Ever wondered why you haven't heard about Learning Styles in a while? Seems like there may some controversy in the educational ranks. Please don't tell me it's true. Well- Daniel Willingham the author of the 2009 "Why Students Don't Like School" would not say it's controversy. http://educationnext.org/reframing-the-mind/
Often reading educational research is like marching through swamp with hiking boots. You can usually get through if it's a short distance. After reading "Why Students Don't Like School" I could finally see some solid ground. Here it is the long and the short. Thinking is hard work. Students (or any of us) don't want to work hard.We can reject that premise or "work" with it. Daniel Willingham, a Professor of Psych at U of Virginia works with it and rhetorically asks, if people think badly and try to avoid it, what does this say about student’s attitudes toward school? So what to do? Fortunately, Willingham produces the ace.
"We get a sense of satisfaction, of fulfillment, in successful thinking. When you solve a problem, your brain may reward itself with a small dose of dopamine, a naturally occurring chemical important to the brain’s pleasure system.". The key then is to find "success" in thinking through problems. The caveat however, is that we get little or no pleasure if we find the problem too easy or too difficult. For those of you ancient educators sounds like Zone of Proximal Development http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_proximal_development in the cognitive realm. This analysis of the kinds of mental work that people seek out or avoid provides one answer to why more students don’t like school.
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 one of these factors occurs inadequately, thinking will likely fail.
Premise number 2 knowledge must precede skill. Here's my take. Reading comprehension depends on gaining knowledge. Emphasis on Fluency (skill) actually exasperates this process. Students believe they can read because they read fast. Students are surprised and feel unsuccessful when they cannot handle comprehension tests. Notice unsuccessful. That's Willingham's point!!
I give you both an online book outline (wikisummaries) and the link for that outline.
Contents [hide]
1 1. "People are naturally curious, but we are not naturally good thinkers; unless the cognitive conditions are right, we will avoid thinking."
2 2. "Factual Knowledge must precede skill."
3 3. "Memory is the residue of thought"
4 4. "We understand things in the context of what we already know, and most of what we know is concrete."
5 5. "It is virtually impossible to become proficient at a mental task without extended practice."
6 6. "Cognition early in training is different from cognition late in training."
7 7. "Children are more alike than different in terms of how they think and learn."
8 8. "Children do differ in intelligence, but intelligence can be changed through sustained hard work."
9 9. "Teaching, like any complex cognitive skill, must be practiced to be improved."
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