Intellectual Curiosity

QW: What is something you are curious about?

Intellectual curiosity is very important for academic success.  If you’re not at all interested in learning new stuff, it can be very difficult to do so.  Communication of what you know and/or what you’ve learned is also important.  So for this CSS activity, we will combine intellectual curiosity and communication skills.

First, watch this TED talk by Stephen Robinson:

Reflect: What, if anything, did you find helpful from this talk about how to learn a new skill?  If you did not find the talk useful, I'm sorry; come up with your own list of steps to learn something new.

Act: Now it's time to learn something new.  You have between now and when you next meet with your EF. 

Some ideas for what you might want to learn: How to juggle, how to knit socks, what it takes to play sports in college, a new sport or game, a magic trick, how to play an instrument, how to identify edible wild plants, or anything else you’re curious about and don’t already know how to do.

A note of caution before you start: This will be much more fun and interesting for you (and everybody else) if you really open your mind up to be curious – find something you really want to know about instead of just approaching this as another crazy assignment from Alana.

Here’s what to do:

1. Find something interesting to learn about.  Once you’ve picked a broad topic, you will research the topic and present a short (1-2 min) presentation on what you learned.  For your learning resources, you can use websites, books, videos, anything that is appropriate.
2. Document your progress on this progress.  At a minimum, include a summary of your topic, what resources you used to learn it, and some notes about your progress along the way (e.g. successes and failures, how you felt during the process, what new things you're curious about, etc.) Bring these notes with you to step 3:
3. Prepare a short 1-2 minute presentation to share this exciting knowledge with your EF and possibly others.  It will be helpful if you incorporate visual aids (actual objects, or a poster or Powerpoint).  You can video tape this presentation.
4. Write a reflection of the learning process.  This should be 1/2 to 1 page on what you learned, how you learned it, how you feel about having learned it, and if you plan on pursuing learning more about this topic.

Good luck!

College Application Essays

QW: When completing a college or scholarship application essay, what is one thing you want to make sure the reader knows about you?

The college application process usually involves an online application, where you enter information about yourself and the classes you've taken, along with activities you participate in outside of school and an essay telling a little more about yourself.  Some applications also require letters of recommendation, test scores (SAT or ACT), and sometimes an interview.

Before you sit down to complete the application, think about the picture you want to present to the admission committee.  What is important for them to know about you?  What is unique about you, and what will you contribute to the college community?  Students often overlook some of their best qualities and attributes, because it seems normal - it's just your life, right?  When completing the application, be sure to take some time and think about your activities outside of school and make a list of everything you have done.  It's easy to forget some things, especially activities from freshman year. Keep in mind that what might be just regular old daily life for you could, in fact, be something a college admissions committee would be very interested in.

When it comes time to write the essay, read the prompt carefully and make sure you address the prompt.  However, also remember that the underlying question in every application essay prompt is "Who are you and what would make you a good addition to our campus community?"  What that means is, if the prompt asks you to tell about an influential person in your life, they don't actually want to know about your grandma (or your pastor, or your favorite teacher, or your mom or dad, or whoever that person is).  What they want to know is how has this person influenced you and helped you become the person you are - and what kind of person are you anyway?  If they ask about an event, it's not the event that's important; again, it's how it has affected you and how you've learned and grown from that event.  So whatever the question is asking, address the prompt, but also make sure the reader learns more about who you are, what's important to you, and how you interact in the world. They should know a lot more about you after reading your essay.  And I really do mean about YOU, not the soccer camp you attended in junior high.

Before starting this exercise, do the following (in order, one step at a time):

• make a list of at least 10 adjectives that describe you
• go back over the list, and change any adjectives with a negative connotation to more positive adjectives.  For example, instead of "stubborn", try "determined" or "committed to my values", or "persistent".
• next, group any similar adjectives together.  For example: outgoing, adventurous, risk-taker, active might be collected together in a group.
• then, choose one of these groupings of adjectives, and brainstorm ideas of examples you can give to show how you personify these traits. Using the example above, you might think of a time when you and some friends went backpacking, and you were the group leader.  When you are writing your essay and trying to make sure you get these qualities across to the reader, you don't just want to say "I'm very adventurous", you want to give them examples of when you've done adventurous things.
• finally, look over the list of essay questions and complete two essays following the directions on the list.

