Summer vacation began. A relief to you, my fellow teachers? Not yet. Strike while the iron is hot. Thinking back to the year past, was teaching getting tougher every year? Have you ever had a class that students tend to remember the characters and scripts of Gossip Girls or Big Bang Theory than any content of your brilliant lectures, even the subject is of great importance for them to graduate. Here is a book I want to share with you: Why don't students like school? : a cognitive scientist answers questions about how the mind works and what it means for your classroom by the cognitive psychologist Daniel T. Willingham at Virginia. He outlines nine principles derived from cognitive psychology to help teachers connect with students
Before looking at the nine principles, ask yourselves:
1. Why Don't Students Like School?
2. How Can I Teach Students the Skills They Need When Standardized Tests Require Only Facts?
3. Why Do Students Remember Everything That's on Television and Forget Everything I Say?
4. Why Is It So Hard for Students to Understand Abstract Ideas?
5. Is Drilling Worth It?
6. What's the Secret to Getting Students to Think Like Real Scientists, Mathematicians, and Historians?
7. How Should I Adjust My Teaching for Different Types of Learners?
8. How Can I Help Slow Learners?
9. What About My Mind?
Difficult to answer, ain't they? Willingham began his discussion of nine principles following a well-organized style by setting the questions, in-depth discussion, and finally outline the relevant cognitive principle (CP), its significance, and teaching implications (Is) in each chapter as follows:
Ch. 1 Why Don't Students Like School?
CP: "People are naturally curious, but we are not naturally good thinkers; unless the cognitive conditions are right, we will avoid thinking." "People are naturally curious, but curiosity is fragile."
Is: 1. Be sure that there are problems to be solved; 2. Respect students' cognitive limits; 3. Clarifying the problems to be solved; 4. Reconsider when to puzzle students; 5. Accept and act on variation in student preparation; 6. Change the pace; 7. Keep a diary.
Ch. 2 How Can I Teach Students the Skills They Need When Standardized Tests Require Only Facts?
CP: "Factual knowledge must precede skill." "Knowledge is essential to reading comprehension." "Background knowledge is necessary for cognitive skills."
Is: 1. How to evaluate which knowledge to instill; 2. Be sure that the knowledge base is mostly in place when you require critical thinking; 3. Shallow knowledge is better than no knowledge; 4. Do whatever you can to get kids to read; 5. Knowledge acquisition can be incidental; 6. Start early; 7. Knowledge must be meaningful.
Ch. 3 Why Do Students Remember Everything That's on Television and Forget Everything I Say?
CP: "Memory is the residue of thought." "Putting story structure to work."
Is: 1. Review each lesson plan in terms of what the student is likely to think about; 2. Think carefully about attention grabbers; 3. Use discovery learning with care; 4. Design assignments so that students will unavoidably think about meaning; 5. Don't be afraid to use mnemonics; 6. Try organizing a lesson plan around the conflict.
Ch. 4 Why Is It So Hard for Students to Understand Abstract Ideas?
CP: "We understand new things in the context of things we already know, and most of what we know is concrete." "Understanding is remembering in disguise."
Is: 1. To help student comprehension, provide examples and ask students to compare them; 2. Make deep knowledge the spoken and unspoken emphasis; 3. Make your expectations for deep knowledge realistic.
Ch. 5 Is Drilling Worth It?
CP: "It is virtually impossible to become proficient at a mental task without extended practice." "Practice enables further learning." "Practice makes memory long lasting." "Practice improves transfer."
Is: 1. What should be practiced? 2. Space our the practice; 3. Fold practice into more advanced skills.
Ch. 6 What's the Secret to Getting Students to Think Like Real Scientists, Mathematicians, and Historians?
CP: "Cognition early in the training is fundamentally different from cognition late in training."
Is: 1. Students are ready to comprehend but not to create knowledge; 2. Activities that are appropriate for experts may at times be appropriate for students, but not because they will do much for students cognitively; 3. Don't expect notices to learn by doing what experts do.
Ch. 7 How Should I Adjust My Teaching for Different Types of Learners?
CP: "Children are more alike than different in terms of how they think and learn."
Is.: 1. Think in terms of content, not in terms of students; 2. Change promotes attention; 3. There is value in every child, even if he or she is not "smart in some way"; 4. Don't worry - and save your money.
Ch. 8 How Can I Help Slow Learners?
CP: "Children do differ in intelligence, but intelligence can be changed through sustained hard work."
Is: 1. Praise effort, not ability; 2. Tell them that hard work pays off; 3. Treat failure as a natural part of learning; 4. Don't take study skills for granted; 5. Catching up is the long-term goal; 6. Show students that you have confidence in them.
Ch. 9 What About My Mind?
CP: "Teaching, like any complex cognitive skill, must be practiced to be improved."
A method for getting and giving feedback.
Step 1. Identify another teacher (or two) with whom you would like to work
Step 2. Tape yourself and watch the tapes alone.
Step 3. With your partner, watch tapes of other teachers.
Step 4. With your partner, watch and comment on each other's tapes.
Step 5. Bring it back to the classroom and follow up.
Smaller steps: 1. Keep a teaching diary; 2. Start discussion group with fellow teachers; 3. Observe.
The bibliography of each chapter is useful because it includes less technical and more technical references.
Come back and read the above again in September. Enjoy the summer.
