The Learning Zone & The Performance Zone

10/16/2018

RuthAnne Schedler, MS/US Math Department Chair

The Dawson math department would like to ask you to join us as we contemplate ways that math classrooms can become centers of lively mathematical thinking and learning. This week's Food For Thought comes to us through the ideas of Eduardo Briceño, a learner, leader, speaker, and writer devoted to enabling a more learning-oriented world.

Eduardo Briceño leads Mindset Works, the leading provider of growth mindset training services and programs for schools and businesses. It helps organizations cultivate learning-oriented cultures and systems. He started it in 2007 with the foremost growth mindset researcher, Carol Dweck Ph.D., and education expert Lisa Blackwell Ph.D.

Eduardo Briceño contends that we go through life alternating between two different zones - the learning zone and the performance zone. When we are operating in the learning zone, our goal is to improve. In the learning zone, we do activities designed for improvement, concentrating on what we haven't yet mastered. In the learning zone, we have to expect to make mistakes, knowing that we will learn from them. In the learning zone we are messy and deliberate; we make mistakes and get feedback; we trust that the consequences of our mistakes will not be catastrophic. Activities and expectations in the learning zone are very different from what we do when in the performance zone when our goal is to do something as best we can. In the performance zone we concentrate on what we have already mastered and we try to minimize mistakes. In this TedTalk, Eduardo Briceño asks the question: If we are working hard but not improving, could it be because we are always operating in the performance zone?

https://www.ted.com/talks/eduardo_briceno_how_to_get_better_at_the_things_you_care_about?language=en

If this Food For Thought gets you hungry for more, please email RuthAnne Schedler at rschedler@dawsonschool.org for more. Second helpings are available in the way of related articles, video links, and books. RuthAnne is also happy to just hear your thoughts.

Back