Inverse Power of Praise
In brief, praise that is directed towards one's self-esteem not only doesn't improve students' performance, it can even cause performance to deteriorate by causing students
- to avoid risk
- to give up on a task instead of exerting more effort and
- to believe that they are not autonomous.
For praise to be effective,
- It must be specific to the task being performed.
- It must be sincere.
- It must be intermittent.
- It should be given during the process not at the end of a task.
On #3, if praise is given too often, then effort becomes tied to the reward of praise, and when praise is removed, so is one's effort. It needs to be tied to effort.
And for the same line of reasoning, on #4, praise needs to focus on the process not the product of "success." So, praise is important, but it must be given timely and wisely.
According to Science, You CAN Improve Your IQ
Brain Training
As Ashley and I wrote in NurtureShock, children’s IQs do change a lot as they develop. More than half of children will see significant swings in their IQ – not just once, but three times. And the swings are not minor. Two-thirds of children’s IQ scores improve, or drop, more than 15 points. One-third of kids’ scores jump more than 30 points. So there’s clearly a lot of instability going on.
Drs. Silvia Bunge and Allyson Mackey set up a special afterschool program at a low-performing elementary school in Oakland. For eight weeks, twice a week, kids came into one of two rooms to play board games, video games, and card games. These are games available at most retailers, but they’d been chosen by Bunge and Mackey because they demanded very specific cognitive skills. One set of games – in one room – challenged the kids’ reasoning ability. The other set of games – in the other room – challenged those kids’ processing speed.
Before and after the training, the scholars measured relevant components of the children’s IQs. The scholars expected some modest improvement. But the results were staggering – the group that trained for reasoning ability saw their non-verbal intelligence scores leap 32%. The group that trained for processing speed saw their brain speed scores jump 27%. In just eight weeks – 20 hours total of training – the games had a drastic impact on the kids’ IQ.
Now, Mackey does warn that kids who already come from enriched home environments might already have these games, or something similar, and in many ways they might have already trained their brains. So while Mackey suspects all kids could benefit from the game training, not all kids would benefit so much, so quickly.
Nevertheless, it’s striking evidence that indeed,the brain is like a muscle. While every individual probably has upper limits to what we might be capable of, brain training – like weight training, or fitness training – can lift us towards those limits.
The Brain is Like a Muscle
Students who are told they can get smarter if they train their brains to be stronger, like a muscle, do better in school, a new psychology study shows.
Many people have various theories about the nature of intelligence. Some view it as a fixed trait, while others see intelligence as a quality that can develop and expand.
These ideas have can have a profound effect on the motivation to learn, said researcher Carol Dweck, a child and social psychologist at Stanford University.
*"Those who follow a fixed theory are concerned with whether they look smart or dumb. They don't enjoy tasks that are difficult, where if they have a setback they can look dumb," Dweck explained. "Those who think intelligence is something you can cultivate are much more interested in being challenged than in just looking smart. They are much more resilient and persistent, and not as worried about making mistakes."
To see what effects different theories of intelligence had on schoolwork, Dweck and her colleagues followed 373 New York City 12-year-olds over a course of two years of junior high school. While all the students began the study with roughly the same math achievement test scores, those with a fixed mindset did worse in math, with the gap widening over the years.
"When you have a fixed view, you kind of run away from mistakes and setbacks, since you think they mean you're not smart," Dweck said. "The fixed view doesn't give students a good way to repair their deficiencies. If you believe your ability is permanently fixed, and you don't do well, there's no good route to come back from that."
The researchers then took junior high school students who did poorly in math and divided them into two groups. Both were introduced to workshops that built study skills, but one experimental group also went through an eight-week program that described the brain as like a muscle, "and the more it was used, the stronger it got," Dweck said.
"We taught them that the brain forms new connections every time they applied themselves and learned," she explained. "It gave them a new model of how their minds worked, and how they had control of their brains and could make it work better. The idea is to free them from the tyranny of fear of looking dumb. The name of the game is learning."
The experimental group showed a significant rebound in math grades, the researchers report in the latest issue of the journal Child Development.
*"There was one particular boy who we couldn't get to sit still, yet when he started hearing about the brain and how you can make neurons grow, we thought we saw tears in his eyes. He looked up at us and said, 'You mean I don't have to be dumb?'" Dweck recalled.
"From that day forward he applied himself to schoolwork," she said. "He was one of the first students the teachers mentioned as never doing homework before, but who now brought it in early to get it checked over. He was studying for tests and moving his grades from Cs and Ds to B+."
Dweck and her colleagues have developed a computer-based version of their workshop they have now tried out in 20 New York City schools. "We still have to upgrade the technology and revise it based on feedback from students, but it was really a great success," Dweck said. "We're really excited about making this more available."