Unlocking

Childrens Math Potential:

5 Research Results to Transform Math Learning

Jo Boaler, Professor of Mathematics Education, Stanford University
CEO: youcubed



There is a huge elephant standing in most
math classrooms, it is the idea that only
some students can do well in math.
Students believe it, parents believe and
teachers believe it. The myth that math is a
gift that some students have and some do
not, is one of the most damaging ideas that
pervades education in the US and that
stands in the way of students math
achievement.

This short paper summarizes five recent and important areas of knowledge that have
emerged from studies of the brain and learning and that address this myth head-on.

In the last few years scientists understanding of ability and learning have changed
dramatically. The advent of brain scans and other technological advances have enabled
researchers to gain new and important information about learning and ability. The
results that are emerging have major importance for all those running schools, teaching
mathematics or helping others learn mathematics.

1. All Students Can Achieve at High Levels.

Three studies have been particularly important in shifting scientists understanding of
ability and learning potential:

(1) Taxi drivers in London have to take a 2-4 year course to become qualified to drive a
black cab anywhere in central London. The drivers learn routes involving 20,000
streets and 25,000 landmarks in the Greater London area. Scientists now know that
the brains of black cab drivers grow during their training period. At the end of their
training period the black cab drivers hippocampus, the area of the brain that
specializes in acquiring and using complex spatial information, is significantly
larger. Scientists also found that when the cab drivers retired from driving their
hippocampus shrank back to its original size (Maguire, et al, 2000).


(2) In 2007 a girl had half of her brain removed because she was suffering from
uncontrollable fits. Doctors expected her to be paralyzed for many years, as the

brain controls physical movements, but she shocked doctors by regaining her
functions in just a few months. Her brain regrew the connections she needed, in
a much faster period than anyone had previously thought possible (Today,
2010).

(3) Perhaps most important for educators is the study conducted by the National
Institute for Mental Heath in which researchers gave participants a three week
training program while monitoring brain scans. This short program changed the
structure of participants brains. (Karni et al, 1998)

These, and other studies, show that students brains can adapt and grow in response to
any learning opportunity, and ideas that some students are not capable of learning high
level content should be rejected. Many people think that some students are not ready
for algebra. But if the structure of peoples brains can change in response to a 3-week
program, imagine what can be done in a year of a math class.

Education practice in the West, has, for hundreds of years, been based on ideas of
student ability. Schools across the United States group by ability and students are
routinely referred to and thought of as high, medium or low ability. This practice
continues despite decades of research studies showing that students achieve at higher
levels in heterogeneous classes (Boaler, 2009, 2013b), and when schools de-track
achievement goes up for students of all achievement levels (Burris et al, 2006).

Researchers now understand that every child can achieve at the highest levels in math
at school, if they are given the opportunities. The pervasive idea that some students are
smart and achieve at higher levels than others because of genetic ability, is mistaken.
Genes play a part in learning and achievement but the part they play is minimal and
eclipsed by the learning opportunities that are provided to students.

Of course we all know students who are faster than others or who seem to grasp
mathematics easily. That is because they have had multiple opportunities to make brain
connections during their childhood. Students who struggle do not have less potential,
they have not had the opportunities that other students have received. This makes it
even more important that lower achieving students are given the opportunities and
encouragement in school that will enable them to progress to high mathematics levels.
This does not mean being placed into low-level classes and being given low-level work.
It means being given challenging work as well as constant messages about high
achievement coming from hard work, and about the potential of everyone to achieve.

2. Students Ideas about their Ability Determine their Learning

Pathways and Math Achievement.

In 2006 Carol Dweck published a book summarizing decades of research on mindset
that quickly became a New York Times best-seller (Dweck, 2006). The book has had
more impact on educational practice than any other research volume I know. Through
her research Dweck has shown that everyone has a mindset an idea about ability and
potential, and that some people have a growth mindset whereas some have a fixed
mindset. Those with a growth mindset believe that smartness increases with hard work





and that everything they learn makes them smarter; those with a fixed mindset believe
that some people are smart and some are not.

