This idea comes from Suzanne East, who I saw teach a great Year 12 Biology lesson this week. She told the story of when her son, Ted, dropped an entire box of peppercorns. To add extra impact, she proceeded to enact this with a large box of beads. Needless to say, they spread everywhere, much to the shock of the students. Of course, my summary of this lacks the real humour and panache with which this unfolded. However, this story was the starting point of much debate about whether or not this story acted as a reasonable model for the process of diffusion, or not. Their discussion was filled with scientific terminology and deep thought.
Suzanne’s anecdote about Ted used the principle that learning about complex ideas is itself a bit like understanding a story. Stories are not just for literary narratives but can be used to illustrate even the most complex and abstract concepts (e.g., math and science).
I really liked the process of Suzanne’s storytelling, because apart from being memorable, personal and fun, as a teaching and learning technique storytelling can:
Organise information, developing a student’s schema and clear network of ideas;
Incorporate cause and effect, helping students to consider causal links and thus aid memory;
Tom Sherrington goes on to link to a video by Brian Cox, who is a master storyteller when he is explaining the workings of the universe. He weaves narratives, rather than starting with facts… just like Suzanne at the start of her lesson.
This article focusses on how
we incorporate current affairs into our teaching of A Level Economics. It is
written by Richard Finch – Head of Economics at Wimbledon High School.
One great aspect of teaching
Economics at A Level is that we can relate the topics on the specification to
real world events. We run weekly news article review sessions with all our
classes to build their understanding of contemporary issues in Economics and strengthen
their ability to apply fundamental concepts and theories to these real-world
events. For many pupils, beyond improving their chance of achieving a top grade
and boosting their ability to critically analyse articles, this process builds
their confidence to engage in debate and can be very empowering.
However, it often it is a
challenge to stimulate that initial interest in current affairs, particularly
stories related to the Economy. However,
in recent years we have made significant progress on this issue.
At the start of the course, each week,
we ask our Year 12 students to find two articles, one related to microeconomics
(individual industries and business) and one to macroeconomics (the entire
economy). These articles can be from any publication and on any subject that
interests them.
The pupils post a brief summary of the article on our OneNote system along with their general reflections. We keep the brief very flexible at this stage and the emphasis is very much on exploring what interests them. We as teachers then review the articles and post some leading questions for each. This encourages the pupils to reflect on what they’ve read and think about where their research might lead them.
The pupils have time to prepare
their response to these questions prior to the lesson. During the lesson the
teacher will project the summary on the screen and the pupil then presents to
the class. The teacher chooses three pupils from the class who have demonstrated
clear analysis or whose topic area was addressed by many students in the class.
We have found that celebrating work in this way creates an element of friendly
competition and encourages others to engage.
Interestingly, although we do not
limit the topics at this stage, the pupils tend to gravitate towards similar
articles and as they source their information from different publications these
presentations often lead to enthusiastic class debate. This also serves as a
great way to break the ice with a new Year 12 class.
Through our questioning we
encourage pupils to pursue additional articles on the same topic. Over weeks the
pupils start to develop expertise in certain topic areas and having that deeper
understanding builds their confidence. As they become more familiar with the
jargon used in Economics they start to source articles from more challenging publications.
As the course progresses we start
to encourage the pupils to apply the fundamental concepts and theories we cover
in class to these real-world examples. We want our pupils to use this
“Economics Toolkit” to deepen their analysis and understanding.
For example, here a pupil has applied their knowledge of Income Elasticity of Demand (the responsiveness of demand to a change in income) to the demand for Fortnum & Mason products to assess the extent to which these products can be described as luxury items and the implications of a change in national income on this particular organisation and the wider economy.
The term “luxury good” is used
commonly in society but Economics pupils develop an understanding of what this
term actually means and how it can be calibrated. This gives them a clearer
understanding of the likely implications of a national rise in income on this
market. They begin to make links at this stage between different concepts and
ask broader questions, beyond the focus of that article. We continue to
encourage them to explore and connect topic areas through our questioning and
through class debate.
