TEDxBlue - Angela Lee Duckworth, Ph.D - 10/18/09. The secret of self-control. In the late nineteen-sixties, Carolyn Weisz, a four-year-old with long brown hair, was invited into a “game room” at the Bing Nursery School, on the campus of Stanford University. The room was little more than a large closet, containing a desk and a chair. Carolyn was asked to sit down in the chair and pick a treat from a tray of marshmallows, cookies, and pretzel sticks. Carolyn chose the marshmallow. Although she’s now forty-four, Carolyn still has a weakness for those air-puffed balls of corn syrup and gelatine. Although Carolyn has no direct memory of the experiment, and the scientists would not release any information about the subjects, she strongly suspects that she was able to delay gratification.
Footage of these experiments, which were conducted over several years, is poignant, as the kids struggle to delay gratification for just a little bit longer. Most of the children were like Craig. Carolyn Weisz is a textbook example of a high delayer. But Mischel has found a shortcut. Book Review - 'The Genius in All of Us,' by David Shenk - Review. The Future of Self-Improvement, Part I: Grit Is More Important Than Talent. In the late ’60s, Stanford psychologist Walter Mischel performed a now-iconic experiment called the Marshmallow Test, which analyzed the ability of four year olds to exhibit “delayed gratification.” Here’s what happened: Each child was brought into the room and sat down at a table with a delicious treat on it (maybe a marshmallow, maybe a donut).
The scientists told the children that they could have a treat now, or, if they waited 15 minutes, they could have two treats. All of the children wanted to wait. (Who doesn’t want more treats?) When the researchers subsequently checked in on these same children in high school, it turned out that those with more self-control — that is, those who held out for 15 minutes — were better behaved, less prone to addiction, and scored higher on the SAT. It’s not difficult to see how self-control would be predictive of success in certain spheres. Very often when we talk about the skill of ‘productivity’ what we are really talking about is ‘self-control.’
YouTube. Neuroplasticity: Learning Physically Changes the Brain. How lessons and experiences can shape and grow your students' brains over time. Credit: iStockphoto "There are a few broad principles that we can state come out of neuroscience," says Kurt Fischer, education professor and director of the Mind, Brain, and Education Program at Harvard University. Number one?
"The brain is remarkably plastic," Fischer explains. "Even in middle or old age, it's still adapting very actively to its environment. " Translation: All those little brains in your classroom are physically growing and changing every time they learn something. And there are ways to keep that happening. Despite the fact that the concept of neuroplasticity is broad, vague, and hardly new (the theory was born in the mid-1800s and was heavily researched throughout the 1990s), it is one of the most reliable and fundamental discoveries about the brain that we have to date.
Your Brain on Learning Changing Brains in the Classroom Willis also found this to be true in her middle school classroom. DavidsonBuddhaIEEE.