I’ve mentioned Stanford Professor Carol Dweck before here on Mission to Learn. I think her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success is a must-read for every serious lifelong learner. Last week, Dweck was interviewed for an HBR Ideacast episode, and I was struck by a segment early in the interview when Dweck highlights a trap I think we can all fall into if we aren’t careful.

In case you are not familiar with Mindset, the core point of the book is that consistently successful people embrace a growth mindset – a belief that they can always learn, grow, and become better at whatever they set their sites on. This is in contrast to the fixed mindset that holds back so many people – a belief that whatever talents or abilities you have are basically innate and not changeable to any significant degree.

As I wrote in an earlier post, I find that it is possible to have a growth mindset in some, even most aspects of life, and yet allow a fixed mindset to insinuate itself into others. In the HBR podcast, interviewer Sarah Green raises the possibility – which Dweck affirms – that we might also slip into a fixed mindset even in areas of our life where a growth mindset has traditionally held sway.

As Dweck puts it (at around minute 3:16), we may achieve great success only to feel that “Now I have to have all the answers. Now my period of growth is over. I have to be a fully mature person who knows everything. So, yes, at any point you can fall into that trap.”

So, be aware of the trap. Embrace the growth mindset – and don’t let it slip away.

Jeff

Related posts:

1. 10 Ways to Be a Better Learner: No. 1 – Growth Mindset
2. What’s wrong with this statement?
3. 10 Ways to Be a Better Learner: No. 3 – Ask Questions

Ever wonder what it takes to make a samurai sword? Or what the heck the Salton Sea is? Or what it might take to end poverty? Check out Documentary.net for a wealth of documentary footage on these and a wide range of other topics.

And for you audiophiles in the Mission to Learn readership, here’s a short documentary on how vinyl records are made (click through if you don’t see it):

No related posts.

In 2011, more than a quarter million unique visitors landed here on Mission to Learn. I’d like to thank everyone of them, and also highlight some of the resources that were most popular among them. Here’s the top 10 for 2011 based on unique page visits:

10. 15 Language Learning Tools for Lifelong Learners (2,991 unique views)

Ready to get started on that New Year’s resolution to learn another language?

9. 25 Free Online Resources and Web Apps for Lifelong Learners (3,181 unique views)

Great stuff to support your lifelong learning habit in 2012 and beyond.

8. How to Improve Concentration and Focus: 7 Tips (3,474 unique views)

Hard to learn if you can’t focus, eh?

7. 50 Web Widgets for Your Learning Mix (4,579 unique views)

Note: This one has recently been updated.

6. 26 Learning Games to Change the World (6,149 unique views)

Also recently updated.

5. More Than 100 Free Places to Learn Online – and Counting (7,025 unique views)

And yes, this one has been updated too!

4. How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall? 8 Keys to Deliberate Practice (10,055 unique views)

Don’t just put in the hours – practice deliberately.

3. 25 Sites and Tools to Exercise Your Brain (13,899 unique views)

You didn’t think exercise is just for your body, did you?

2. 15 Free Online Collaboration Tools and Apps (28,896 unique views)

Check out the comments on this – a long list of other tools and apps are mentioned.

1. A Definition of Learning (38,150 unique views)

Who knew so many people were looking for a definition of learning?

So that’s the Top 10 based on unique page views. Now, here are several of my personal favorites that were actually authored in 2011. As it happens, these have no overlap with the posts above other than the one on deliberate practice (which I won’t list here, since it is already listed above):

• 15 Ways of the Successful Self-Directed Learner
  A helpful list, I think, for any dedicated lifelong learner.

• In Defense of Competence
  This one didn’t get much reaction, but for me, it was one of the most important concepts I encountered in 2011.

• How Language Is Lost
  A reading from my favorite poet. (And it’s not too late to get her book for someone as a holiday gift.)

• Think you could never be homeless?
  This is a post about a “serious game” that I found very effective – and it touches on an issue that is impacting all too many people in the current economy.

• 10 Ways to Be a Better Learner
  Okay, cheating a bit here as this is the tag for the whole series. Given that this series took up a good bit of my posting time in 2011, it seems only right to include it.

That’s all for my posts in 2011. I’ll be back in early 2012. In the meantime, I wish you very happy holidays and an excellent start to 2012.

Jeff

P.S. – If you like what you read here on Mission to Learn, I’d really appreciate it if you would subscribe by RSS feed or by e-mail.