The pupils start to develop real
expertise at this stage and we find ourselves referring to our “in-house retail
expert” for example during class discussion. Being the authority on an issue is
incredibly empowering for the pupils and builds their engagement and enthusiasm
for the subject. The ultimate aim of this initiative is to encourage our pupils
to use their voices and speak with authority on this traditionally male dominated
subject.
Miss Coutts-Wood, Director of Sport at WHS, reflects
upon the impact of the pandemic on the provision of sport during Guided Home
Learning and looks at the mental health benefits that can be gained from participating
in exercise.
The pandemic really has been a leveler. Impacting
all schools, regardless of their sporting prowess or previous victories; Covid-19
has not discriminated. State or private, boarding or day, acres of immaculately
manicured playing fields or no onsite facilities to your name, all PE
Departments have had to suspend fixtures, modify training and see their staff take
on the role as Wicks impersonators. An obviously practical subject, PE was cast
under an intense spotlight as the importance of the physical and emotional
benefits of Sport were once again well versed by the press.
As a department, we knew we needed to keep up
fitness, maintain skill level and preserve morale, all from across Teams. We
found new ways to motivate, to inspire and to keep the WHS community active
during GHL. The Rowers baked (competitively of course), drew shapes with their
Strava runs and took up yoga, the Junior Swimmers taught their teddies to dive
in the bath and the Netballers spent most of their season on the floor of their
living room honing their core strength for when they return to court! Whatever
the exercise, we all know sport plays an important role contributing to
personal growth, helping foster friendships and allowing a much-needed break
away from the inevitable increased screen time that GHL created. As staff, we
really focused our energy during Strong Body Strong Mind week, to reinforce the
message that exercise comes in all shapes and sizes; physical activity can be
bespoke and tailored to suit individuals, time frames, fitness levels, space
and motivations. We really hope that this message has been taken on board by
all pupils, staff and parents, regardless of sporting background.
Despite the challenges we all faced, we must
reflect on the time that we had to focus on different aspects of our usual
sports provision; we collaborated with schools outside of our weekly fixture
programme (King’s in the Battle of Wimbledon, NHEHS with our Hockey and Netball
workshops), we joined together for the Community Morning Energizers (reminding
ourselves how much joy can be gained from dancing along to Cha-Cha Slide at 8am),
and we had time to pick and choose which aspects of getting physically active
we enjoy the most.
Despite the time to reflect and the greater
appreciation of in–person sport, as Physical Educationalists and Coaches, being
back in person with the girls and having the ‘buzz’ of in-person sport return
to Nursery Road cannot be underestimated. Risk Assessment and equipment
cleaning has been crucial to a safe return to sport and with this necessity
aside, being back together has reinforced the absolute joy that each one of us
takes in our job! Mrs Salt was particularly thrilled that her online dance
choreography was translated into a very competent performance by her Year 7
class once we returned in March. This was a good reminder of what a success GHL
provision had been but also of the joy of being back in person. If we needed
further reminders, we all like to think we’re marginally savvier with digital
technology than we were this time last year too.
It’s important that we remind ourselves that
Sport really does matter. The positive physical impact of exercise has been
well documented, but we must not forget the emotional and mental health
benefits that can be gained from participating too – a reminder of some of these
benefits are summarised below:
Emotional and Mental Benefits of Physical Activity
Manage Anxiety and Stress – in these uncertain times, what could be better
than embarking on an activity known to decreases tension and help relaxation?
Whether jumping on a trampoline or going for a cycle ride, activity can be an
excellent distraction and means of escapism. Physical activity can also help to
relax muscles, particularly in neck which is so important while we spend so
many hours in front of screens.
Boosting Resilience – we have certainly all had to be resilient,
responding to uncertainty and change over the last year. Exercise and physical
activity can be a proactive way to help us develop our grit, determination and
mental fortitude. Why not challenge your whole family to see who can hold a
plank for the longest?