These different mindsets have associated behaviors, that we now know have a huge
impact on learning and achievement (Blackwell et al, 2007). Students with a growth
mindset persist longer on problems, relish challenge and learn from mistakes whereas
those with a fixed mindset give up easily, avoid challenging problems and hate to make
mistakes. When students have a growth mindset they achieve at higher levels and when
students receive a mindset intervention their learning trajectories immediately
accelerate upward towards higher and higher achievement (Blackwell et al, 2007).
Mindset also has significant implications for equity:

High achieving girls are some of the worst hit by fixed mindset thinking, which
leads to avoidance of challenging work and high level courses, (Dweck, 2006b)
Gender differences in schools are only found among fixed mindset students
(Dweck, 2006b) and
Mindset interventions improve the performance of minority students more than
any other students (Cohen et al, 2006)

In the US people are more likely to have a fixed mindset about mathematics than any
other subject or area of their lives, and the prevalence of fixed mindset thinking is one
of the reasons we have widespread failure and math trauma in the US. It is critically
important that teachers and students develop growth mindsets; these can be developed
at any time in life.

When I asked over 800 teacher leaders in the US recently which educational practices
develop and maintain fixed mindset ideas in students the number one reason given was
ability grouping. I agree, it is hard to give a stronger fixed mindset message to students
than by putting them into groups and telling them they have a certain ability. In a
recent study Romero (2013) found that significantly more students developed growth
mindsets after they were placed into high track groups. Students who develop fixed
mindsets will often do anything they can to maintain the idea that they are smart
which can make them vulnerable to unproductive learning behaviors and the avoidance
of challenging work or higher-level math courses.

It is extremely important that schools communicate growth mindset messages to
students, and dont limit students achievement by giving fixed mindset messages
through grouping and other practices. This is important for equity, it is important for
students of all levels, and it may be the key to unlocking the potential of millions of
students in mathematics.

3. Mistakes and Struggle are Extremely Important for Learning.

Educators have long known that students who experience cognitive conflict learn
deeply and that struggling with a new idea or concept is very productive for learning
(Piaget, 1970). But recent research on the brain has produced what I believe to be a
stunning new result. Moser and colleagues (2007) showed that when students make
mistakes in math, brain activity happens that does not happen when students get work




correct. For people with a growth mindset the act of making a mistake results in
particularly significant brain growth.

What this means is that we want students to be making mistakes in math, and we
should not be giving students work that they get mainly correct.

I have argued elsewhere (Boaler, in press) that students in math classrooms in the US
often believe that their role is to perform, showing they know math and can answer
questions correctly, rather than to learn. It is very hard to be in a math class in which
you are constantly working on short, closed tasks that you get right or wrong, and
maintain a growth mindset.

When we open math tasks we encourage the opportunity for important learning and for
viewing math as a learning subject. Tasks that are narrow and closed encourage
students to believe that math is a performance subject that is, they are in math class to
show what they know. Many students think that they come to math class to answer
questions correctly, not to learn. This was brought home to me recently when a
colleague, Rachel Lambert, told me that her 6-year old son had come home and said he
hadnt enjoyed his math class, when she asked why he said Math is too much answer
time and not enough learning time.

If we are serious about encouraging students to develop growth mindsets we need to
provide open tasks that have the space within them for learning, not short tasks that
students are meant to get right or wrong. Tasks are made more open when they have or
encourage:

Multiple entry points
Multiple ways of seeing
Multiple pathways and strategies for solutions

The research on mindset and the research showing the importance of mistakes both
suggest strongly that we need math environments in which students are given open
tasks and challenging work that causes them to struggle, experience cognitive conflict
and make mistakes. Teachers should support or even reward students for making
mistakes so that they feel comfortable doing so. More advice is given on ways to teach
math for a growth mindset in my online class, available here
http://online.stanford.edu/course/how-to-learn-math and in the videos that appear on
www.youcubed.org and in Boaler (2009).

4. Mathematics should be Dissociated from Speed.

An important message that is emerging from neuroscience concerns the damage that is
caused when math performance is associated with speed. Many math classes across the
US encourage the idea that the best math students are those who work quickly. When
mathematician and Fields Medal winner Laurent Schwartz reflected on his childhood in
his recent memoir, he described his days in school as days when he thought of himself
as unintelligent because he was the slowest math thinker in his class:




I was always deeply uncertain about my own intellectual capacity; I thought I was
unintelligent. And it is true that I was, and still am, rather slow. I need time to seize
things because I always need to understand them fully. Towards the end of the eleventh
grade, I secretly thought of myself as stupid. I worried about this for a long time.

Im still just as slow. At the end of the eleventh grade, I took the measure of the
situation, and came to the conclusion that rapidity doesn't have a precise relation to
intelligence. What is important is to deeply understand things and their relations to
each other. This is where intelligence lies. The fact of being quick or slow isn't really
relevant. Laurent Schwartz, (2001). A Mathematician Grappling with his Century.

