1. Study Skills evening Mearns Academy 3 rd march 2016

2. Mindset & Brain

3. QUIZ: Match the famous person to the correct growth mindset quote A. Sven Goran Eriksson B. Albert Einstein C. Walt Disney D. Lance Armstrong 1. “It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.” 2. “If you can dream it, you can do it.” 3. “The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure.” 4. “Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.”

4. ANSWERS 1. “It's not than I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.” B (Albert Einstein) 2. “If you can dream it, you can do it.” C (Walt Disney) 3. “The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure.” A (Sven Goran Erikson)

5. WHO AM I? This author’s book was rejected by 12 publisher’s before eventually being published by a small publishing house. This author is now the second richest female entertainer on the planet, behind Oprah. Who is she?

6. J K Rowling, author of Harry Potter. At the time when Rowling was writing the original Harry Potter book, her life was a self-described mess. She was going through a divorce and living in a tiny flat with her daughter. Rowling was surviving on government subsidies, and her mother had just passed away from multiple sclerosis. J.K. turned these negatives into a positive by devoting most of her free time to the Harry Potter series. She also drew from her bad personal experiences when writing. The result is a brand name currently worth nearly $15 billion.

7. Brilliant Brain Facts One of the biggest destroyers of memory is stress. When you are stressed you release high levels of cortisol into your bloodstream. One of the ways that cortisol affects you is that it destroys glucose - the brain's only source of food. So if your brain is not getting the nutrients it needs then it will not function as well. Most of us dream about five times each night. But we only remember a dream if we've been woken in the middle of it. By the time you are 80 years old, you will have had over 233 600 hours of sleep! That's the same as sleeping for 26.67 years. While you sleep, your brain is still active. When you dream your brain is as active as it is when you are awake. A study has found that after learning all of the routes necessary to be a London Taxi Driver, the part of the brain used for remembering routes was bigger than in other people. Did you know that your eyes can take in information in one five hundredth (1/500th) of a second? That means that if you read one word at a time you can read 500 in a second which gives you a reading speed of 30,000 words a minute! Now it is not quite as simple as that but whatever speed you are reading at now, you can do it …..much much faster! If you scan the brain and then give that person different activities to do then different areas of the brain will "light up" under the scan. For example a different area of the brain will light up when the subject is listening to words than when he or she listens to music.

8. When you learn, you change the structure of your brain. Riding a bike seems impossible at first. But soon you master it. How? As you practice, your brain sends "bike riding" messages along certain pathways of neurons over and over, forming new connections. In fact, the structure of your brain changes every time you learn, as well as whenever you have a new thought or memory.

9. The brain is like a muscle- The brain is like a muscle- it changes and gets stronger when you use it. Like our muscles get stronger through exercise, our brains get bigger and stronger through learning and practice.

10. Practice makes perfect! People who play music have been found to have auditory centres that are BIGGER than normal. The ‘sound’ area of their brain grew through practising their music.

11. What do we mean by “Mindset”?

12. Fixed mindset Beliefs: Our character / intelligence / talents are carved in stone Test scores measure potential Intelligent / talented people shouldn’t have to work hard Failure reflects a lack of intelligence / ability / talent

13. Growth mindset Beliefs: Character / intelligence / talents are malleable Learning requires hard work and effort All individuals can learn and improve We cannot measure a person’s potential

14. What does failure mean to you?

16. Share a time you have demonstrated a fixed mindset and a time you have demonstrated a growth mindset

17. We all had a growth mindset when learning to walk and talk We are all born with an intense drive to learn. As infants we stretched our skills every day including two of our most vital skills- walking and talking. Babies don’t worry about making mistakes or embarrassing themselves, they walk, fall, get back up again. None of us were born able to walk and talk, yet we are all able to do so as adults- we are all born with the ability and desire to learn !

18. We can nurture a growth mindset through sharing evidence from Neuroscience Key message: We can change our brain structures The brain is like a muscle The more learning challenges you, the more your brain cells grow and multiply Brain growthBrain growth video