if i'm so smart... 1

If I’m so Smart, Why do I Feel so Dumb?

Implications of Neural Plasticity in the Classroom

Elizabeth Powers

University of North Texas

If I’m so Smart…

Abstract: The human brain is capable of creating new neural connections throughout one’s

life. Research has demonstrated that when students are taught the concept of neural plasticity as

well as an incremental theory of intelligence, they are more inclined to persevere through

academic challenges and demonstrate resilience in challenges with peers. Previous generations

innately understood that intelligence was gained through experience. It is time to communicate

that understanding to a new generation of students.

Keywords: Neural plasticity, intelligence, fixed entity, incremental, mindset


Introduction

The human brain weighs around three pounds. Our brains are an amazing combination of

parts, which work together to allow us to think, feel, remember, move, and exist. The brain is

made up of the cerebrum, cerebellum, amygdala, and hippocampus. The cerebrum is the largest

part of the brain. It helps us to think and speak. The cerebellum is the small part at the base of the

skull. It controls our muscles and helps us to move. The prefrontal cortex, right behind the

forehead, helps us to think rationally and plan. The amygdala, a very small portion of the brain

deep in the center, controls emotions. Finally, the hippocampus, also in the center, enables us to

access stored memories. Throughout the brain there are cells called neurons that send small

electrical signals to other neurons through synapses, where they are eventually sent to the

muscles for a response. These neurons join together to form a neural network (Deak, 2010).

Neural plasticity is the ability of our brain to make new neural connections (Deak, 2010). It

has been determined that our brains can make these new neural connections for as long as we are

alive (Stiles, 2000). In Destin Sandlin’s (2015) video series, Smarter Every Day, he

demonstrated neural plasticity through a backwards bicycle. His engineers added a couple of

gears to the handle bars of an average bike. These gears changed the direction that the front

wheel turned when the handle bars were turned. When the handle bars were turned to the right,

the front wheel would turn to the left. Sandlin had ridden a bike for decades. When he first tried

to ride this bike, he couldn’t go more than a few inches without falling off. He understood what

he needed to do to ride the backwards bike, however, his neural pathways were established and

they said that when you turn the handles of a bike to the right you go to the right. Furthermore,

there is a lot of information that your brain receives from your body about balance and

movement to maintain an upright position on a bike. These established neural pathways were all


being challenged with this simple alteration. He determined that he would force himself to learn

how to ride the altered bike. He worked on it every day for eight months. After eight months, he

actually felt his brain make the switch, and he was able to ride the bicycle competently. He had

his six-year-old son try it. His son had been riding a bike for three years, or half of his life.

Initially, his son failed as well. It took his son two weeks to learn how to ride the backward

bicycle. This demonstrates that neural plasticity is present in every brain at all ages. It also

demonstrates that children’s brains are especially plastic and open to creating new connections

(Deak, 2010).

Examples of Neural Plasticity

Adults who struggle with dyslexia are often told that whatever gains they have made in

training their brains as children are all the gains that they are going to make in their lives. These

adults are told that while they may have done some intervention as children, the fluidity and ease

with which they read and decode is fixed now that they are adults. However, new research is

challenging this belief (Eden et al., 2004). In the 2004 study done by Eden and colleagues at

Georgetown University Medical Center, researchers worked with 19 dyslexic adults and 19

dyslexic control subjects. Researchers had seen that neurological changes could be made in

children with dyslexia who were treated with intervention strategies, but wanted to see if

corresponding changes in adult brains were possible. The researchers embarked on an 8 week,

phonologically-based intervention program. At the end of the 8-week program they found that

the dyslexic adults with training demonstrated not only improvements in phonological

processing and word reading, they also demonstrated significantly more activity in the left

hemisphere parietal cortex and numerous right hemisphere regions, which the researchers

postulated were activated to assist the left hemisphere in processing (Eden et al., 2004). The


author also has personal experience in this area through a family member. Her sister struggled

with undiagnosed dyslexia in school in the sixties and seventies, but compensated for it with an

incredible work ethic. After she became a mother, she taught herself to read more fluently

through the practice of reading children’s books to her young children. She is now a very

competent reader who will read for pleasure. This is a personal demonstration of the adult brain’s

ability to build new neural pathways, gaining competency in areas where there had been little.

Children demonstrate the greatest neural plasticity up to the age of 10 (Deak, 2010). A

demonstration of that neural plasticity is the study done by Sylvan Moreno and colleagues from

the Institut de Neurosciences Cognitives de la Méditerranée in Portugal in 2009. In this study

researchers had reviewed the research that indicated that students who studied music had richer

neural connections, but these were correlational studies. Moreno and his group of researchers

wanted to establish causality. Moreno and his team had average children with no musical

background or demonstrated aptitude participate in either music training or painting training for

a period of six months. Pitch discrimination is the ability to hear the differences in different

tones, or pitches. Each group was given pitch discrimination tests and reading tests prior to their

course of study. Each group then received training in their respective area of focus twice a week

for 24 weeks. Their research found that the relatively short periods of musical study of only six

months had “strong consequences on the functional organization of the children’s brain.”