Unfortunately many students across the US come to believe that fast students are those
who have the most potential, meaning that many slower but deep thinkers are turned
away from math. I work with many mathematicians who are some of the slowest math
thinkers I know. This is because they think deeply about math and dont want to skim
over ideas. The hallmark of high level mathematical thinking, as Schwartz reflects, is
working in depth, not working at speed.

A common educational practice in the US is the requirement that young children take
timed tests. These have now been shown to cause the early onset of math anxiety in a
large proportion of students (Boaler, 2012).

Sian Beilock and her colleagues have
conducted brain scans that show that
math facts, such as those used in timed
tests, are held in the working memory
(Beilock, 2011). The more working
memory an individual holds the greater
potential they have for academic success
(Engle, 2002). Beilock and colleagues have
found that when people are stressed, the
stress blocks their working memory and
facts with which people are familiar

Sian
B
eilock,
2
013.
cannot be recalled.

You may recognize this process of being asked to do a math calculation in a public
situation or somewhere stressful for you and finding that your mind has gone blank
and you just cannot recall math facts that you know well. This is the impact of stress
blocking the working memory. When students who experience stress in timed
conditions find that they cannot access their working memory, they under achieve; this
causes them to question their math ability and in many cases develop further stress and
anxiety.

There is no need to encourage speed in math classrooms. In addition to the stress
caused by time pressure, it rarely encourages students to be fast. Instead the fast
students stay fast and the slow stay slow, and with math anxiety become slower. Timed
tests as well as other speed related materials such as flash cards cause slow, deep
mathematical thinkers to be discouraged in classrooms (Golinkoff et al, 2004). It is
important to present mathematics as a subject that requires depth of thought, not fast




recall. More information on the damage caused by timed tests is given in Boaler (2012).

5. Teachers Messages are Hugely Powerful.

Students often develop ideas about their own potential from the subtle and not so
subtle messages they receive in school and from teachers. The power of teachers words
in shaping childrens potential was shown clearly in two recent studies.

(1) In one study (Yeager et al, 2013) researchers worked with high school students who
were divided into 2 groups. All students wrote an English essay and received critical
feedback on their essay from their teachers, but half of the students and the teachers
did not know who they were received an extra sentence. The sentence was:

I am giving you this feedback because I believe in you

The students who received this sentence achieved at higher levels on school tests a year
later. The sentence had a particularly significant effect for minority students. This was a
stunning result a single sentence resulted in long-term and significant achievement
gains. I am cautious when sharing this result, as I don't think it should be taken to mean
that teachers add this sentence to work, as it may seem artificial. Teachers have many
more and better opportunities to communicate the message that they believe in and
value students. The researchers note that the impact of the sentence came both from the
feedback that teachers believed in their students, coupled with the provision of critical
and helpful feedback that the students could learn from. The feedback told students
that teachers believed in them and it gave them opportunities to learn and grow.

2. Dweck and her colleagues conducted an experiment (Meuller & Dweck, 1998) that
showed the power of teachers words, as well as how quickly the words can impact
students. In one of their experiments they gave children a task to do. At the end of the
task half of the students were praised for being smart, the others were praised for
working hard. For their next task the children were given a choice between a task that
was easy or difficult. Ninety per cent of those who were praised for being smart chose
the easy task, the majority of those praised for working hard chose the difficult task.

It is extremely important that neither parents nor teachers praise children in fixed
ways, telling them they are smart. When children are told they are smart they often
feel good, but later when they fail in some situation, and everyone does, they think
Hmm, I am not so smart. Always praise what children have done, instead of the person
eg It is wonderful that you have learned how to add numbers, not wow you can add
numbers, you are so smart. Further advice on ways to talk and praise students is given
in the parent guidance on www.youcubed.org.


Discussion and Conclusion.

Gloria Ladson Billings once termed teachers as dream-keepers (ref) I like this
description because it communicates, accurately in my view, the opportunities that
teachers have to help students achieve their dreams. In mathematics this starts with
believing that all students can achieve at the highest levels, as research on the brain




shows. It also involves grouping structures that encourage high achievement for all and
the provision of challenging and interesting work for all students. If we can bring about
these changes in mathematics teaching, many more students will enjoy mathematics,
achieve at high levels, take more advanced mathematics classes and develop the
quantitative literacy they need to become effective citizens in the 21st century.

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