"Cognition in early training is fundamentally different from cognition in late training." This quote leads to the discussion of how do schools prepare students to think like experts i.e. scientists and historians. Teachers must have in mind what their assigments can do for their students. So many times students know their assignments have predictable outcomes and focus on only what they do right. Experts do not just read and memorize, they have actual hands on practice.
Another part of this reading was how experts and novices differ. They both have different "mental toolboxes". Experts in training know as much as experts. The experts reasonings are easier to access because of all of the experiences they have in their "toolbox". Experts can be very abstract in their thinking to accomodate every experience they encounter. Novices focus on the surface feature and don't have as many experiences to draw from. An example of this in the book is when a child does something wrong a novice teacher may deal with this problem from the concrete way of what the behavior was. An expert teacher may draw from their prior experiences and there may be more to the problem than just the behavior.
How does this apply to the students
*practice things until they are automaticity
*thinks of assignments as functional for students instead of surface level
*students need to put in hours of experience in order to be experts in academic fields
*students need to transfer knowledge from their prior experiences to different related fields of study
*students have different learning styles but have the same abilities. (gave example of two different football players both having high abilities but way different playing styles)
*each child varies in cognitive learning styles (complex/concrete/abstract etc)
*treat students differently based on your experiences you have had with a student. Kids react differently (some you need to be very calm with, others react to very strict voices etc.)
*if students are lacking in one cognitive area, use a strength in another area to help them with their weak area.
When I read the title to Chapter 6, “What’s the Secret to Getting Students to Think Like Real Scientists, Mathematicians, and Historians?”, I was very worried. If that is what my students are suppose to be thinking like, then I am way off target! I was truly hoping for some magical words from the chapter that would tell me how to do this, because my students definitely don’t think that way.
ReplyDeleteOf course, as I began reading I soon realized that this is not the goal. Imagine my delight when I read ……”trying to get your students to think like them is not a realistic goal………A more realistic goal for students is knowledge comprehension.” (pg.141) Along with knowledge comprehension, we also want them to connect the ideas and apply them. Can our students apply this knowledge to their own lives and how does it connect? This is our true goal.
I liked Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote, "Every artist was first an amateur." We need to take small steps in teaching to become an expert. Willingham talked about better readers having less eye movements because they read words instead of letters. That's where we want our students to get in their learning but we can't expect them to do what experts do without learning and practicing. Mental toolboxes were also mentioned in this section. Experts have more strategies because they have more experience and background knowledge to draw upon.
ReplyDeleteI found one of the problems in the book hard to do but used my knowledge to solve the next one easily after finding out how to work the first.
I found the learning styles interesting. I took a class on these many years ago. Their comparison between Favre and Manning is definitely correct. I usually watched Green Bay and enjoyed Favre's style of playing but Manning also has a more reserved style and is very good. It's what works for them. Students need to find their styles too.
This section addressed two very interesting issues: 1. Can and should students be taught to think like experts? and 2. Do differences in learning styles and multiple intelligences really exist? These are both issues that are hot topics in education today.
ReplyDeleteWhen reading the Chapter 6 title, I too felt like Amy. My students are far from experts, so what am I doing wrong? And like Amy, I felt relief at Willinham's reassurance that "trying to get your students to think like [experts] is not a realistic goal………A more realistic goal for students is knowledge comprehension” (p.141). Our students are novices. They can…and should…make mistakes. Students need to practice and experience things over time. "Compared to novices, experts are better able to single out important details, produce sensible solutions, and transfer their knowledge to similar domains" (Willingham, p. 132).
So what does that mean for education? We need to remember that our "students are ready to comprehend but not to create knowledge" (Willingham p. 140). This does not mean that students should never enter those higher levels of Bloom’s. Even though students (novices) are not great at creating knowledge, a teacher may still use these types of activities to focus on a particular curriculum goal/outcome or to motivate students. "The bottom line is that posing to students challenges that demand the creation of something new is a task beyond their reach--but that doesn't mean you should never pose such tasks. Just keep in mind what the student is or is not getting out of it" (Willingham, p. 143). We as teachers must keep our lesson objectives in mind.
In Chapter 7, Willingham reminded us that "children are more alike than different in terms of how they think and learn" (p. 147). Yes, students may prefer one learning style over another or do better at one subject over another (multiple intelligences), but ultimately "matching the 'preferred' modality of a student doesn't give that student an edge in learning...most of the time students need to remember what things mean, not what they sound like or look like" (Wililngham, p. 156). Does this mean that we should not worry about differentiating instruction? Willingham believes that the teacher's experiences with the student should be the determining factor. We need to do what works with that student! We should still differentiate the type of teaching we do based on what works best to teach particular content. Differentiating our teaching also helps keep students from getting bored. We still need to change things up every so often!
Willingham’s philosophy on these two educational hot-topics is somewhat different than what we, as educators, have been taught. I think it is important that we understand that Willingham is not trying to get us to teach with lectures and rote exercises. He has stated in earlier chapters that these strategies do not work. However, Willingham seems to suggest that we apply things like learning styles and multiple intelligences to our teaching in different ways than we may have considered in the past.
Once again this section was easy to read and understand. I would agree with Amy, Michelle and Jolene posts. I like that Willingham keeps bringing up that background knowledge, life experiences, and classroom experiences are important for learning and success in the classroom. As well as practice and more practice for a skill to become automatic for a student to be able to use a specific skill to be come an expert.
ReplyDeleteI also likes that learning styles were addressed in this section. As an elementary special education teacher, learning styles is the key to many of our special needs students success in education. Once the style has been found and used successfully; then the feeling of success perpetuates learning for automaticity.