Re‐thinking Intelligence: schools that build the mind

We now understand that human intelligence, once thought to be determined almost solely by heredity, is malleable. In developed countries, average intelligence test scores have increased substantially since the tests began to be administered 100 years ago. In school settings, however, intelligence is often still treated as a fixed attribute that limits many students' ability to learn. We argue that schools can and should create intelligence. A body of research has now shown that participating in certain forms of discussion‐based instruction can lead to gains in performance, not only in the subject taught, but also in other, distant domains. This means that schools can actually ‘grow the mind.’ Here, we look at a few powerful examples of dialogic teaching and learning, and discuss some of the implications for the future of education.