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The Fine art & Science of Deep Learning

Engaging Young Minds

"Teaching is non the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."– William Butler Yeats

We've discovered that when a child's curiosity is sparked, they feel naturally motivated to explore, experiment, and understand. The question becomes, how do we engage and harness a kid's unique interests and passions, the kind that fuel a desire for discovery and pb to deeper learning?

From a neuroscience perspective, the key seems to lie within our brain'south dopamine circuits (the encephalon'southward desire and reward system). Whenever children accomplish personal goals or satisfy their curiosity, the brain releases dopamine. Dopamine not but brings pleasance, information technology besides improves retentiveness and ascertainment. Like a tree growing towards lite, the brain literally rewires itself to move towards that which 'lights it up'.

This adaptive procedure is known every bit neuroplasticity.

(Source: http://thehappyplace.blogspot.com/)

Inquiry shows that in positive, supportive environments (that encourage exploration and experimentation) children larn more – and they learn amend.

To help facilitate positive neuroplasticity or "deep learning", we at Whytecliff gently weave a 3-pronged approach into our curriculum, which includes the latest science on "Growth Mindset" and "Optimal Experience"; we also encourage youth to collaboratively engage in self-reflection and goal setting through our proprietary "Viewpoint Groups".

The Benefits of a Growth Mindset

Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck (2006, 2012) theorized that people tin can have one of two 'mindsets' about their intelligence and learning. People who have a "growth mindset" believe that intelligence can be cultivated through experience and effort. The opposite of a growth mindset is a fixed mindset, which is the conventionalities that intelligence is static – you either have it or y'all don't. People who accept a growth mindset see challenges more than optimistically… every bit learning opportunities, or temporary obstacles to be overcome.

Source: http://langwitches.org/weblog/2015/12/03/looking-for-learning- through-the-lens-of-growth-mindset/

Whytecliff Provides ample encouragement and opportunities for students to develop a growth mindset. This is a goal on every Whytecliff student'due south IEP. The image below illustrates the implications on a student's learning from having a growth or fixed mindset.

In practice, having a growth mindset manifests itself every bit more positive or encouraging stories we tell ourselves (about our own abilities and our learning). The image below contrasts some of those stories with the stories that limit people with a fixed mindset.

Source: https://onlinelearninginsights.wordpress.com/2016/04/xiv/what-does-a-growth-mindset-have-to-do- with-learning/#jp-carousel-13710

Optimal Experience and Feeling Engaged

Educators take long known that children's attending holds the trump carte in the classroom, determining how and how much youth engage in deep learning. Every bit William James observed, "But those items which Inoticeshape my mind".

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, 1 of the fathers of positive psychology, studied the types of environments and experiences that seemed to buoy our natural engagement (and tapped into an peculiarly bright and fluid quality of attention). He coined the word 'Flow' (also known as optimal experience) to describe, "the psychological mental country of a person who is immersed in an activity with energized concentration, optimal enjoyment, total involvement, and intrinsic interests, and who is usually focused, motivated, positive, energized, and aligned with the chore at hand (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975/2000, 1990)."

Source: Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain

These states of 'optimal experience' are intrinsically rewarding to the man brain. Like a tree growing towards sunlight, the neurons in our encephalon are drawn to – and 'grow' and rewire towards – the source of these optimal experiences. As a event, we feel a deeper sense of connexion to the field of study at hand, attention increases, and learning flows naturally.

At Whytecliff, we seek to promote such 'optimal experiences' for youth by encouraging them to explore, tap into, and aggrandize their natural skills, talents and gifts, and to set personally meaningful goals that keep them feeling engaged; we recognize the latest scientific discipline of positive psychology – and understand that positive emotions fuel the motivated date that increases deep learning (neuroplasticity). Then we intentionally tailor learning environments and experiences to be fun, engaging, interesting, and personally meaningful.

Viewpoint Groups

Stepping back to leap forward

At Whytecliff, "Viewpoint Groups" personal development workshops are offered once a calendar week, for an average of an hour, over a menses of eight months. Many topics are covered including: anger, emotions, family unit dynamics, sexuality, resourcing skills and career evolution.

"Viewpoint Groups" is an approach to intra-personal skill evolution and capacity edifice adult by Whytecliff. This model emphasizes the process of exploring issues and our responses to them, and contends that participants cultivate readiness for education and skills grooming – for "doing" – only by examining who and what they are. This process of self-reflection does not exclude education and training; rather it recognizes the crucial importance of self-agreement, values clarification, perspective taking, goal setting, and personal responsibility.

As children are the narrators and navigators of their own lives, they concord a uniquely primal position from which they might serve as their ain best friend in their learning and personal development. The goal of "Viewpoint Groups" is to gently increase children's internal capacity for making wise and positive choices about where they're headed and who they want to go.

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