Noncognitive Schooling: Do Students Need ‘Growth Mindsets’ and Grit to Succeed in the Classroom? - The Atlantic

Noncognitive Schooling: Do Students Need ‘Growth Mindsets’ and Grit to Succeed in the Classroom? - The Atlantic:

What Does It Mean to Have ‘Grit’ in the Classroom?

By learning how to persevere and change course, students learn how to push themselves.

Nestled within the New-Age-y sounding concept of “noncognitive factors” are fairly concrete examples of what parents and educators should and shouldn’t do to prepare students for the rigors of college and their careers. Gleaned from research into brain development and human behavior, a toolkit is emerging on how to best respond to and encourage students’ grit, persistence, and the ability to learn from one’s mistakes.

If done right, the use of these concepts could change the classroom in significant ways. Students could see far fewer quizzes and tests. Teachers would follow students’ progress at a much more customized level to quickly identify where they are struggling, offering aid that is better targeted. Short tutorials designed to boost motivation and resilience could accompany the students’ math and reading lessons.

But, before exploring what classrooms that are focused on noncognitive factors might look like, how about a definition for the term itself?

These factors are the art of learning—the technique and finesse a student uses when handling the challenges of receiving new, complex information.

“If we think of noncognitive factors as all of the things that are not just content knowledge and academic skills that go into academic performance, then really we’re talking about psychological factors, emotional factors, social factors” as well other aspects that determine how a student learns, explained Camille Farrington, a leading scholar on noncognitive factors who’s based at the University of Chicago’s Consortium on Chicago School Research. “A teacher who knows that all of that stuff is contributing to a young person’s ability to pay attention, to get involved, to get engaged, and think about what they are learning—that’s what we’re talking about when we talk about noncognitive factors.”

To take a page from Julia Child’s editor, these factors can be described as the art of learning—the technique and finesse a student uses when handling the challenges of receiving new, complex information.

Teachers and parents can play an important role in helping students recognize that learning is not just about the end goal, but a process that is valuable in its own right, too. The Atlantic’s James Hamblin highlights one crucial lever that puts that self-awareness into motion:

At whatever age smart people develop the idea that they are smart, they also tend to develop vulnerability around relinquishing that label. So the difference between telling a kid ‘You did a great job’ and ‘You are smart’ isn’t subtle.

Rewarding learners on effort rather than accomplishment stimulates a host of cognitive signals that can have the effect of strengthening their resolve. Tell a student she’s smart, and you run the risk of crimping her ambition to tackle more challenging tasks down the road; laud her for the time and energy she expended, and the link between effort and positive outcomes grows stronger. “To be successful, students must choose to learn and persist when learning is challenging,” said Dave Paunesku, the cofounder of a research lab at Stanford University that’s putting into practice the research on noncognitive qualities like Noncognitive Schooling: Do Students Need ‘Growth Mindsets’ and Grit to Succeed in the Classroom? - The Atlantic: