Why Don't Students Like School?
IMO, the biggest problem with education is how crackpot the teacher teaching system is. They seem to have no more scientific basis than Postmodernism, despite the fact that they actually research something that can be research. There's a book called "Why Don't Students Like School: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom". The author explains (more or less) why Direct Instruction is so much more successful than other, newer, faddish techniques. Actually, Direct Instruction is also a bit faddish, and could certainly be improved by a…
As mentioned in the article: > surprisingly few studies of this format have produced supporting evidence for learning styles; far more evidence (such as this study) runs counter to the myth. There's been a number of meta-analysis done (e.g. [1]), and they overwhelmingly conclude that there's just no support for learning styles. So, it's a myth until proven otherwise. See also Willingham's book based on his research [2], and his FAQ here which links to more research [3]. [1]: https://www.indwes.edu/cli/research/meta-analysis-summary---... [2]:…
Take a look at Daniel Willingham's material and his book "Why Don't Students Like School" Here's a review of the book: http://ed-policy.blogspot.com/2009/04/one-of-handfull-one-of... Here's Dr Willingham's web site with a lot of articles worth reading: http://www.danielwillingham.com/articles.html Here's his credentials: Earned his B.A. from Duke University in 1983 and his Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from Harvard University in 1990. He is currently Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia, where he has taught since 1992.
Do yourself a big favor and read the book "Why Don't Students Like School?" by Prof. Daniel T. Willingham. He's a prof of psych at the University of Virginia specializing in the application of cog sci and neuro sci to K-12 education. I don't know who chose the title, but it doesn't describe the book, which is really a collection of articles about the results of experiments comparing various learning & teaching techniques. Only one chapter is about why children, who like learning some things, don't like school. Willingham publishes in academic journals and in journals for educators, so you…
This is off-topic, but perhaps interesting to some, and might add some weight to the opinions expressed in the article. The author of this article is Daniel T. Willingham. He is a psychologist at the University of Virginia and author of some very good books on learning, schools and education. He is a good, careful and informed thinker on the subject of learning and children. I recommend his book "Why Don't Students Like School?" [0] for an insightful look at one of the pieces of the puzzle that is Education. [0] "Why Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions…
Cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham, in his book _Why Don't Students Like School_, says that memorizing facts is important for developing higher level reasoning. Think of it as building up a large processor cache. If you have the relevant facts in your brain, you can piece them together much more quickly to build up higher knowledge. Always having to look up things on Google is like disk thrashing.
In the book Why Don't Students Like School ( http://www.amazon.com/Why-Dont-Students-Like-School/dp/04705...) Daniel Willingham argues that people need to have a good vocabulary of mechanics, basic concepts, and skills in order to be able to move on to higher order knowledge. Children should learn how to calculate not necessarily to do calculations instead of a computer, but to help their brains develop. Besides, until kids hit puberty, their brains aren't ready for higher orders of thinking. What they are good at is memorization and mechanics. The more mechanics they learn and the more they…
Interesting. So the idea is that critical thinking boils down to a combination of domain knowledge and specific metacognitive strategies, and so critical thinking isn't actually a skill. I sense that "critical thinking" has become somewhat of a blanket term. When business leaders and others call for better teaching of "critical thinking", what exactly do they mean? What exactly are they looking for? One answer could be that they expect the person to have knowledge/skill in the specific area a person is hired in. Although this would be great, I somewhat doubt this is it. Often it is…
To answer your question, I have not yet read any of Willingham's books cover to cover, but as I read more of Willingham's articles, I increasingly think I should read everything that he writes. And then I should look up many of the references he cites. Right now, Daniel Willingham is doing an excellent job of filtering the research on human learning.
From: https://medium.com/eedi/how-i-wish-id-taught-maths-8ec9b0578... [...]the day I started reading educational research was the day my life changed. It all began with Daniel Willingham’s Why Don’t Students Like School, which led me onto his ridiculously good series of Ask the Cognitive Scientist articles for the American Federation of Teachers and the associated research papers he quoted. I devoured them all with eyes wide open and jaw firmly on the floor. Next came Cognitive Load Theory, which I was introduced to via the incredible blog of Greg Ashman and our subsequent conversation on…