Now, complete two of the essays, using the prompts on this list, taking into account everything discussed in this post.  Again, using the adventurous example, if the prompt asks you to talk about an influential person in your life, and the idea you want to get across is that you're adventurous, you might talk about how your grandpa used to take you camping and backpacking (or traveling, or whatever) when you were young and how that helped you develop a love for the outdoors and a commitment to protecting the environment.  Of course, you wouldn't write it like that, but you would give examples and details that get this idea across.

Stress Effects on the Brain

QW: What do you do when you're stressed out?

Activity:
When you are under stress, some interesting things start to happen in your brain. This is a leftover effect from the days when humans regularly encountered life-threatening situations - like encounters with wild animals that might eat you. When you are under stress, the amygdala (a small, almond-shaped structure in your brain) sends out a signal that you are in danger.  Your endocrine system releases cortisol and adrenalin, your heart rate and breathing rate increase, your digestive and immune systems are suppressed (after all, there's no point in digesting breakfast when you're about to be somebody else's lunch).  Back in the caveman days, this response was helpful; it prepared the body to either run away or fight off the physical threat.  The problem is, the amygdala, and the stress response it sets in motion, does not distinguish between real, physical threats and psychological threats.  For the types of stress modern humans encounter, this response it not very helpful.  In fact, over the long run, it can be extremely detrimental to your health.

Furthermore, in times of stress, the frontal lobe (the part of your brain responsible for critical thinking and reasoning) starts to shut down and does not function properly.  So right at the point where you need it the most, your ability for critical thinking is reduced.

Assignment: Watch the videos below on the stress response, and discuss the content with your EF.  Then answer the questions in the Google doc here. Make a copy of the document for yourself, then you can type in your answers and share it with your EF.

Metacognition

QW: When you want to learn something new, what strategies do you use? What works well for you when you are trying to learn something? What doesn't work?

In last week's post, I discussed neuroplasticity, the ability of the brain to grow and change as you learn, and the fact that young people between the ages or 12 and 25 experience a period of increased neuroplasticity. During this period of neuroplasticity, learning something new is easier and more efficient that it is likely to be as you get older.  It turns out there are strategies you can use to make your learning even more efficient during this (and any other) time in your life.

Cognition is "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses"; that is, cognition is the act of thinking. The term "metacognition" refers to thinking about your thinking - analyzing what you are thinking, why, and how you might change your thinking. You can think of it as "driving your brain" - directing how you think about and engage in learning, rather than setting it on autopilot as you move through your learning experiences. Sometimes you might need to back up and look at something again, or take a detour to gather more information about a topic before moving on. You might need to go slower, or faster, to improve your learning efficiency.

In addition to thinking about your thinking, metacognition involves monitoring your thinking and directing your thinking. An example of monitoring your thinking is when you are reading a passage in history, and realize partway through that you are not understanding what you are reading. At this point, you may realize you need to back up and re-read it, you may need to go back to a previous section to fill in some background knowledge, or look up some information. You may decide you need to take notes as you are reading, or stop after each paragraph and summarize for yourself what you just read. This whole process starts with monitoring your thinking and being aware of what you are and are not understanding. An example of directing your thinking is when you realize you are getting distracted by details, and you refocus your thinking on the main idea of what you are reading or hearing. Another example is when you find your mind wandering, and realize you need to stop and refocus your attention.

