Monthly Archives: October 2021

Understanding Adolescents: Emotion, Reason, and the Brain

Kurt Fischer — who helped create Learning and the Brain, and the entire field of Mind, Brain, and Education — used to say: “when it comes to the brain, we’re all still in kindergarten.” He meant: the brain is so



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Let’s Get Practical: Signaling a Growth Mindset

Most teachers know about Mindset Theory: the idea that students’ beliefs about intelligence shape their success in learning. Specifically: If I think that intelligence (whatever that is) can’t change, I learn less. If I think that intelligence can change, I learn more. Once



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Good Anxiety: Harnessing the Power of the Most Misunderstood Emotion by Wendy Suzuki

Good Anxiety: Harnessing the Power of the Most Misunderstood Emotion takes a refreshing look at an emotional state, anxiety, that is often seen as a problem to be avoided and kept at bay; but here, Wendy Suzuki asks us to



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How Do Experts Think?

Perhaps you’ve heard the saying: “To a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” It means, more or less, we see what we’re trained to see. If I bring a problem to a plumber, she’ll think about it like a plumbing problem.



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Teachers’ Gestures Can Help Students Learn

Over the years, I’ve written about the importance of “embodied cognition.” In other words: we know with our brains, and we know with and through our bodies. Scholars such as Dr. Susan Goldin-Meadow and Dr. Sian Beilock have done splendid and



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