Related posts:

1. By The Numbers: 5 Favorite Learning Habits List Posts You May Have Missed
2. Mission to Learn on Facebook

One of my mentors is fond of pointing out that, just like money in a savings account, the “returns” from learning tend to compound over time. As a result, if we make the effort to improve by just one percent each day, in seventy days we will be twice as good.* As we turn the corner to a new year, this is a perspective that every dedicated lifelong learner would do well to adopt both for looking back and for looking forward.

First, look back on your efforts in 2011. If you made some big leaps, congratulations. But also consider where you have made smaller, incremental progress. Have you done it steadily over time? If so, congratulate yourself on that as well. Have you got the start of something you can carry forward into the new year? Are there areas where you can re-apply yourself?

Now, look forward to 2012. Where will you focus your efforts? If you have some big goals in mind, how can you break these down in to manageable objectives with small, daily steps to carry you forward on your journey? Even with a lifetime of effort, true mastery of anything is an elusive goal, but bit by bit, with conscious, consistent effort, we can improve dramatically. And each improvement makes the next one just a little easier.

Jeff

* The mentor I have in mind is Alan Weiss. I don’t know whether the “1% solution” is original to him, but I have heard him reference it many times in various seminars. If you don’t believe the math, I encourage you to use a simple interest calculator like the one at MoneyChimp.  Put in “1″ for “Current Principle,” nothing for “Annual Addition,” “70″ for “Years to Grow,” and “1″ for “Interest Rate.” Leave the rate of compounding as it is, and then hit calculate. As shown below, the result is just a bit more than “2.”

Note: It doesn’t matter that “years” rather than “days” are the unit of measure here. The point is that the original amount is compounded 70 times.

Related posts:

1. 10 Ways to Be a Better Learner: No. 1 – Growth Mindset

Interested in getting a free book in exchange for your thoughts?

I’ve been working on converting my “10 Ways to Be a Better Learner” series into a brief book. After a good bit of updating, rewriting, and editing, I now have what is very close to a final draft. Before I send it off to be converted into various formats, I am hoping to get a few kind folks to take a look at it and, if they like it, offer some words of praise that I can include on the back cover, etc.

So, here’s the deal: You can either comment here or contact me using the Mission to Learn Web form. I’ll send you a PDF of the book as it currently stands. Read it, and if you like it, please send back a few words that reflect what you liked about it, your feelings about the book, etc. You know, “This book rocked my world and changed my life” – that sort of thing.

If you don’t like it, that’s okay too – you are under no obligation to say anything positive about it. (Though, I am also under no obligation to print anything negative you say about it

Either way, you get to keep the draft and I will also send you a signed copy of the final book (assuming you want it!)

That’s it. Thanks.

Jeff

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[tweetmeme] With the holidays approaching I’m guessing there are a few readers out there like me looking for gifts with some educational value to them. Here are some gifts – in the form of learning activities – you may want to consider for the lifelong learners in your life. Most of them are digital, so you don’t have to worry about getting them shipped some place on time.

1. Learn to Save the World $25 at a Time
I thought I’d start with one that might not seem obvious. Kiva is a nonprofit that facilitates micro-lending to entrepreneurs across the world. By lending as little as US $25, you can help a shop owner in Ghana increase her inventory or a small farmer in Costa Rica build a greenhouse. (Examples of projects I have helped fund through my Kiva account.) Naturally, you can’t help but learn a lot along the way. US $25 gets you a downloadable Kiva gift card to fund a friend or family member’s account.

2. Monkey Around at a Zoo or Museum
I’m lucky to live not too far from the North Carolina Zoo and we also have fantastic museums in our area. Just do a quick Google search and you will almost certainly come up with great museum or zoo annual membership options in the vicinity of someone on your list.

3. Take Note
Readers here know I am an advocate of taking and reviewing notes, and I’m slowly becoming addicted to Evernote, the note-taking application that syncs your notes across the Web, your desktop, your iPad, and your mobile phone. For US $5 a month, or $45 a year, you can snag a premium subscription that offers some great extra features (and a T-Shirt) for the avid learners in your life.

4. Experiment
The array of gadgets, gizmos, and kits that the amateur scientist now has access to is really quite astounding. Check out the wide selection at Edmunds Scientific.

5. Get Lectured on the Go
Anybody who says the lecture is dead hasn’t experienced the great content available from the Teaching Company or LearnOutLoud. I’d call it brain candy, but it is far too nutritious for that metaphor. One of my favorite learning activities this year has been Robert Greenberg’s How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, but there are selections to cover all interests available from both sites. Pick a topic, and grab a gift certificate.

