Limitless Mind: Learn, Lead, and Live Without Barriers

by Jo Boaler

Overview

“Boaler is one of those rare and remarkable educators who not only know the secret of great teaching but also know how to give that gift to others.”  — CAROL DWECK, author of Mindset

“Jo Boaler is one of the most creative and innovative educators today. Limitless Mind marries cutting-edge brain science with her experience in the classroom, not only proving that each of us has limitless potential but offering strategies for how we can achieve it.”  — LAURENE POWELL JOBS

“A courageous freethinker with fresh ideas on learning.”  — BOOKLIST

In this revolutionary book, a professor of education at Stanford University and acclaimed math educator who has spent decades studying the impact of beliefs and bias on education, reveals the six keys to unlocking learning potential, based on the latest scientific findings.

From the moment we enter school as children, we are made to feel as if our brains are fixed entities, capable of learning certain things and not others, influenced exclusively by genetics. This notion follows us into adulthood, where we tend to simply accept these established beliefs about our skillsets (i.e. that we don’t have “a math brain” or that we aren’t “the creative type”). These damaging—and as new science has revealed, false—assumptions have influenced all of us at some time, affecting our confidence and willingness to try new things and limiting our choices, and, ultimately, our futures.

Stanford University professor, bestselling author, and acclaimed educator Jo Boaler has spent decades studying the impact of beliefs and bias on education. In Limitless Mind, she explodes these myths and reveals the six keys to unlocking our boundless learning potential. Her research proves that those who achieve at the highest levels do not do so because of a genetic inclination toward any one skill but because of the keys that she reveals in the book. Our brains are not “fixed,” but entirely capable of change, growth, adaptability, and rewiring. Want to be fluent in mathematics? Learn a foreign language? Play the guitar? Write a book? The truth is not only that anyone at any age can learn anything, but the act of learning itself fundamentally changes who we are, and as Boaler argues so elegantly in the pages of this book, what we go on to achieve.

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062851741
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	09/03/2019
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	79,855
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 6.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Dr. Jo Boaler is a professor of education and equity at Stanford University and the faculty director of youcubed—an education resource that has reached over 230 million students. She is the author of the first MOOC on mathematics teaching and learning, as well as nine mathematics books and numerous research articles. Her work has been published in the New York Times, TIME magazine, The Telegraph, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and many other news outlets. She was named by the BBC as one of eight educators “changing the face of education.” She lives in Stanford, California.

Table of Contents

Introduction The Six Keys 1

Chapter 1 How Neuroplasticity Changes … Everything 13

Chapter 2 Why We Should Love Mistakes, Struggle, and Even Failure 47

Chapter 3 Changing Your Mind, Changing Your Reality 77

Chapter 4 The Connected Brain 101

Chapter 5 Why Speed Is Out and Flexibility Is In! 133

Chapter 6 A Limitless Approach to Collaboration 165

Conclusion: Living Without Limits 203

Acknowledgments 224

Resources to Help Change Mindsets and Approaches 227

Appendix I Examples of Numerical and Visual Approaches to Math Problems 229

Appendix II A Sample Rubric 231

Notes 232

Credits and Permissions 239

Index 240

Editorial Reviews

05/06/2019

In a useful study directed toward students and educators alike, Boaler (Mathematical Mindsets), a Stanford mathematics education professor, argues against approaching learning in terms of “fixed intelligence and giftedness,” and in favor of approaching it through the new science of neuroplasticity. She notes that skills long thought genetically fixed, such as the rare phenomenon of perfect pitch, can be learned and nurtured, and maintains that it’s more productive to categorize children as “hard-working” rather than “smart.” In discussing math education in particular, Boaler points out international comparative tests in which American students did relatively poorly, attributing this to an excessive focus on memorization; she favors instead a diverse approach, such as taking visual as well as numerical approaches to solving math problems. An advocate of wide-ranging intellectual creativity, Boaler notes that two computer scientists who in 2018 solved a difficult equation that had long stymied mathematicians “believed their success came from the fact that they had less knowledge than others” and thus could “think differently.” While Boaler’s hyperbolic title promises too much—her book shows the human mind as expansive but not unlimited—and she can occasionally belabor a point, on the whole her guide offers fresh pedagogical approaches to educators and meaningful encouragement and ideas to students. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Jo Boaler is one of the most creative and innovative educators today. Limitless Mind marries cutting-edge brain science with her experience in the classroom, not only proving that each of us has limitless potential but offering strategies for how we can achieve it.

LAURENE POWELL JOBS

Boaler is one of those rare and remarkable educators who not only know the secret of great teaching but also know how to give that gift to others.” 

CAROL DWECK

Jo Boaler is one of the most creative and innovative educators today. Limitless Mind marries cutting-edge brain science with her experience in the classroom, not only proving that each of us has limitless potential but offering strategies for how we can achieve it.

LAURENE POWELL JOBS

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