From obstacles to outcomes, from problems to plans

As reported in “Why Understanding Obstacles is Essential to Achieving Goals”:

For 20 years, psychology professor Gabriele Oettingen of New York University and the University of Hamburg has been examining positive thinking and her conclusion is clear. All that positive thinking can trick the dreamer into believing she’s already done the work to get to the desired goal, squelching the motivation to actually go after it.

Instead, mental contrasting between the desired outcome and the obstacle can scaffold motivation and self-regulation toward the goal, by identifying manageable steps to overcome the obstacles. This bridges the gap between envisioning the goal and creating a realistic plan to achieve it. Without an honest assessment of the obstacles, goals are just wishful dreams. Problems are more concrete, salient, and deeply contextualized than vague goals, and the urgency of solving immediate problems rather than achieving distant goals makes them more motivating.

This also suggests why promoting high self-efficacy alone may not be the best route to success. By itself, “I think I can” gets lost in the clouds, whereas “this is what I need to overcome” is better grounded in reality. Learners need accurate self-efficacy more than arbitrarily high self-efficacy. A true growth mindset would welcome an honest assessment of problems and needs.

 

Could growth mindsets mitigate impacts of poverty?

As reported in A Growth Mindset Could Buffer Kids From Negative Academic Effects of Poverty:

a national study of tenth-graders in Chile found student mindsets are correlated to achievement on language and math tests. And students from low-income families were less likely to hold a growth mindset than their more affluent peers. However, if a low-income student did have a growth mindset, it worked as a buffer against the negative effects of poverty on achievement.

Do growth mindsets mitigate the harms of poverty, or do they signal other positive experiences that serve as a buffer? An ongoing concern I have with attempts to transmit growth mindsets (or resilience, or grit, etc.) is that such messages don’t truly function independently from real-world experience. We need to cultivate the experiences that make such beliefs plausible and fruitful.

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Claro, S., Paunesku, D., & Dweck, C. S. (2016). Growth mindset tempers the effects of poverty on academic achievement. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(31), 8664-8668. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1608207113

Diversity enriches us all

From “White Students on Why Schools Need More Teachers of Color“:

The societal advantages of more teachers of color become clearer when considering the racial socialization—or the processes by which people develop their ethnic identities—of white adults, including the parents who may stumble in communicating racial understanding to their children. A Public Religion Research Institute study on “American Values” circulated last summer, following the shooting in Ferguson, showed that 75 percent of white Americans have all-white social networks. This self-segregation could help explain the racial divide over Michael Brown’s death and why it was seemingly so hard for many whites to understand what transpired in Ferguson: Their worldview was restricted to mostly white friends and family. And in a 2014 study researchers found that “the messages that white teens received [from parents regarding race] were contradictory and incomplete,” concluding that schools are a crucial link in building “productive and genuine relationships” between whites and people of color.

Per Matthew Kay, the first black teacher for one Philadelphia high school student:

by interacting daily with people who come from different backgrounds, white students who harbor stereotypes and prejudgments may be able to chip away at those convictions. …

In his day-to-day dealings with students, Kay also fights the widespread, centuries-old narrative that black men are driven by anger and frustration. “I am affectionate and caring … I think it’s important that [the students] see we have the capacity to love.”

Underpinning it all, Kay said, are his close relationships with students and his ability to offer them a safe space to investigate and reflect on any racial privileges they enjoy without being made to feel morally deficient for having white skin.

However:

Thomas M. Philip, an education professor at UCLA whose work focuses on racial ideology and teachers… warned that putting the onus on teachers of color to carry the burden of discussions on larger historical and political issues carries significant risks, ranging from exceptionalism and tokenism to individualizing an institutional responsibility. …

Teacher diversity, Philip stressed, must be accompanied by systemic practices that support all educators in constructively navigating issues of race, racism, and racial justice. To do otherwise, he said, is to allow some to abdicate their role in engaging the same issues deeply and profoundly. “The unique strengths and perspectives of teachers of color are more likely to be beneficial for students if all educators, particularly white teachers and administrators, embrace the responsibility to work for racial equity and justice.”

The benefits and burdens belong to all of us.

Responses to Feedback Define Mindsets Better than Self-Reported Beliefs

Growth and fixed mindsets are better defined as responses to feedback, particularly feedback on errors, shortcomings, and setbacks, than as beliefs about intelligence. As reported in, “Seeing the benefits of failure shapes kids’ beliefs about intelligence“:

Parents who tended to view failure as a negative, harmful event had children who were more likely to believe that intelligence is fixed.

…parents who adopted a more negative stance toward failure were more likely to react to their child’s hypothetical failing grade with concerns about their child’s lack of ability. At the same time, these parents were less likely to show support for the child’s learning and improvement. Their reactions to the failing grade were not linked, however, with their beliefs about intelligence.

Actions speak louder than words, especially self-reported words that conform to social desirability.

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Haimovitz, K., & Dweck, C.S. (2016). What Predicts Children’s Fixed and Growth Intelligence Mind-Sets? Not Their Parents’ Views of Intelligence but Their Parents’ Views of Failure. Psychological Science. DOI: 10.1177/0956797616639727

 

When peers improve decision-making skill

In a study of 760+ fifth-graders described in “Group learning makes children better decision-makers, study finds”:

Children who had worked in collaborative groups… were better prepared to take on the role of decision-maker about [the moral dilemma in the story], the researchers found.