Enhance self-confidence – physical activity can be a great way to
enhance your self-belief by accomplishment during exercise.Perhaps set
yourself a summer term goal – you’ll feel so satisfied after you have achieved
it.
Improve Mood, Concentration and Memory – the endorphin boost we get from the
additional hormones released as a result of exercise such as norepinephrine,
serotonin and dopamine can make us feel amazing! So, I urge you to get out into
the fresh air after school this week and find out for yourself!
Belonging – the feeling of connection by dog walking with
family members, sharing a common goal of half-marathon training with your
friend, or the camaraderie you get from hitting a tennis ball with some friends
in a local park. Another one of the joys of exercise.
There is no right or wrong way to exercise. Relish
the enjoyment of the face-to-face interaction and the community that sporting
opportunities can create, or value the challenge and perseverance from overcoming
a personal goal or reap the rewards from competition against others. Just ensure
that whatever form the exercise takes, you carve out time for yourself to find
movement that you love and that makes you happy. Over the past two weeks, I’ve been
back on the tennis court, had a very chilly swim at my local lido and paddle
boarded in the sea, all of which have been wonderful and make a refreshing
change from running and online yoga sessions.
The recovery of sport across the country is not
likely to be smooth and no doubt there will be many more adaptations to
training schedules and fixture programmes in the future to help accommodate
social distancing guidelines, however, what we can be certain of is that the
love and passion that the community of WHS has for sport is stronger than ever.
Sport matters.
References
Heisz J, Clark I, Bonin K, et al. The effects
of physical exercise and cognitive training on memory and neurotrophic factors.
J Cogn Neurosci. 2017;29(11):1895-1907.
Ratey, J. J. and Hagerman, E. (2008). Spark.
London, Quercus.
Roman-Mata, S S. Putertas-molero, P.
Ubago-Jimenez, J L. and Gonzalez-Valero, G. (2020). Benefits of Physical
Activity and Its Associations with Resilience, Emotional Intelligence, and
Psychological Distress in University Students from Southern Spain.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, [online]
17(12), 4474. Available at: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/12/4474/htm
Deb McDowell, Head of Drama at WHS, reviews Andy Williamson’s podcast on the importance of developing autonomous intelligence in order to fulfil our potential as learners and navigate our lives with confidence. Deb reflects on how embracing metacognition could help us dismantle some of the more unhelpful and outdated aspects of our educational tradition.
‘Children should be taught how to think not what to think’ – Margaret Mead
Andy Williamson is an Oxford graduate, academic and founder of the Hampton Tutors, a US based academic coaching and tutoring agency. In July 2020 he launched the Hampton Tutors Podcast Network. In the first episode in his series of talks, (confusingly Episode 2 of the podcast series), Andy reflects on what it means to be ‘intelligent’ and the skills and tools we can develop in order to maximise our own learning and operate more effectively in an educational context and the world more broadly.
His clear and straightforward approach to this topic is refreshingly unpretentious as he asks the listener to consider the different ways we judge intelligence. He reminds us of various types of intelligence so often underappreciated within a competitive academic environment and uses comparisons with physical and sporting development to illustrate his points.
Williamson asks us to recognise that our educational system rewards depth of knowledge over breadth; how well we can zoom in on one narrow area. While this requires a great deal of hard work, what we are actually rewarding is diligence and memory rather than developed intelligence. I was minded to consider how much this reinforces cultural inequality and also discourages the kind of cognitive risk-taking and creative thinking we want to to see at WHS.
Andy applauds the breadth and depth of knowledge which is borne of hours of study and hard work, but proposes that true intelligence is applied when a person has the ability to adapt to a range of situations, and any test of intelligence should be measuring your capacity to learn. When faced with a challenge can you work out how to work it out?
I enjoyed how Williamson connected with the College students in his audience by using his Oxford interview as a good example of how he was taken out of his comfort zone; being purposely asked questions about a specific area of History he had never studied in order to test whether he could extrapolate, make connections and apply knowledge from other areas whilst all the time conscious he was almost certainly making errors.