6. Try some APPlied Learing
My iPhone and my iPad have become two of my key learning devices. While a lot of the available apps for these devices are free, some come with a small price tag – and 99 cents many times over adds up! Help the lifelong learner in your life stay on budget by giving an iTunes gift certificate. This will cover not only apps, but also anything else available from the iTunes store. And be sure to point your recipient to 10 Excellent iPad Apps for the Lifelong Learner. (Note: you can also get Android app gift cards at Amazon.com

7. Train the Brain
Lifelong learners are always looking for ways to beef up the ‘ol gray matter. Give the learner in your life a boost with Lumosity Brain Games.

8. Learn a Language
Ah, a mainstay of New Year’s resolutions: “This year I am going to learn to speak ___________.” Help the learner in your life keep that resolution with some great language learning options like those from Transparent.com and Visual Spanish (FREE Spanish Lessons!).

9. Give to Learn
There are so many ways in which nonprofits support our learning and the learning of others, but they can’t do their work without adequate funding. You can hardly go wrong in choosing an organization to contribute to, but if you are looking for ideas, one of my favorites is Heifer International.

10. Read …wait for it… a book
Yes, that’s right. The good ‘ol book, in paper form, is still one of the greatest gifts there is. If you aren’t sure what a good book might be, check out the New York Times list of 100 Notable Books of 2011 or its Modern Library selection of Top 100 Novels. Whatever you choose, my recommendation for buying is to find a local independent bookstore, if one still exists in your area. We’re lucky here in my area to have the great Flyleaf Books.

Got other ideas? Please share them in the comments.

Happy Holidays,

Jeff

Related posts:

1. 10 Last Minute Gifts for Lifelong Learners
2. 20 Social Networks for Lifelong Learners
3. 4 Essential Attitudes for Successful Lifelong Learners

I wrote a while back about the concept of deliberate practice, which is basically the idea that if you want to achieve mastery of something you need to (a) practice a lot, and (b) practice well. A study I came across recently, however, suggests that practice may not be the key to greatness that writers like Malcolm Gladwell have made it out to be.

While there is little doubt that continuous deliberate practice does improve performance, it may still not be enough to enable the leap from good to great. Recent research suggests that the capacity of your working memory – the part of memory that actively process new information as we encounter it – may be a more important factor. Dr. Zach Hambrick, an associate professor of psychology at Michigan State University, says that “While the specialized knowledge that accumulates through practice is the most important ingredient to reach a very high level of skill, it’s not always sufficient.”  Intellectual ability matters, and “the jury’s still out” on exactly how much control we have when it comes to enhancing our natural intellectual abilities.

This may feel like bad news to some learners, but it is important to remember that practice does lead to improvement, regardless of intellectual ability. So, while some may be satisfied with nothing less than greatness, there is much to be said for a life of continuous growth and improvement. Deliberate practice can certainly contribute significantly to that goal.

Jeff

P.S. – Serendipitously, the day after I published this, the New York Times published an editorial by Zach Hambrick: Sorry, Strivers: Talent Matters

Related posts:

1. How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall? 8 Keys to Deliberate Practice.
2. 10 Ways to Be a Better Learner: No. 6 – Practice, Deliberately
3. Nobody tells this to people

I put the following together as a sidebar for the eBook I am creating from the How to Be a Better Learner series. Thought I’d go ahead and share it here. Feedback welcome. – JTC

The range of technology tools you can use to support and enhance your learning is truly amazing. The following list covers some of my favorites along with brief notes on how I use them. Nearly all of these are available across multiple platforms – i.e., PC/Mac, iPad, iPhone, Android, etc.

1. RSS Reader
The free Google reader (http://www.google.com/reader) is probably the most important tool in my learning mix. I use it to subscribe to and organize information from a wide variety of blogs and Twitter feeds, with a heavy emphasis on tracking the writings of “curators.”

2. Blog(s)
I read a lot of blogs, but I also consider writing blog posts on a regular basis to be a key part of my lifelong learning.  To write about something, you have to understand it well enough to put it into your own words – a sure fire way to learn. I use free (and amazing!) WordPress software (http://wordpress.org) for most of my blogging, but a much more streamlined option I have also used lately is Tumblr (http://tumblr.com).

3. Twitter
While some people think of Twitter as “noise,” I see it as valuable stream of real-time information and links to valuable resources. It’s also a great tool for building your learning network. Free tools like Hootsuite (http://hootsuite.com) and Tweetdeck (http://tweetdeck.com)  can help you better organize the people you follow into groups, track hashtags (keywords that begin with a “#” symbol).

