Natural Talent “Gifted” “A born writer” Hard work “If you put your mind to it, you can do anything!” VS.

Francis Galton Nature Vs. Nurture

Do people have natural talent? That depends on what you mean.

An unusual natural ability… Kim Peek “Megasavant” Agenesis of the corpus collosum Stephen Wiltshire Autistic savant

An unusual natural ability for an entire discipline…?

Anders Ericsson “Deliberate Practice”

The 10,000 hour rule

What about Mozart?  Father was a successful composer/performer/tea cher  Started at age three  Early work was not entirely original  First masterpiece (Piano Concerto No. 9) composed at age 21  That’s 18 years of expert training

Tiger Woods  Father was a teacher and golf fanatic  Started at seven months  Became chess grandmaster at age 15  …after playing for nine years. Bobby Fischer

 “Geniuses are made, not born”  László’s experiment: 1. Find a wife 2. Raise children to be chess experts László Polgár

The Polgár Sisters Zsuzsa, Zsófia, Judit All three became chess grandmasters Judit Polgár Defeated nine world champions Ranked strongest female chess player in history

Hard work? Practice? Practicing wrong just makes you better at doing it wrong. “Deliberate practice.”

 Started in high school  In the NFL draft, 15 teams passed him over  Greatest receiver in NFL history  Records exceed 2 nd best by 50 percent Jerry Rice

1. Worked really, really hard  Continued practice after others went home  Intense six-days- a-week, off- season workouts  5-mile run  10 forty-meter wind sprints  Weight training Jerry Rice

 People attribute success to:  Ability  Other people  Luck  Effort  Better predictor of academic success than IQ The importance of effort

1. Many students do not realize the importance of effort 2. They can learn to do so 3. When they do, their performance goes up The importance of effort

How can we change student beliefs about effort?

2. Designed practice to target specific needs  Spent <1% of football-related practice playing football Jerry Rice

 Highly designed form of practice  Isolate specific elements of performance  Catch mistakes and target your weak areas  Involves continuous feedback  Often requires expert coaching  Highly demanding mentally  Not usually much fun  Lots of repetition  Especially spaced repetition Deliberate Practice

1. Everything you do (or think) involves activation of a neural pathway 2. The more you activate a pathway the faster and more reliable it gets The Biology of Practicing

 Fixed mindset  Abilities are the result of natural talent, unchangeable  Growth mindset  Abilities are the result of effort and effective practice

Growth Mindset  Effort is normal and necessary for growth  Try to learn/improve  Seek challenges  Failure = Need to put in more effort  Success of others = learning opportunity  Open to criticism, with realistic self-concept Fixed Mindset  Effort indicates lack of talent  Try to look good  Avoid challenges  Failure = It’s pointless, just give up  Success of others = threat  Defensive, with distorted self- concept