This was a timely reminder that, particularly at A level, we must resist the urge to soothe away all the anxieties of those students who come to us seeking support; waving their mark schemes and asking for exemplars. What they really need is greater autonomy and we should be facilitating this – not attaching stabilisers to the bike they would otherwise be able to enjoy riding just as fast, if not faster than everyone else.
To reinforce the need to encourage learners to use metacognitive skills to become more autonomous as learners Williamson references Todd Rose’s ‘The End of Average’ which reminds us that using a statistical mean as the basis for any system is most likely to lead to something which ‘best fits’ very few. At this point I was minded to reflect on which learners are best served by our current education system, and more importantly, which are seriously disadvantaged.
Any Williamson outlines seven skills to have in a toolkit to support the development of autonomous intelligence. He asserts that by focussing on developing these skills we will improve academic outcomes and this will also help us re-frame how we see ourselves.
Metacognition: Knowing how best you learn.
Executive Function: Knowing how to manage tasks, time and people to learn better.
Growth Mindset: Being willing to push boundaries and get things wrong in order to learn.
Resilience and Endurance: Being able to endure disappointment and uncertainty.
Enjoyment: Finding an angle that interests you in what you are doing.
Communication: Ensuring your ideas are as precisely understood by someone else as they are by you.
Mindfulness: Using strategies to avoid over thinking and find contentment.
Williamson promises to talk in more detail about each of these in subsequent podcasts in order to identify what we can do to build our toolkit to become more efficient and effective learners and be more confident operating outside our individual comfort zones. (Metacognition and Executive Function are already available as chapters 4 and 6 in the podcast series).
As statues fall and monuments are being re-evaluated in the light of much needed cultural change, it’s time for a radical re-think in Education. Perhaps, rather than relying completely on the traditional regurgitation of increasingly narrow spheres of knowledge – a system which arguably restricts diversity and reinforces inequality – we should be putting the acquisition of metacognitive skills at the forefront of what we do in schools.
Teaching and learning Gem #33 – What’s My (nuanced) Mistake? Promoting self-awareness and resilience through metacognition
This idea comes Priscilla, who shared it at our TeachMeet this half term and has written up the process below:
‘What’s my mistake?’ is a light-hearted but highly effective strategy which encourages a mindset promoting self-awareness and resilience through metacognition. By using this strategy, pupils can become more independent learners allowing them to self-regulate when faced with mistakes. It replaces their negative inner voice helping them to accept that making mistakes is part of the learning process and to find ways to manage challenges.
The idea can be used in a variety of contexts such as:
after an assessment to consolidate learning or
as a method to revise key terms and concepts at the end of a unit of work or
as a tool to critically think about misconceptions.
At WHS, I have used this strategy with Key Stage 5 pupils as part of an end of unit assessment.
How does it work?
Following feedback on a key terms and diagrams test, pupils are set a homework task to prepare 5 questions and their respective answers, but with the proviso that each answer must include at least one mistake. The more nuanced the mistake, the better. These mistakes can be a combination of ones made by the pupil in the test and on potential misconceptions highlighted in lessons.
During the lesson, pupils work in pairs to find mistakes in each other’s work as ‘mistake detectives’. They then choose some questions with the ‘best’ mistakes to share with the whole class on the collaboration space in OneNote for all pupils to solve.
Why is it useful?
It gives pupils confidence in, first of all, accepting that making mistakes is part of the learning process. Personal reflection enables pupils to critically analyse their performance in relation to the task and to consider that when they make a mistake, they can learn from it and, most importantly, fix it.
By explaining their thinking and mistakes out loud helps pupils to focus and monitor their cognitive processing and to develop a deeper understanding of their own thinking processes.
Through sharing and discussing their mistakes it promotes metacognitive regulation that is what can pupils do to further their own learning. They may decide to try a different strategy if a particular one is not achieving the results they want.
It encourages pupils to actively monitor their own learning and make changes to their own learning behaviours and strategies which enables them to develop from tacit learners to become aware, strategic and reflective learners.