4. iTunes
I’m a podcast junkie, and I find iTunes to be the easiest place to find and subscribe to podcasts. Also, Apple offers the amazing iTunes University, where you can find great free content on nearly any topic from top flight universities. Finally, if you create podcasts – which I also do as part of my learning activities – you can easily publish them to iTunes. (See my free Podcasting Guide for more information on how to create podcasts.)

5. Delicious
The Delicious (http://delicious.com) social bookmarking service enables you to save links so that they are accessible through any Web browser and can be shared with others. It’s a great place to keep track of resources you find on the Web and also to find resources that others have saved and tagged. You can find mine at http://delicious.com/jcobbm2l/

6. Evernote
Evernote (http://www.evernote.com) provides digital note-taking software in both a free and a premium version. It makes it easy to capture, save, and share notes – both written and audio – and, most important for me, to sync them across multiple devices.

7. LinkedIn
I use search and the Groups functionality on LinkedIn a great deal when I am trying to find expertise in specific areas related to my work. You can use Facebook in a similar way, I just happen to find LinkedIn more useful in my line of work. For a fuller discussion of how LinkedIn can be used for learning, see 7 LinkedIn Tactics for Lifelong Learning.

8. Zite
Zite (http://www.zite.com) is an iPad application that leverages your Google Reader and Twitter accounts to create a personalized “magazine.” The magazine becomes even more personalized over time as you indicate whether or not you like the articles it serves up. I’ve found it to be a great tool for continually narrowing in on the best sources for a small set of topics of most interest to me.  Every time I launch Zite, the range of resources it presents becomes more and more relevant.

9. Instapaper
Often when I am reading through blog posts or Web pages I come across great resources that are too lengthy to read right way. Instapaper (http://www.instapaper.com) gives me a great way to save them for later, when I have more time. Another option is the appropriately named Read It Later.

10. Slideshare
Often the people who speak at meetings, seminars, and other events are a great source for information about particular topics. More and more, these people post their PowerPoint slides to SlideShare (http://slideshare.net), a site where you can easily upload, share, search, and comment on slides.

11. YouTube
YouTube (http://www.youtube.com) is now the second largest search engine behind Google (which owns it), and for good reason – it is home not only to many highly entertaining but also many highly educational videos.  Sifting through them to find the gems can be a bit daunting, but if you want a great starting point, check out Open Culture’s Smart YouTube Channels and Intelligent Video collections.

12. Kindle
I don’t actually own a Kindle (yet), but I am nonetheless an avid user of Kindle software on my iPad. The ability to carry around and reference an entire library of books in a single, small device is of inestimable value to me. My hope is that over time Amazon improves up the already helpful capabilities for highlighting, taking notes, and sharing. If these become more flexible, Kindle has the potential for being a truly revolutionary learning platform.

So what are your favorite tools and how do you use them?

JTC

Related posts:

1. By The Numbers: 5 Favorite Learning Habits List Posts You May Have Missed
2. 10 Ways to be a Better Learner: No. 8 – Use Technology Better

I’m just back from 10 days in Bocas de Toro, Panama, where I spent part of the time studying Spanish by the sea in Bocas Town.  While I have studied Spanish before, I am a bit rusty to say the least. One of my goals was to improve my ability to support (and keep up with!) my pre-schooler son, who seems to be absorbing the language like a sponge at his school. This got me wondering about the claims that adults are at a disadvantage when it comes to learning languages. How true is this?

As you might expect, there is some truth to the claims that adults cannot learn new languages as well as children, but in general they seem to be overblown.  If you are past your toddler days, but have your heart set on learning a new language, here are a few points to keep in mind.

1. Yes you can

If you think that learning a new language is bound to be difficult, if not impossible, think again. Research suggests that adults do have strong abilities for new languages. In a recent experiment, for example, groups of 8-year olds, 12-year olds, and adults were presented with a new, made-up language rule to learn. The adults turned out to be better than kids in every aspect of learning.  Sara Ferman, one of the linguist involved in the study reported that:

When asked to apply the rule to new words, the 8-year-olds performed no better than chance, while most 12-year-olds and adults scored over 90 per cent. Adults fared best, and have great potential for learning new languages implicitly. [Note: the researchers had already established that 5-year olds performed poorly at the task and thus did not include them in the study.]

The results seem supportive of an earlier National Teaching and Learning Forum (NTLF) article which argues that:

The advantage for adults is that the neural cells responsible for higher-order linguistic processes such as understanding semantic relations and grammatical sensitivity develop with age. Especially in the areas of vocabulary and language structure, adults are actually better language learners than children. Older learners have more highly developed cognitive systems, are able to make higher order associations and generalizations, and can integrate new language input with their already substantial learning experience. They also rely on long-term memory rather than the short-term memory function used by children and younger learners for rote learning.

