Everyone wants to be intelligent, and everyone wants to know the crucial technique to be intelligent. Carol S. Dweck's article, "Brainology: Transforming Students’ Motivation to Learn
(2008)”, asserts that the brain and intelligence are not fixed; they both change when you learn. Dweck’s overall argument, is that a growth mindset coupled with proper motivation, is the key to developing intelligence, as well as being successful in life. She emphasizes that different mindsets affect our confidence and motivation. As children, most of us are subjected to words and phrases that emphasize being intelligent. Phrases like, “Wow, you’re so smart”, or “Look at that test score, I bet that’s because you’re so intelligent”. At first, this seems like a …show more content…
And if so, would it noticeably enhance their grades and motivation? The author took seventh graders and divided them into two groups. These groups were put into an eight-session workshop full of excellent, well thought out study skills, with the “growth mindset” group also getting lessons in the growth mindset. Those lessons included ways to apply it to their schoolwork and what is was and meant. “This article and the lessons that followed changed the terms of engagement for students. Many students had seen school as a place where they performed and were judged, but now they understood that they had an active role to play in the development of their minds. They got to work, and by the end of the semester the growth-mindset group showed a significant increase in their math grades. The control group — the group that had gotten eight sessions of study skills — showed no improvement and continued to decline. Even though they had learned many useful study skills, they did not have the motivation to put them into practice” (4). Here, Dweck introduces evidence and gathers statistics that provide support to the claim that kids could be taught to have a growth mindset directly. She substantiates her claim by providing direct results from the eight-session workshop. In contrast, she could have provided better statistics when it came to exactly how many students were in the groups and what their backgrounds were previous to this
(2008)”, asserts that the brain and intelligence are not fixed; they both change when you learn. Dweck’s overall argument, is that a growth mindset coupled with proper motivation, is the key to developing intelligence, as well as being successful in life. She emphasizes that different mindsets affect our confidence and motivation. As children, most of us are subjected to words and phrases that emphasize being intelligent. Phrases like, “Wow, you’re so smart”, or “Look at that test score, I bet that’s because you’re so intelligent”. At first, this seems like a …show more content…
And if so, would it noticeably enhance their grades and motivation? The author took seventh graders and divided them into two groups. These groups were put into an eight-session workshop full of excellent, well thought out study skills, with the “growth mindset” group also getting lessons in the growth mindset. Those lessons included ways to apply it to their schoolwork and what is was and meant. “This article and the lessons that followed changed the terms of engagement for students. Many students had seen school as a place where they performed and were judged, but now they understood that they had an active role to play in the development of their minds. They got to work, and by the end of the semester the growth-mindset group showed a significant increase in their math grades. The control group — the group that had gotten eight sessions of study skills — showed no improvement and continued to decline. Even though they had learned many useful study skills, they did not have the motivation to put them into practice” (4). Here, Dweck introduces evidence and gathers statistics that provide support to the claim that kids could be taught to have a growth mindset directly. She substantiates her claim by providing direct results from the eight-session workshop. In contrast, she could have provided better statistics when it came to exactly how many students were in the groups and what their backgrounds were previous to this