Excerpt From: Daniel T. Willingham. “Why Don't Students Like School?.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/SexLw.l
Curious that he uses the pronoun "she" in this sentence when it's generally thought men/males are the problem solvers or "fixers".
“The cognitive principle that guides this chapter is:
People are naturally curious, but we are not naturally good thinkers; unless the cognitive conditions are right, we will avoid thinking.”
Interesting... I seem to think, come up with new ideas ALL THE TIME. It's actually quite frustrating because unless I write them down immediately they're gone or forgotten. So I usually text my office assistant or email myself the idea.
“The implication of this principle is that teachers should reconsider how they encourage their students to think, in order to maximize the likelihood that students will get the pleasurable rush that comes from successful thought.”
The Mind Is Not Designed for Thinking
“In an empty room are a candle, some matches, and a box of tacks. The goal is to have the lit candle about five feet off the ground. You’ve tried melting some of the wax on the bottom of the candle and sticking it to the wall, but that wasn’t effective. How can you get the lit candle five feet off the ground without having to hold it there?”
I know the answer to this one!!!
If you haven't seen Daniel Pink's TED talk it's a good one:
Dan Pink: The puzzle of motivation
“This problem illustrates three properties of thinking. First, thinking is slow. ”
“Second, thinking is effortful; you don’t have to try to see, but thinking takes concentration.”
“Finally, thinking is uncertain. ”
“How does a teacher make the hundreds of decisions necessary to get through her day? The answer is that when we can get away with it, we don’t think. Instead we rely on memory. ”
“—but your memory system is much more reliable than your thinking system, and it provides answers quickly and with little effort.”
My memory is better than I thought...
“...two ways in which your brain is set up to save you from having to think. First, some of the most important functions (for example, vision and movement) don’t require thought”
“Second, you are biased to use memory to guide your actions rather than to think. ”
So if students are Googling things all the time and not using their memory, how much is the use of technology impairing memory?
People Are Naturally Curious, but Curiosity Is Fragile
“In the last ten years neuroscientists have discovered that there is overlap between the brain areas and chemicals that are important in learning and those that are important in the brain’s natural reward system. ”
This would seem to support the use of electronic learning systems where students get immediate feedback.
“So, if content is not enough to keep your attention, when does curiosity have staying power? The answer may lie in the difficulty of the problem. If we get a little burst of pleasure from solving a problem, then there’s no point in working on a problem that is too easy—there’ll be no pleasure when it’s solved because it didn’t feel like much of a problem in the first place. Then too, when you size up a problem as very difficult, you are judging that you’re unlikely to solve it, and are therefore unlikely to get the satisfaction that comes with the solution.”
Hmmm... something to think about when I design lessons. If the content is too easy for most students, will they loose interest at the beginning and not follow through when the content of the course gets harder or more unfamiliar?
“To summarize, I’ve said that thinking is slow, effortful, and uncertain. Nevertheless, people like to think—or more properly, we like to think if we judge that the mental work will pay off with the pleasurable feeling we get when we solve a problem. So there is no inconsistency in claiming that people avoid thought and in claiming that people are naturally curious—curiosity prompts people to explore new ideas and problems, but when we do, we quickly evaluate how much mental work it will take to solve the problem. If it’s too much or too little, we stop working on the problem if we can.”
How Thinking Works
“Long-term memory is the vast storehouse in which you maintain your factual knowledge of the world”
“Just about the simplest model of the mind possible.”
“Thinking occurs when you combine information (from the environment and long-term memory) in new ways.”
Snarky comment... 18 X 7 I did it as described in the book. How does "new math" get to the answer to this problem and does it involve procedural knowledge?
“...procedural knowledge, which is your knowledge of the mental procedures necessary to execute tasks. If thinking is combining information in working memory, then procedural knowledge is a list of what to combine and when—it’s like a recipe to accomplish a particular type of thought. ”
“In sum, successful thinking relies on four factors: information from the environment, facts in long-term memory, procedures in long-term memory, and the amount of space in working memory. If any one of these factors is inadequate, thinking will likely fail.”
Implications for the Classroom
Be Sure That There Are Problems to Be Solved
Respect Students’ Cognitive Limits
- “The solution to working memory overloads is straightforward: slow the pace, and use memory aids such as writing on the blackboard that save students from keeping too much information in working memory.”
Reconsider When to Puzzle Students
- “by conducting a demonstration or presenting a fact that we think students will find surprising”
Change the Pace
Keep a Diary
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