more elastic than previously thought, constantly growing new connections. IQ and talent are not fixed, but are mutable based on experience and attitude.

In her book Mindset, Dweck outlines the dramatic effect that these opposing beliefs have on learners:

Fixed Mindset Growth Mindset
Wants to prove intelligence or talent. Wants to improve intelligence or talent.
Avoids challenges for fear of failure. Engages challenges to improve.
Gives up in the face of tough obstacles. Persists in overcoming obstacles.
Avoids hard labor. Sees labor as the path to success.
Treats criticism as an attack. Treats criticism as an opportunity.
Feels threatened by others’ success. Feels inspired by others’ success.
Read more

Crowdsourcing in Your Classroom

Submitted by Smith on Fri, 2012-03-23 12:51

How can you shift your classroom away from lecture and toward inquiry? You can get help from the modern phenomenon known as crowdsourcing—the practice of putting many minds to work on a single problem. Inquiry is, in effect, crowdsourcing in your classroom.

What Crowdsourcing Concepts Can Help Me?

The following four concepts from crowdsourcing can help you use more inquiry in your classroom.

Brain Network

  1. Distributed Computing. While the term crowdsourcing is relatively new, the idea has been around for a while. One early example is the University of Berkley’s SETI project (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence), started in 1999, with over three million people devoting time on their personal computers to process radio signals. Other projects put crowds of human brains to work on even thornier problems. Just last September, over the course of three weeks, Fold.It gamers decoded an AIDS protein that scientists had been struggling with for 15 years. And inspired by the success of Fold.It, EyeWire.org recently launched a project asking people to help color-code neurons in the human retina.

    Classroom Application

    • A starting point for distributed computing in your classroom is to have students create their own unit overviews. Here’s how. Instead of lecturing to introduce a new unit, assign partners or groups to find out about specific topics in the unit. For example, to introduce a unit on the Civil War, you could list topics such as battles, generals, causes, public opinion, economics, technology, media, casualties, and so on. Then ask partners or groups to select a topic to investigate. Take the class to the library or media center for a half-hour inquiry into their topics. Afterward, have each group report briefly on what they discovered. This distributed-computing approach engages students and fosters research, collaboration, and presentation skills. It also covers the high points of the topic through crowdsourcing instead of lecture.
    • A next step is to have students help develop the tools for assessing their work. Ask students what they want to accomplish—what excellent work would look like. Involve them in creating a rubric. This brainstorming process works even for young students, as is shown in this video about a bridge-building class. By involving students in creating the tools for their assessment, you get buy-in from them and often end up with a more rigorous assessment tool than you would otherwise have.
    • When you and your students gain real comfort with distributed computing, you might have them participate in planning the semester’s syllabus. Have them brainstorm what makes a successful learning experience. Present the core standards on which they’ll be tested, and ask for project ideas to reach those goals. Gather student suggestions on the board and then guide a discussion analyzing how to implement them. By enlisting students in this part of their education, you show that they are responsible for their own learning. You also teach them the metacognitive skills they need to be lifelong learners.
    2. Read more

Keep Your Lizard, Mouse, and Monkey in Mind

Submitted by King on Thu, 2011-12-29 17:08

I just read three brilliant blog posts by neuropsychologist Rick Hanson, in which he identifies three parts of our human brains:

An image of the brain.

Though we like to think of the primate brain as the foremost part (after all, primate means “first”), many believe it was the last part of the brain to develop. It is also the last part to receive signals from the spinal cord. So Dr. Hanson deals with the most ancient part, the brain stem, first. Read more