These children were more proficient at three key aspects of decision-making: recognizing more than one side of a dilemma, considering a range of reasons to support differing viewpoints, and weighing the costs and benefits associated with different decisions, according to the researchers.

These children appealed to a significantly greater number of moral principles and practical considerations when drawing conclusions about [recommended actions], the researchers found.

Students in the direct instruction condition performed no better than a control group of uninstructed students.

Trusting students to direct their learning

As noted by David Wills when directing the Barns Hostel in rural Scotland:

students behaved much better around staffers with whom they had developed an affectionate bond, and concluded that affection created a desire to please and made coercion unnecessary.

…

In lieu of punishment, Barns operated on a system of “shared responsibility,” designed to minimize both misunderstandings and resentments. Although lessons were mandatory, the rest of the rules were made by the students themselves, and transgressions were handled by peers imposing what they considered a reasonable and appropriate consequence — for example, a disruptive student might have been asked to remain in another room until the desire to be disruptive faded.

And at the Doctor Pedro Albizu Campos Puerto Rican High School:

The school fostered a supportive atmosphere that emphasized egalitarianism and mutual trust among faculty and students… The students themselves drove the curriculum but shared overall control of the school with teachers and community leaders. Everyone had a genuine voice…

As David Gribble summarizes from his observations across ~20 schools worldwide:

overall, the children at these schools appeared engaged and eager to learn, without coercion—they were even willing to make great sacrifices for the opportunity to attend the schools… “most social and academic problems are eased and many are solved … by respect, responsibility, affection and freedom.”

Trust and respect can help students flourish and achieve far beyond what we might otherwise have allowed ourselves to see.

When education makes problems worse

Insert controversy of choice in the blank:

For people who mistrust ___, learning the facts may make the problem worse.

That’s the tagline from “Vaccine Myth-Busting Can Backfire“, which highlights these findings:

A new study published earlier this week in the journal Vaccine found that when it comes to vaccination, a subject rife with myths and misperceptions, knowing the facts may not really be all that effective in winning over anti-vaxxers—and, in some cases, may even do more harm than good.

The study found that when people concerned about side effects of the flu shot learned that it couldn’t cause the flu, they actually became less willing to get it.

It’s a variant on the classic phenomenon of

the “backfire effect,” or the idea that when presented with information that contradicts their closely-held beliefs, people will become more convinced, not less, that they’re in the right.

What’s simultaneously interesting and more troubling about this finding is that people did change their knowledge, but that still didn’t translate into the corresponding action:

Though the vaccine studies have yielded results subtly different from the “backfire effect”—people were willing to accept new information as true, even when it had no effect on what they did in the end—Nyhan believes that the same sort of mental gymnastics is likely at work across both areas: reactance, the psychological phenomenon in which persuading people to accept certain idea can push them in the opposite direction.

It raises the ethical question of how educators should “first, do no harm” when teaching, if their efforts may backfire. It also highlights how crucial it is for instruction to account for learners’ identities, values, and motivations in order to be meaningfully effective.

Out-of-school factors connect with in-school success

Per “Strong neighborhoods, parenting can bridge ‘achievement gap‘”:

“when youth in urban environments have supportive parents and feel safe in their neighborhoods, they are positive about their future and believe they can be successful in school,” says lead author Henrika McCoy, assistant professor at UIC’s Jane Addams College of Social Work.

The statements with the strongest correlation with academic achievement were: “I can be successful” (indicating future aspirations); “I can talk with parents about bad things” (positive parental relationships); and “I can be safe within a few blocks from home” (safe neighborhood environment).

Henrika McCoy, Elizabeth A. Bowen. Hope in the Social Environment: Factors Affecting Future Aspirations and School Self-Efficacy for Youth in Urban Environments. Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal, 2014; DOI: 10.1007/s10560-014-0343-7

Don’t Just Acknowledge Bias, Demand Its Reduction

From Adam Grant and Sheryl Sandberg’s “When Talking About Bias Backfires“:

The assumption is that when people realize that biases are widespread, they will be more likely to overcome them. But new research suggests that if we’re not careful, making people aware of bias can backfire, leading them to discriminate more rather than less.

The key is to conclude the acknowledgment of the problem with clear disapproval of it, such as:

“Please don’t remove the petrified wood from the park.”

“A vast majority of people try to overcome their stereotypic preconceptions.”

“I don’t ever want to see this happen again.”

Social cues can be powerful; use them well.

Flipped instruction and self-regulated learning

From Robert Talbert’s “Flipped learning skepticism: Can students really learn on their own?“:

[Students’] primary experience is with pedagogy that emphasizes dependence. They are brainwashed through years of instructor-centered pedagogy that they are helpless when it comes to learning. But the fact remains that as human beings, they retain the capacity to learn and to regulate their learning. It’s just difficult and takes time and patience.

I’ve long believed that the most important quality which a good teacher must possess is the belief that all students can learn. I’ve also come to believe that self-directed learning is a valuable skill which must be explicitly nurtured and sustained from early childhood education on. As Talbert notes, we all start with it, but it can fade quickly in discouraging environments.