(Moreno, 2009, p. 712) After the study was completed, students were better able to discriminate

vocal pitches. The researchers also noted improved language production, increased reading

scores, and an improved ability to focus their attention, thereby demonstrating the causality they

had sought to establish (Moreno et al., 2009).


Understanding Neural Plasticity Influences on Educational Outcomes

Carol Dweck has spent the last 20 years researching neural plasticity and how understanding

it impacts our approach to life. When she started researching, she was simply looking at how

people responded to frustration. She set up experiments where she gave individual children easy

puzzles to solve and then gave them very challenging puzzles to solve. When some of her

participants experienced frustration, they responded as she expected, with correlating behaviors

of frustration. But other participants responded with enthusiasm and excitement when presented

with the difficult puzzles, looking forward to the challenge with joy. This was not what she was

expecting. She asked herself why these children seemed to be excited about the opportunity to

fail (Dweck, 2006). She discovered that some people believe that traits like intelligence can be

developed incrementally, or are malleable, and some people think that traits like intelligence are

a fixed entity. These differing beliefs have profound, life-long consequences. When people have

a fixed entity view of intelligence, they believe that they are either smart or they are not. It is

permanent. It is established by their genes. When these people encounter a challenge and fail,

they have demonstrated that they are not smart in that area. People who believe this avoid failing

at all costs. They especially avoid letting others see them fail. Individuals with a fixed entity

view of intelligence, perceive having to make an effort in an area as an indication that one was

not and will not ever be intelligent or talented enough in that area. However, people who believe

that they can develop their intelligence or other personality traits incrementally, view failure as a

learning experience (Dweck, 2006). These people aren’t off-put by things that are challenging.

They view them as a part of the process. They realize that while they may not like failing, they

are getting closer to their goal of learning something new—whether it is how to play the piano,


do algebra, or cook a turkey that is moist. Each of these experiences is an opportunity to practice

and get better (Dweck, 2006).

In study after study, researchers have demonstrated that teaching an incremental approach to

intelligence improves student performance. A 2002 study by Aronson and colleagues taught one

group of incoming university students the incremental theory of intelligence and asked them to

visualize their brain making more neural connections while studying and learning in their college

courses. Another group was taught that intelligence is fixed, and they shouldn’t worry too much

if they struggled in certain classes. The students taught the incremental theory of intelligence saw

their grade points rise by .23. The other students saw no gain in grade point (Aronson, Fried, &

Good, 2002).

Researchers wondered whether middle school students struggling with the adjustment to

middle school would see an increase in academic success if taught an incremental understanding

of intelligence. They devised a study wherein one group of middle schoolers received a weekly

email teaching them about the incremental model of intelligence and study skills, while another

group received the emails teaching them about study skills alone. Both groups saw an initial

downward trend in grades, but the students being taught about neural plasticity saw that trend

arrested and reversed. The other group continued to decline. Several months after the

interventions, the incremental group had a .30 increase in grade point over the control group

(Good et al., 2003, Blackwell et al., 2007)

Understanding Neural Plasticity Impacts Resilience

With this understanding, Yeager and Dweck (2012) set out to see if a mindset could make a

significant difference in outcomes of resilience. Resilience is the ability to bounce back from

challenges. Challenges are ubiquitous. Students frequently face challenging courses and


personal challenges with aggressive peers. Yeager and Dweck wanted to know if students who

had or were taught an incremental theory of intelligence and personality traits would be more

resilient in the face of academic challenges and peer victimization or exclusion, than those who

had a fixed entity view of intelligence or personality traits. Yeager and Dweck were concerned

with the population of students who attend community colleges and are enrolled in remedial

math, which is roughly 65% of that population (Center for Community College Student Success,

2011). Only a small percentage of these students eventually graduate. The intervention and

control groups of students were asked to read an article that either explained an incremental

theory of intelligence or an article about how the brain works. The article that discussed the

incremental theory of intelligence emphasized the malleability of adult brains, since the vast

majority of the students had indicated a fixed entity theory of intelligence as their mindset, and

focus groups had indicated their concern that as adults they could not change (Yeager & Dweck,

2012). The intervention article also emphasized that students needed to do more than just apply

effort, they also needed to try different strategies and ask for help. After reading their respective

articles, the students were to write a letter explaining their article to a fictional upcoming student.

