Article From Students' Hearts to Brains – How Math Identity Improves Math Achievement
Liesl McConchie
Ask any teacher what’s getting in the way of students learning math today, and you’ll hear a variety of responses: lack of motivation, debates around explicit vs. inquiry-based instruction, or a general “checked-out” attitude that wasn’t nearly as common a decade ago. We tend to respond with new strategies for instruction, curriculum, or assessment. But in my 25+ years as a classroom teacher, school leader, and translator of cognitive neuroscience, one truth keeps rising to the top: A student’s emotional relationship with math is foundational to their cognitive relationship with math. Students don’t walk into our classrooms as blank slates. They enter with years of experience, feelings, messages, and beliefs that shape how they see themselves as math learners. In neuroscience, we call this an “identity-shaping neural network.” It is a tapestry of past experiences, future expectations, sociocultural messages, and personal efficacy judgments. In schools, we simply call it their math identity. And teachers don’t need a degree in neuroscience to leverage it. Below are four high-impact, low-prep activities you can use in any classroom to strengthen students’ math identities. Each activity is paired with a 67