She considers the ‘illusion of mastery’ and how metacognition can help students avoid falling into this trap with our games players
In Make it Stick, P. Brown, H. Roediger III and M. McDaniel discuss the Science of Successful Learning. In general, it’s an incredibly interesting book peppered with examples of how we learn most effectively. Being aware of how we learn and think, can result in an improved ability to problem solve, decision make and over-come hurdles (apologies for the sport pun!). The content is enjoyable, supported by various examples and easy to consume – it’s almost as if they know how to convey information and make it memorable!
This book begins by addressing how learners can fall into the trap of the ‘illusion of mastery’. This is where pupils think they have grasped what they have been taught but once tested fall short. Frequently the revision strategy for this approach would involve making notes and then reading and re-reading them time and time again, simply creating the feeling and appearance of mastery.
With the return of competitive sport on the horizon, I turned my thoughts to how I was going to avoid this illusion with our Wimbledonian games players and make the most of this insight.
Practically in Sport, we must then be careful of striking the balance between enhancing the efficiency and fluency of skills, at the detriment of pupils being able respond flexibly and adapt to an unknown scenario during competition.
When teaching open skills, for example during invasion games eg Netball, adopting a games-sense approach is a desirable method. This allows pupils to become more self-aware, encouraging meta-cognition and evaluation of their own success criteria. It helps them to really judge when they have grasped a skill and perform it under pressure, rather than think that they have without success to prove it. This means that the pupils are improving their skills in a more realistic environment so that they are transferable to high-level competition against other schools. Furthermore, the ability to reflect on your performance and then have a flexible skill set when responding is useful when a taught ‘set play’ is challenged by the opposition. This means that pupils can’t fall into the illusion trap as they are constantly being challenged and having to apply their knowledge and skills appropriately.
Another important aspect of learning in sport is the ability to recognise when similar situations occur during this open environment. In a match context, quick recognition of when a ‘set play’ could be implemented is beneficial as it allows pupils to respond effectively whilst under pressure. It also encourages reflection on your own learning and performance.
Although this games-sense approach needs a good skill base to be effective, I think that it prepares pupils for competitions more effectively by helping them to become better critiques of their own learning than solely focusing on closed drills.
Teaching and learning Gem #32 – a OneNote method for students to ‘think out loud’ and make their thought processes transparent
After so many brilliant Friday Gems from colleagues, this Friday Gem comes from me! It is an idea I tried for the first time with my Year 12s last half term. I wanted each student to ‘talk’ me through their thought processes at different points of their essay. The idea was for students to make clear to themselves (and me) the decisions they had made before I took it in for marking. In engaging with this sort of metacognitive activity, students were having to evaluate their methods and purposely think about their thinking.
At the top of a OneNote page, I put a series of metacognition prompts about the essay writing process. I asked students to copy and paste them to the top of their essays:
2. Students chose three of these prompts and drag and dropped them to relevant parts of their essay. They wrote a response about their thought processes at that point. Here is a brilliant example from one of my Year 12s. As you can see, she is really mature and considered in her reflections:
3. When I marked the work, their comments formed the basis for my own feedback, allowing me to have a ‘dialogue’ with the student
This is effective because:
Students are being self-reflective and critical of their own thought processes, promoting self-awareness, self-questioning and self-monitoring.
It demystifies the essay writing process, making it clear to students how they are thinking at different stages in the process.
It encourages students to take ownership of their own feedback, having to comment on their own work before I mark it.
It makes my feedback more focussed and purposeful.
Jaime-Lee, Head of Netball and Head of Year 10 at WHS, explores the journal article ‘Metacognition and Action’ to consider how to use metacognition to become elite in sport.
MacIntyre, T., Igou, E., Campbell, M., Moran, A. and Matthews, J. (2014). Metacognition and action: a new pathway to understanding social and cognitive aspects of expertise in sport. Frontiers in Psychology
Success in sport has traditionally centred around executing motor skills under competitive conditions. Sport provides benchmarks to distinguish the elite from the amateur, through performance outcomes (e.g. placing in a race), player statistics (e.g. shooting percentage in Basketball) or level of competition (e.g. National vs. County). In addition to the data that is readily available to all performers, athletes are looking beyond the strictly measurable in order to advance in their sporting area.
