Why Don't Students Like School: Chapter 2

“How Can I Teach Students the Skills They Need When Standardized Tests Require Only Facts?”

Excerpt From: Daniel T. Willingham. “Why Don't Students Like School?.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/SexLw.l

“Research from cognitive science has shown that the sorts of skills that teachers want for students —such as the ability to analyze and to think critically—require extensive factual knowledge. The cognitive principle that guides this chapter is:
Factual knowledge must precede skill.”

“In this chapter I show that this argument is false. Data from the last thirty years lead to a conclusion that is not scientifically challengeable: thinking well requires knowing facts, and that’s true not simply because you need something to think about. The very processes that teachers care about most—critical thinking processes such as reasoning and problem solving—are intimately intertwined with factual knowledge that is stored in long-term memory (not just found in the environment).”

Not having studied cognitive science before, I'm finding this book very interesting and thought provoking. The interconnection of long-term memory and working memory explains a lot of what I'm seeing in my students behaviors. They are great at using their phones and apps but not so much when it comes to desktop applications. Their confidence in using their phones leads them into believing they are great at using computers (society and the media tell them this too).  Apps and applications don't necessarily work the same and therefore there's no long-term memory from which to pull from when they need it. 

Additionally, they tend to use the "save credentials" options so they aren't required to enter usernames and passwords.  Granted it saves time, but then the usernames and passwords aren't placed into long-term memory and able to be recalled when needed.  It would be interesting to see how many times students reset their eID passwords with say a 12-month period of time due to their lack of remembering the password...

I'm sure there will be more on this topic in the spacing article which I haven't read yet.

“The phenomenon of tying together separate pieces of information from the environment is called chunking. The advantage is obvious: you can keep more stuff in working memory if it can be chunked. The trick, however, is that chunking works only when you have applicable factual knowledge in long-term memory. ”

“Thus, background knowledge allows chunking, which makes more room in working memory, which makes it easier to relate ideas, and therefore to comprehend.”

“This experiment indicates that we don’t take in new information in a vacuum. We interpret new things we read in light of other information we already have on the topic.”

“I’ve listed four ways that background knowledge is important to reading comprehension: (1) it provides vocabulary; (2) it allows you to bridge logical gaps that writers leave; (3) it allows chunking, which increases room in working memory and thereby makes it easier to tie ideas together; and (4) it guides the interpretation of ambiguous sentences.”

Background Knowledge Is Necessary for Cognitive Skills

“Generalizations that we can offer to students about how to think and reason successfully in the field may look like they don’t require background knowledge, but when you consider how to apply them, they actually do.”

Factual Knowledge Improves Your Memory
“The researchers had people learn either a lot or just a little about subjects that were new to them (for example, Broadway musicals). Then they had them read other, new facts about the subject, and they found that the “experts” (those who had earlier learned a lot of facts about the subject) learned new facts more quickly and easily than the “novices” (who had earlier learned just a few facts about the subject).”

“We remember much better if something has meaning.”

“Television, video games, and the sorts of Internet content that students lean toward (for example, social networking sites, music sites, and the like) are for the most part unhelpful. Researchers have painstakingly analyzed the contents of the many ways that students can spend their leisure time. Books, newspapers, and magazines are singularly helpful in introducing new ideas and new vocabulary to students.”

SNARK ALERT: OK that explains things... Social media and iTunes are destroying our kid's long-term memory.

“Knowledge is more important, because it’s a prerequisite for imagination, or at least for the sort of imagination that leads to problem solving, decision making, and creativity.”

“As I’ve shown in this chapter, the cognitive processes that are most esteemed—logical thinking, problem solving, and the like—are intertwined with knowledge.”

Implications for the Classroom
How to Evaluate Which Knowledge to Instill
“The question, What should students be taught? is equivalent not to What knowledge is important? but rather to What knowledge yields the greatest cognitive benefit?”

“Cognitive science leads to the rather obvious conclusion that students must learn the concepts that come up again and again—the unifying ideas of each discipline. ”

Be Sure That the Knowledge Base Is Mostly in Place When You Require Critical Thinking
“Critical thinking is not a set of procedures that can be practiced and perfected while divorced from background knowledge.”

Shallow Knowledge Is Better Than No Knowledge
Do Whatever You Can to Get Kids to Read
Knowledge Acquisition Can Be Incidental
Start Early
Knowledge Must Be Meaningful