Activity:
Read the article below about metacognition, and answer the questions that follow:

Metacognition: How Thinking About Thinking Can Help Kids

Questions:

1. In your own words, describe what is meant by metacognition.
2. How can metacognition help you learn better?
3. Specifically, what strategies of metacognition (thinking about thinking, monitoring your thinking, and directing your thinking) can you apply to your learning this week? How will you apply these strategies?
4. Are you driving your brain, or just cruising on autopilot through your learning? What can you do to more effectively focus your thinking and learning?
5. Think about a recent test or assignment (one that you struggled with), and how you approached it. Was your approach effective? What could you have done differently to improve your study or work habits?
6. Think about an assignment or problem you are having right now. What have you tried? What are some other things you could try? How might you approach this problem or assignment differently? 
7. If you are stuck on an assignment, where can you look for help? Identify at least 3 actions you can take to get unstuck.

Mindset

QW: Describe a time you had to do something difficult.  How did you go about it?

Background Information:
Over the past decade or so, our ideas of how the mind works have changed drastically.  Many people used to believe that intelligence was a relatively fixed quantity, something that couldn't change substantially.  People also used to believe that once you achieved adulthood (indeed, shortly after you left your toddler years), you were stuck with the brain you had, and it wouldn't really change much over the course of the rest of your life.

Recent research has changed all of this.  Neuroscientists have discovered that in pre-adolescence and adolescence, the brain goes through a period of rapid growth in neural connections, followed by pruning of unused connections, similar to what happens with toddlers (for more information on this, see this article). This makes adolescence an incredibly important time for learning.  The neural connections that are used repeatedly will be kept and strengthened, those that are not used will be lost.  The implications are that this is the most efficient time to learn something - if you want to learn a language or how to play a musical instrument, for example, it will be much harder once this period of growth and pruning is over.

Another recent area of research is concerned with how students think about learning.  Researchers at Stanford have looked at how mindset, or how students think about their ability to learn, affects their academic success.  These attitudes are characterized as fixed mindset or growth mindset.  People with a fixed mindset think that intelligence or ability is something that is more or less pre-determined, and can't be changed much.  Those with a growth mindset, however, believe that through effort and meaningful feedback, people can improve their intelligence and abilities.  Current neurological research strongly supports the second idea - as we learn new things, new connections (called synapses) are actually created in our brains; that is, our brains actually change physically as a result of our learning.

Activity:
Read the following articles on learning and mindset:

Student's View of Intelligence Can Help Grades
Forget Talent: Why Practice is Key to Most Prodigies' Success

Then answer the questions on this Google Doc: Growth Mindset Reading Questions

You can learn more about the idea of a growth mindset here or here, and a ton of information on how mindset affects performance in math particularly at Jo Boler's Youcubed website.

Structure and Function of the Brain

QW: What do you appreciate most about your brain?

We're going into a new section of the course now, which might seem a little off-topic, but bear with me.  New research shows that the brain is much more adaptable than was previously thought, and that it continues to grow and change throughout your life.  The next few assignments relate to the structure and function of the brain, how the brain reacts to stress, and how mindset is related to student performance and achievement.  The first step is to learn a little about the different parts of the brain, and how they relate to perception, thinking, and emotion.

Activity: Watch the video below from Bozeman Science about the structure and function of the brain.  Using the information from the video, or other online resources, color and label the attached diagram of the brain. For each region you label, include a brief explanation of what that regions does.

Here is the diagram:

Assignment: Choose one of the brain regions you identified in the diagram, and write a thank you letter showing your appreciation for what that part of the brain does for you.  Be sure to include the major functions of the particular brain region and why this is important to you.  Your letter should be roughly a page long.  Turn in your letter to your EF.

Letter From Your Future Self

QW: Take five minutes to describe where you think you will be in 10 years, and what you will be doing. What will your life be like?

Imagine yourself sometime in the future (at least 5-10 years after graduating from high school). By this time, someone has invented a trans-temporal postal service that can deliver mail to the past. As your future self, write a letter to yourself now, describing accomplishments and experiences you've had and sharing any advice for yourself going forward.

Your letter should be about a page long. Turn the letter in to your EF.

Optional: If you want, you can also write an email TO your future self. On the websitehttps://www.futureme.org/, you can write an email to yourself in the future, specify how far in the future you will want to receive this email, and they'll send it at the appropriate time.