Motivational decline during early adolescence is a worldwide problem, which can negatively affect learning, resilience and wellbeing in school. While a growth mindset can protect against these negative effects, previous attempts to stimulate a growth mindset in students were unconvincing. Therefore we decided to develop a unique and powerful innovation to address earlier shortcomings.
Explore your Brain integrates theoretical and practical lessons about growth mindset in a class setting. While the three theoretical lessons provide important foundations about mindset and brain plasticity, the practical lesson is essential for students to adopt a growth mindset. We developed a mobile EEG neurofeedback application, where students have a powerful experience of influencing their own brain activity. In synergy with the other lessons, this convinces students they can change their own brain, take control of their own learning, and unlock their potential. Research showed that our innovation tackled declines in motivation and achievement, while improving resilience and wellbeing. Our newest version has been optimized for scalability, by drastically improving the technical usability for teachers.
Since the publication of our results, many national and international researchers, teachers and schools, showed interest in studying or using Explore your Brain. Replication studies are ongoing in the Netherlands, Spain and South Africa. Open source materials have been frequently downloaded, and there is overwhelming interest in our newest iteration by schools and school communities. Currently, Explore your Brain is available in Dutch, English, Basque and Afrikaans, and additional translations can be discussed with the researchers. We are now piloting a second version of EYB, which is easier to use for teachers, in several high schools with over 500 students.
Our latest 2.0 version of Explore Your Brain has been further optimized, based on user feedback, and now comes with an improved version of the neurofeedback application that runs on Android tablets. This drastically improves the usability and scalability of EYB, making it easier to implement in classrooms by teachers themselves.
If you want to try the first version of Explore your Brain, English and Dutch versions are available as open access material on DataverseNL (https://doi.org/10.34894/EULELM). For Basque or Afrikaans, or new languages, please contact the researchers for the possibilities. If you want to try the second version of Explore your Brain (English or Dutch), please contact the researchers for more info.