Metacognitive processes have become a pivotal part of an elite athlete’s repertoire to give them the competitive edge. In sport, metacognitive processes can be used in a variety of ways both in training and in competition. Below are some examples of how athletes can use metacognition to better their physical attributes.
The use of mental imagery and mental practice, in which athletes play out physical skills and/or scenarios in their mind. This could include, an athlete imagining themselves in the starting blocks, acknowledging all of their senses.
Pre-performance routines, in which an athlete engages systematically in a sequence of actions prior to their performance. This could include, stepping out an athlete’s run up in Long Jump or the position a ball is placed while taking a penalty kick.
The use of strategies and set plays, in which decision making is done prior to an athlete’s performance. This could include, anticipating your oppositions movements in Netball and planning counter moves.
The use of metacognitive process not only reduces the chances of error but maximises an athlete’s physical capabilities. Elite athletes need to be not just be experts in movement execution but also experts in controlling their own mental processes.
This Friday Gem comes from Richard Finch, who thinks about the academic and pastoral benefits to metacognition as part of the EPQ process. Metacognition gives students the flexibility to take control. This boosts confidence and reduces anxiety, vital in the time of a pandemic.
Metacognition is vital to the EPQ
The independent approach students must take to complete the EPQ (Extended Project Qualification) is daunting for most. Students are guided by a supervisor who is there to act as a sounding board for ideas but the student must ultimately decide for themselves how to research, compile and produce a 5000 word report on an area of personal interest. Self-reflective thinking must be documented at these key milestones and forms an important part of the assessment. Developing new skills is also a key element of the qualification and again, girls are actively encouraged to reflect and document which are appropriate for their particular project.
Metacognitive Planning Tools are empowering and are a confidence boost
One student reflects here on a new tool she was encouraged to use to organise her time. “Another hurdle for me was planning out when to do my research, having heard that Gantt-chart was an indispensable tool and thinking therefore that I absolutely had to use it. I tried to use it for my initial title with limited success, and then thought I had improved and even mastered it for my second. However, I was eventually forced to admit that Gantt-chart was not for me, and that I was far better off sticking to a simple bullet point list of dates and deadlines. Therefore, I did not acquire the skill of using Gantt-chart, but I did learn that sometimes it is just much more effective to stick to what I know works and have confidence in my own methods, rather than thinking that because a resource worked for someone else it will work for me.” Effective self-reflection is empowering for EPQ students. Everyone learns differently and those, like the student quoted above, that can assess how effective a new method or skill will be for them better able to overcome challenges. The alternative is that students blindly follow a suggested method without questioning or adapting it to what works for them. Achieving more flexible thinking and skill in choosing how to apply the most appropriate method is a real confidence boost for many girls.
Metacognition to help face pandemic related challenges.
A student commented in their EPQ that “I have encountered numerous setbacks during my project which mostly related to the COVID-19 pandemic which severely curtailed my access to the hospital. I have learned not to lose heart when setbacks occur and to continually try to find ways around problems in order to complete tasks. I have appreciated that being flexible is critical to this.” She went on to document how she intends to adapt her research to complete the project. Documenting the change of approach reduced anxiety and motivated her to take practical steps to move towards completing her project.
Self-reflection is a skill that is overtly assessed on the EPQ. This motivates students to engage with the way they think about learning and assess their own meta-cognitive development. Documenting self-reflection and incorporating it into the assessment criteria is something that could be beneficial to learning practice at all levels.
Mr Patrick Vieira, Teacher of Maths at WHS, looks at how completing puzzles and games can impact student learning.