While 20% of the control group dropped out of the class, only 9% of the intervention group

dropped out of the class. Additionally, the intervention group earned better grades in class. These

students had no additional supports in class or additional training. This indicates that a small

intervention can have a big return. It also indicated that students facing very large challenges,

with intervention, increased their resiliency significantly (Yeager & Dweck, 2012).

Yeager and Dweck also looked into resilience in the face of peer aggression or exclusion.

When students were taught that personality traits are not fixed, but can be changed, even though

that may be difficult, the students were less likely to respond to a snub or aggressive act with


equal or increased aggression. The researchers worked on this concept in various ways and then

tested it by taking it to an urban high school with significant levels of conflict. For this

intervention, the researchers felt a longer approach would be more helpful than some of the brief

interventions they, and other researchers, had had success with in the past. In this intervention,

they worked with the students for six weeks in three two-week segments. First they learned about

how the brain functions and its core elements. Next they studied the incremental theory of

personality: that people do not do things because of traits that are fixed, but because they have

thoughts, and thoughts can be changed. Finally, they internalized these concepts through

discussions, role playing, writing, and reading. The control group was taught social and

emotional skills commonly taught in interventions aimed at de-escalating violence. The

evaluation came a month after the interventions. The researchers used an online role-playing

scenario. The students who were taught the incremental understanding of personality were

significantly less aggressive toward their aggressive or snubbing digital friend than the control

group who received training on de-escalating violent behaviors (Yeager & Dweck, 2012).

Focus on Your Strengths?

Doing a quick online search for the topic, “focus on your strengths” returns over four

million webpage hits. Focusing on one’s strengths has become a mantra for management through

books such as Strengths Finder by Tom Rath and First, Break All the Rules by Buckinham,

Marcus & Coffman, Curt. In the same way, it has become a mantra for teachers. Teachers

regularly try to comfort students when they fail at something by reminding them of something

else that they are great at. The intent is to build a child's self-esteem by focusing on the things

that they do well. This seems like a sound strategy. However, when researchers put this to the

test, they found that discounting their weaknesses and reinforcing their strengths indicated to the


students that the adults in their lives did not believe they were capable of doing better in the area

of weakness (Rattan, Good, & Dweck, 2011). The researchers postulated that when an instructor

holds a fixed entity theory of intelligence and comforts a child who fails with words such as,

"Don't worry about this. You rock at writing. We can't all be 'math people'." The child then

believes that they do not have the ability to learn the subject at hand, and they are less motivated

to try. To test this theory, researchers Rattan, Good, and Dweck formulated several studies. First

of all, they found that instructors with a fixed entity theory of intelligence were more likely to

conclude that a student wasn’t "smart enough" in math based on an initial failing test grade in a

math course. Teachers with an incremental understanding of intelligence were offended that such

a conclusion could even be considered (Rattan, Good, & Dweck, 2011).

To determine how instructor feedback influenced student motivation to continue to work

through a challenge, the researchers created a study in which college students imagined

themselves receiving a low grade on the first calculus test of the year. They then received

feedback from their professor. The feedback would either be in one of three frameworks. First, it

might be positive in nature and highlight their strengths while making curriculum modifications

for their weakness, a typical “comforting” approach used by educators. Second, it might be

positive in nature and acknowledge both their strengths and their struggle and then suggest

strategies to help them gain the skills they needed to be successful in their area of weakness.

Finally, it would be positive in nature and neutral. The students felt that the professor who

offered the "comfort" strategy had low motivation to help them and low expectations about their

capabilities in the subject matter. The neutral feedback and the feedback that encouraged their

ability and provided some strategies to find success both left the students feeling as though their

professor was invested in their success. Those students were more motivated to try harder and


they thought their grade would be significantly higher by the end of the semester (Rattan, Good,

& Dweck, 2011). Those students were encouraged to keep trying.

This is a vitally important piece of information. We’ve known for some time that students

rise to the level that educators expect (Jussim &Eccles 1992), but to have such power to

influence through the way an educator responds to student failure is significant. It demonstrates

that the bias of the educator toward a fixed entity of intelligence or an incremental understanding

of intelligence either opens the future up for a student or closes doors for them that they haven’t

even knocked on yet. Educators would never want to close doors for their students. It is out of

compassion and trying to ease the short term pain that comes with failing that these messages are

given. It is better to allow a student to feel the pain of failure than to communicate to a student

that they cannot succeed in an area.

