✨Unlock Your Brain's Superpowers: Why Every Student Needs to Know About Neuroplasticity!
Lets talk about BRAINS! 🧟
Ever heard the term neuroplasticity? It might sound like a super fancy science word, but it's actually just a cool way of describing your brain's incredible ability to change, adapt, and even rewire itself based on everything you have experienced! 🧠
For a long time, people thought our brains stopped growing and changing once we hit a certain age. Good news: that's totally false! We now know that every single one of us has the pretty cool power to grow and reshape our brains throughout our entire lives.
Take a minute to think about it like riding a bike. Even if you haven't ridden a bike in years, your body most likely remembers what to do. That's thanks to muscle memory. Your brain does something similar! Every time you learn something new or try a task, your brain draws on past experiences, making the next attempt easier and takes less effort. This process creates "neurochannels," making your brain quicker, stronger, and better at whatever you're doing.
The more we understand neuroplasticity, the easier it is to embrace a growth mindset. That's a huge win-win situation! Knowing your brain can literally grow stronger with effort means there are no limits to what you can achieve.
It's super cool for your students too! 🚀
Students are humans too, therefore they also greatly benefit from learning about neuroplasticity. It is my personal opinion that as a teacher, we get to have the honor of broaching subjects that parents sometimes don’t have the skill set or knowledge to properly teach. No, I leave the parenting to the parents, this is just something I use to level up my students and ensure that our future generations are resilient, kind, and actually want to step into my classroom each morning.
How to Help Your Brain Rewire for Success!
So, how can you make sure your classroom is thriving in its rewiring journey? Here are some science-backed techniques to give your student’s brain a boost:
Brain Talk: Talk about how your brain is working! Understanding the process helps you take control. The parts of the brain, about synapsis, neurotransmitters and more! This can be worked into science lessons in an easy peasy way.
Mistakes are Learning Opportunities:Teaching students to not be afraid of making mistakes! They're not failures; they're valuable clues that help your brain learn and grow. Teach your students about the power of “I can..” point out mistakes in a kind way.
Reflect on Past Learning: Think about times when you struggled with something and then eventually mastered it. This reinforces the idea that practice pays off! Have a reflection sheet or class reflection time for times the whole class is struggling.
Hands-On Activities: Getting hands-on with activities, especially those that involve spatial and visual thinking, gives your brain more ways to connect information. Create a “Mistakes help up grow” tree on the wall where students fill out leaves with a mistake and how they learn and grow from it, making a beautiful tree on the wall.
Embrace a Growth Mindset: Believe in your ability to learn and improve! This positive outlook is key to unlocking your brain's full potential. You are the model for a growth mindset, the students will follow; promote self reflection and setting small goals to accomplish that are easy to celebrate.
Ditch One-Size-Fits-All Answers: There's often more than one way to solve a problem. Exploring different approaches helps your brain build stronger, more diverse connections. As a teacher, you have the power to encourage and accept answers that are outside the box! Use that power to create open answers and showcase the many ways of answering questions and solving problems.
Important note:
Setting up and incorporating activities/ideologies like these in a routine and conscious way is vital. Consistency is key! Every time our brains are reinforced in the right (or wrong) way they promote routine thoughts and behaviors that are more likely to occur the NEXT time we encounter the same or similar experience. Creating and using a schedule or the BINGO Freebie card for yourself for growth mindset; neuroplasticity teaching is an idea sure to add some sparkle to your teaching.
The Awesome Benefits of Understanding Your Brain's Power 🧠
Teaching students about neuroplasticity isn't only a cool science lesson, it also has some amazing benefits. Applying some of the super cool activities or ideologies from above into your teaching is sure to increase your students’ glow factor by:
Increased Positive Behaviors: When you understand your brain can adapt, it can lead to a reduction in stress, a boost in emotional intelligence, and increased adaptability and tolerance. This trait transfers across all areas, parents will see an increase in positive behaviors at home, in extracurriculars and in the classroom.
Stronger Resilience: Knowing that you'll "get it eventually" with practice and maybe a little help from others builds incredible resilience. Students bounce back from challenges faster therefore strengthening perseverance and adaptability.
Boost Self-Confidence: Understanding that mistakes are stepping stones, not failures, massively increases your self-confidence. You'll be more willing to try new things and take risks, including academic risks and confidence to solve academic problems.
Greater Academic Effort and Achievement: When students aren't afraid of failing, they try harder. Feeling good about making mistakes and growing encourages deeper thinking and a willingness to explore materials more thoroughly.
Celebrating the Neurodivergent Brain: A Party for Your Neurons!
Neuroplasticity and a growth mindset aren’t only super cool buzzwords! Embracing neurodiversity means recognizing that every brain, whether neurodivergent (ND) or neurotypical, has its very own superpowers. For those with brains that work a little differently, like our friends on the Autism Spectrum, or those with ADHD/ADD, these differences aren’t problems, they’re endless possibilities. Their brains come with unique strengths and quirks that neurotypical brains just don’t have! Pretty cool if you ask me.
Understanding that the brain is always growing, adapting, and learning in its own funky way is a game-changer. When neurodivergent students tap into this power, they get to craft their own strategies for success, like building a custom map to navigate life’s adventures or your students self-created IEP. It’s all about self-acceptance, finding what works for them, and celebrating those oh-so-cool differences.
By using a growth mindset with our students, we’re handing our ND kiddos the tools to thrive, while also teaching the world that inclusivity is the secret ingredient to making a classroom (and life) awesome. Let’s create a safe learning space where everyone feels like they’re wrapped in a blanket of acceptance, ready to high-five their uniqueness and rock out with confetti and hugs.
The Take Away:
Knowing about neuroplasticity changes everything. It reframes a classroom from a place of right and wrong answers to a place of growth and discovery. It reminds us that our role as educators is to do more than delivering content. Teachers inspire a lifelong belief in the power of effort and the importance of learning. By consistently incorporating "brain talk," celebrating mistakes, and fostering a growth mindset, you're improving your students' academic performance and preparing them for life. I can think of no better mission than to build a foundation of resilience, self-confidence, and adaptability that will serve students in every challenge they face. When students realize that every stumble is a stepping stone and every challenge is an opportunity to get smarter, they become unstoppable.
Let's make the incredible science of the brain a part of our daily conversation, celebrating the growth and change happening in our students' minds every single day. Download the freebie BINGO chart to help you in the right direction of incorporating growth mindset and neuroplasticity in and out of the classroom. Thanks to teachers like you, the future’s looking brighter, and it’s bursting with individuality! 🌟🎉
📚 References
Çetin, O., Uysal, M. E., & İşeri, H. (2017). Effect of neuroplasticity-based BrainFit® mind exercises on attention skills of primary school students. Journal of Education and Practice, 8(33), 1–10. https://www.iste.org/journals/index.php/JEP/article/view/3807/3847
Sarrasin, J. B., Nenciovici, L., Foisy, L.-M. B., Allaire-Duquette, G., Riopel, M., & Masson, S. (2018). Effects of teaching the concept of neuroplasticity to induce a growth mindset on motivation, achievement, and brain activity: A meta-analysis. Trends in Neuroscience and Education. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tine.2018.07.003
Wescott, P. (2025, July 1). Embracing a growth mindset through neuroplasticity. Neural Education. https://www.neuraleducation.org/blog/embracing-a-growth-mindset-through-neuroplasticity
https://www.edutopia.org/article/reframing-rewire-student-brains/