One day, while travelling to school as a 12-year-old, I saw somebody solving a Rubik’s cube. This person would scramble the cube and solve it very quickly. He would do this repeatedly, and maybe it was just in my head, but he seemed to get quicker with every solve. Seeing a demonstration of that kind was nothing short of captivating to me at the time. It stayed with me throughout the day and when I got home, I told my mother about it and asked her to buy one for me. Neither of us knew what it was called but we took the trip to Hamleys with the hope that they would know. We were in luck! My mother paid for the Original Rubik’s Cube and I took it home excited to begin trying to solve it.
As does everything after a while, excitement quickly faded. The puzzle was difficult and did not come with any instructions. I had managed to solve one face by what seemed like sheer luck (blue, my favourite colour), but when I tried solving another face, my hard work became undone. It was so frustrating that I left it on the mantelpiece where it collected dust for years. Reflecting now, that must be how some of my students feel now when they are given a problem that seems too hard to solve at first.
A Rubik’s Cube (Wikipedia)
Fast forward to 2019 when I first joined Wimbledon High School, where I had the opportunity to join the Rubik’s Cube club as a staff member. Of course, if I needed to help students solve the Rubik’s Cube, I needed to have a good understanding of it myself. This time, I was provided with a set of instructions and I got to work. Solve the white cross, then complete the white face. Finish off the second layer and then begin the top… I repeated the algorithms for each of these over and over again, and eventually I solved my first Rubik’s Cube.
But for me, that was not the part that excited me. As I repeated the moves for each step in isolation, I began to see why these algorithms worked. Every move had a purpose, setting the cube up so that on that final turn, everything comes together. It was as if I were almost tapping into The Matrix of the puzzle and I could feel my perception of 3D space improving with every turn. It was then that it hit me. This could be an amazing educational tool… but has it been researched?
Research related to the Rubik’s Cube is very limited but there are many pieces of anecdotal evidence to suggest that there are huge benefits to learning how to solve the cube. The two which stood out to me were grit and creativity.
Grit
Grit is one of the most mysterious personal traits discussed in education. It is widely regarded as the trait most indicative of whether someone will succeed at a task, no matter if it is in business, in the army, or in school.[1] However, it is difficult to nurture. When we complete a task which requires perseverance, the hormone dopamine gets released in our brain. This is the automatic response of the body which reinforces positive behaviours. The more tasks we complete using grit as our fuel, the more we are comfortable and happy being “grittier” – we create a habit of perseverance.[2]
Solving the Rubik’s cube is one way of helping us reinforce that positive trait of using grit. One Maths teacher writes in her blog that after giving her students an assignment to solve the Rubik’s Cube, they showed increased levels of grit.[3] However, just as Carol Dweck writes in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, as educators, we need to still be encouraging our students to persevere and reward their effort rather than their achievement.[4] These will bring about the best results in development of grit.
Creativity
“Creativity?!” I hear you wonder. “How can you be creative when all you are doing is repeating algorithms?”
I had an interesting experience as I was improving my knowledge on the Rubik’s Cube. After learning the algorithms for the beginner’s method of solving and was able to do it well, I turned to an intermediate stage called the ‘CFOP’ method. There were slightly more algorithms to memorise, but I found my creativity bloom in the process of learning them.
From a fully solved cube, I picked one algorithm and applied it to the cube. Of course, this would mess it up completely. However, just for the fun of it, I kept applying the same algorithm and eventually I got back to a fully solved cube. I wondered why and I tried to see if I could do the same with the other algorithms. It turns out that they do. It takes a different number of repetitions for each algorithm but eventually I end up at a fully solved cube. Just for the fun of it, I also tried to combine algorithms or even reverse them. These made me see different patterns and other ways of solving it. I wasn’t really doing much with the cube but still, I thought to myself, “this is pretty fun.”
Where next?
So pick up your cube. Don’t just leave it on the mantelpiece like I did for years. There is a great opportunity to be had whether you are a teacher or a student. Returning to my opening point, do puzzles really have a positive effect on learning? Nobody really knows yet. But if it helps you develop perseverance and foster your creativity, I think it’s worth a shot to find out for yourself.
References:
[1] See Angela Duckworth – Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