Application to the Classroom

The applications to the classroom are significant. First of all, educators must work to

create their own growth mindset of intelligence and personality traits. It is out of convictions that

people act. This growth mindset will enable the educator to create positive outcomes out of the

challenges that will come their way. Challenges will happen. Being able to respond to them with

resilience will only benefit the educator’s own life. Then, while that lesson is being internalized

educators can begin to explicitly teach the principles of neuroplasticity to their students. When

students understand how their brains make connections they will be less threatened by the

experience of not understanding something initially. They can calmly tap their brain and say to

themselves, “I’m building a new neural connection. I’ll get this soon.” This will significantly

reduce the anxiety they are experiencing in the process of learning. When students learn that not

getting the answer right the first time is actually normal and to be expected, something magical


happens. They can allow themselves to stumble through the learning process, which will help

them to grow.

As educators understand and teach the principles of neuroplasticity, they will also begin

allowing their students to experience failure, because it means that they are growing. Educators

will also stop encouraging their students when they fail by focusing on their strengths alone,

because doing so inadvertently tells their students that they do not believe in the student’s ability

to learn something. Instead, educators will address that failure by talking to the students about

what different strategies they might be able to employ to master a new skill. When the students

start mastering things that were hard for them, their self-confidence will grow and they will

begin to take on larger challenges. They will build their own resiliency, tenacity and grit. That

grit will enable them to meet the challenges that will inevitably come their way.

Summary

The human brain is always ready to create new neural connections. This was

demonstrated through Dustin Sandler’s backward bicycle, adult dyslexics learning new

phonological skills, and children learning music who made new neural connections which helped

in linguistic skills and reading. By teaching students explicitly about the brain’s ability to make

these new neural connections, we empower students in the challenges of the learning process as

well as build their resilience in challenges outside of learning. Furthermore, when mentors in a

student’s life focus on their strengths and modify the environment to the degree that they are not

challenged in an area of weakness, the student is robbed of the self-esteem building experience

of overcoming that was very difficult for them.


Future studies should be conducted which consider the influence of teaching an

incremental theory of intelligence to students with ADHD, dyslexia, and dysgraphia. These

students are often creative thinkers, very intelligent, and yet struggle in the learning process,

because they are often socially immature and struggle with impulsivity. Teaching them tenacity

and resilience through an understanding of neural plasticity and an incremental understanding of

intelligence should give great hope and build the confidence of these students, enabling them to

take on challenges that they are capable of solving with their out of the box thinking and high

intelligence.

Looking Back and Looking Forward

Tom Brokaw (1998), chronicled a generation of Americans in his book titled, The

Greatest Generation. These people were no smarter than the generations who are currently in

power or are growing up now. They certainly did not amass the wealth seen by current

technology wizards. They didn’t have great political power. What did Brokaw see in them that

made them great? This generation of Americans was raised in The Great Depression. They

watched their families lose their homes, farms, and jobs, and came of age while fighting a war on

two fronts against the greatest forces we had ever seen in history. After that, they came home and

were responsible for the greatest economic boom in history. How did they do that? The author

proposes that they did that because they had no expectations that life would come easily. They

had seen the desperate days of the Depression and just as they were getting out of it, America

entered World War II. Their expectation in life was that they would take a low paying job in a

company, work very hard, learn a lot along the way and move up. They had hopes that they

would one day own their own home. It didn’t need to be big or fancy, just theirs. Their goals

were modest, but they were willing to work at them, and they expected that they would have


setbacks. When those setbacks came, whether in the war or at home, they took them with natural

disappointment and started again. They lived the incremental theory of intelligence. They didn’t

expect to know everything; they expected to learn. They knew that learning would come with

experience, and experience would come with pain.

We have lost the wisdom of The Greatest Generation, but hopefully, as we rediscover

that failure is a part of learning, and pain is a part of life, we will recapture the work ethic that

they gained through the challenges they faced. Educators have the greatest responsibility and

opportunity to influence a new generation. We will do that best if we personally adopt an

incremental theory of intelligence, build our own resilience and model tenacity in the challenges

that are an inevitable part of life. We will then be able to transfer that knowledge to our students.

A poet well known to The Greatest Generation was Edgar Albert Guest. This poem of his

exemplifies the way they lived:

It Couldn’t Be Done

By Edgar Albert Guest

Somebody said that it couldn’t be done

But he with a chuckle replied

That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one

Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.

So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin

On his face. If he worried he hid it.

He started to sing as he tackled the thing

That couldn’t be done, and he did it!

Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that;

At least no one ever has done it;”


But he took off his coat and he took off his hat

And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.

With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,

Without any doubting or quiddit,

He started to sing as he tackled the thing

That couldn’t be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,

There are thousands to prophesy failure,

There are thousands to point out to you one by one,

The dangers that wait to assail you.

But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,

Just take off your coat and go to it;

Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing

That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it.

Educators would do well to adopt this philosophy of life for themselves and to impart it to

the next generations, increasing their neural plasticity, intelligence, and resilience.


References

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achievement across the junior high school transition: A longitudinal study and an

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http://allpoetry.com/It-Couldnt-Be-Done


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