None of this, of course, means that learning a new language is easy, but it does make it clear that adults have solid capabilities when it comes to learning a language.

2. Mindset matters

Of course, if you are really convinced that you can’t learn a new language, or if the whole thought of trying makes you anxious, you may wind up with a self-fulfilling prophesy.  The Wikipedia entry on second language acquisition notes that “Anxiety in language-learning situations has been almost unanimously shown to be detrimental to successful learning.” Additionally, as the NTLF article quoted above puts it, “The greatest obstacle to older adult language learning is the doubt – in the minds of both learner and teacher – that older adults can learn a new language.”

Bottom line: you need a growth mindset if you want to learn a new language successfully.

3. “Commitment” can be a drag

One of the key ways in which very young children do seem to have a clear advantage over older language learners is that they have not yet fully “committed” to a primary language, and thus their brains remain more accepting of a variety of languages.  As psychologist Aaron Newman puts it,

when our brain is first exposed to language, learning occurs by strengthening and weakening connections between neurons. With years of using our first language (or languages), these connections become more hard-wired and therefore harder to change later when learning a new language. Learning new languages essentially competes for some of those same neural pathways, and it’s hard to re-wire the pathways.

While certainly not easy to do, there is at least some evidence suggesting it may be possible for adults to “re-tune” their brains significantly and thus overcome some of the challenges of commitment.  But again, even given the issue of commitment, there is clear evidence that adults are capable of learning second languages and learning them well.

4. Practice – but not perfect practice – makes perfect

One of the reasons my wife and I were keen to study language in Panama was that, in addition to the instruction we would receive in the classroom (from a native speaker), we would be able to get a great deal of real-life practice out on the streets.  This kind of practice is an area in which kids very often have an advantage. As Aaron Newman puts it,

Most often, children are surrounded by people speaking the language they are learning, so they are immersed in it. Adults often try learning in classroom settings, but aren’t using the new language throughout the day. Children are also less inhibited about using the words and sentences they are learning, and less self-conscious about making mistakes.

Like most adults, I’m usually reluctant to forefront my ignorance by making mistakes. It helps a great deal to be someplace as easy going as Bocas de Toro. It was helpful that the folks at Spanish By the Sea, where we studied, were really committed to the idea of studying in a fun, relaxing setting while also making sure that they spoke Spanish to us at all times.

Of course, if you can’t travel to a Spanish-speaking country, there are now a variety of options for finding native speakers for online conversation and instruction. And if you are particularly uptight about making mistakes, you might try out language games as an approach to learning a new language.

5. Individual results will vary

Even for younger learners, the ability to learn multiple languages varies.  Innate ability is a factor, as is personality.  For adult learners, your first language – and how similar it is to any new language – will also be a factor.  (“Commitment” is less of an issue when learning similar languages.)

Your motivations for learning the language can also be a big factor. If you are intrinsically motivated by a sincere interest in the language and a desire to learn it you will likely fair much better than if you are extrinsically motivated by things like grades or other forms of recognition.

Clearly there are a wide range of factors involved in learning a language, but many of these – like being willing to take risks, finding the time for appropriate practice, and immersing yourself as much as possible in the language – really have little to do with ability. They are more about confronting the challenges of adult life – and this, again, is where motivation can be particularly important. If you want to do it, though, the evidence is clear enough that adults are not inherently bad at learning languages.

Jeff

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While we’re often urged by wise people to strive for more than mere competence, it’s important to understand the important role that competence plays in learning, growing, and achieving great things – and to value it quite a bit more.

“The feeling of competence results” writes psychologist Edward Deci in Why We Do What We Do, “when a person takes on and, in his or her own view, meets optimal challenges.” This feeling leads to a sense of satisfaction and fuels our intrinsic motivation – the type of motivation that comes from within.  As Deci explains it,

The “rewards” linked to intrinsic motivation are the feelings of enjoyment and accomplishment that accrue spontaneously as a person engages freely in the target activities. Thus, feeling competent at the task is an important aspect of one’s intrinsic satisfaction. The feeling of being effective is satisfying in its own right, and can even represent the primary draw for a lifelong career. People realize that the more they invest in a job, the better they will get at it, and thus the more intrinsic satisfaction they will experience.

In our faster, farther, better culture the small steps that contribute to competence are, in fact, the building blocks of greatness. It is, in the right circumstances, admirable to be “passionate, obsessed, provocative, impatient, hungry” and “driven,” but we need to get there honestly. Looking around these days, I can’t help but feel that a bit more focus on competence could be a good thing.

Jeff

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