full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Eduardo Briceño: How to get better at the things you care about

Unscramble the Blue Letters


One reason that in our lives we spend so much time in the performance zone is that our eimnovrtnnes often are, unnecessarily, high stakes. We create scaiol risks for one another, even in schools which are supposed to be all about learning, and I'm not talking about saeizndtadrd tests. I mean that every minute of every day, many students in elementary schools through cgleoels feel that if they make a mistake, others will think less of them. No wonder they're always seessrtd out and not taking the risks necessary for learning. But they learn that mistakes are undesirable inadvertently when teachers or parents are eager to hear just correct answers and reject mistakes rather than welcome and examine them to learn from them, or when we look for narrow responses rather than encourage more exploratory tikinhng that we can all learn from. When all homework or student work has a nmuber or a lteetr on it, and counts towards a final grade, rather than being used for pactcire, mistakes, feedback and revision, we send the message that school is a promfrecane zone.

Open Cloze


One reason that in our lives we spend so much time in the performance zone is that our ____________ often are, unnecessarily, high stakes. We create ______ risks for one another, even in schools which are supposed to be all about learning, and I'm not talking about ____________ tests. I mean that every minute of every day, many students in elementary schools through ________ feel that if they make a mistake, others will think less of them. No wonder they're always ________ out and not taking the risks necessary for learning. But they learn that mistakes are undesirable inadvertently when teachers or parents are eager to hear just correct answers and reject mistakes rather than welcome and examine them to learn from them, or when we look for narrow responses rather than encourage more exploratory ________ that we can all learn from. When all homework or student work has a ______ or a ______ on it, and counts towards a final grade, rather than being used for ________, mistakes, feedback and revision, we send the message that school is a ___________ zone.

Solution


  1. letter
  2. practice
  3. colleges
  4. performance
  5. stressed
  6. standardized
  7. number
  8. environments
  9. thinking
  10. social

Original Text


One reason that in our lives we spend so much time in the performance zone is that our environments often are, unnecessarily, high stakes. We create social risks for one another, even in schools which are supposed to be all about learning, and I'm not talking about standardized tests. I mean that every minute of every day, many students in elementary schools through colleges feel that if they make a mistake, others will think less of them. No wonder they're always stressed out and not taking the risks necessary for learning. But they learn that mistakes are undesirable inadvertently when teachers or parents are eager to hear just correct answers and reject mistakes rather than welcome and examine them to learn from them, or when we look for narrow responses rather than encourage more exploratory thinking that we can all learn from. When all homework or student work has a number or a letter on it, and counts towards a final grade, rather than being used for practice, mistakes, feedback and revision, we send the message that school is a performance zone.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
learning zone 12
performance zone 10
activities designed 3
deliberate practice 3
working hard 2
zone maximizes 2
spend time 2


Important Words


  1. answers
  2. colleges
  3. correct
  4. counts
  5. create
  6. day
  7. eager
  8. elementary
  9. encourage
  10. environments
  11. examine
  12. exploratory
  13. feedback
  14. feel
  15. final
  16. grade
  17. hear
  18. high
  19. homework
  20. inadvertently
  21. learn
  22. learning
  23. letter
  24. lives
  25. message
  26. minute
  27. mistake
  28. mistakes
  29. narrow
  30. number
  31. parents
  32. performance
  33. practice
  34. reason
  35. reject
  36. responses
  37. revision
  38. risks
  39. school
  40. schools
  41. send
  42. social
  43. spend
  44. stakes
  45. standardized
  46. stressed
  47. student
  48. students
  49. supposed
  50. talking
  51. teachers
  52. tests
  53. thinking
  54. time
  55. undesirable
  56. unnecessarily
  57. work
  58. zone