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Loading... Why Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom (edition 2009)by Daniel T. Willingham (Author)
Work InformationWhy Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom by Daniel T. Willingham
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Outstanding. If you are an educator seeking to improve his or her practice, you really need look not much further than this excellent book. There is more of theoretical and practical value in the nine chapters of this book than I have received in nine years of the tedious and intellectually vacant "professional development" sessions my employer, the New York City Department of Education, has proffered. Very highly recommended, again, especially for teachers. As a novice teacher, reading this book has been cathartic for me in many ways. It cemented ideas I've gained through my extremely short experience as a teacher, and introduced me to concepts I wasn't familiar with. Judging from the title alone, I expected the book to center around class management or to address the shortcomings of the educational system. None of that is mentioned in the book. The book chiefly deals with cognitive skills and how to nurture them in learners. In fact, it talks in general about how our mind works. So that makes the book accessible to anyone who's interested in learning more about thinking, memory and the necessity of background knowledge when trying to solve any problem or think critically about a given situation. It doesn't get too technical either. The author's writing style is simple and he tends to use humour, so that made reading this book very enjoyable to me. Significance Through the expertise of a cognitive scientists, this work dispels many of the myths surrounding how we learn (including remembering) and shows practical ways to improve learning. I haven't seen a book quite like it. Artwork/Writing/Narrative/Organization * Clear writing with many examples. * Relevant and clear illustrations. * Very well organized. * Easy-going authorial voice organized in a story-like narrative (he practices what he preaches) Personal Notes As a parent of an elementary school child, I'm deeply invested in optimizing her learning. In spite of the fact that science is constantly--and rapidly--evolving, this book is a big step towards concrete ways to improve your child's learning--as well as educational systems in general. Interestingly, the author writes: "The human mind seems exquisitely tuned to understand and remember stories--so much that psychologists sometimes refer to stories as 'psychologically privileged." Need I say more? Very well-done book. Willingham pulls out nine principles that can ensure students learn better, explains and justifies each of them with examples, and makes the entirety extremely actionable. No slow non-fiction here, and all the repetition is for educational purposes -- smart repetitions of themes in sections that are clearly labeled review, rather than the awkward repetition of authors writing over many months forgetting what's already been touched on, or lacking enough of a message to fill a book. My favorite is Chapter 2, which explains why background knowledge -- just knowing facts -- is prerequisite to critical thinking. In short: if you facts about what's going on already, you can free up your working memory to start to tease out comparisons and deeper analysis. If you're encountering material for the first time, it's biologically almost impossible to retain the facts and also analyze them. Also because we have a limited amount of working memory, knowing things already means you can learn more effectively; this leads to a rich-gets-richer effect in schools, where the best prepared students entering elementary school can learn faster and with less effort, because they already have more background knowledge. I wasn't sure where I stood on the debate of "higher order is what matters" vs. "facts first", but now I'm sold. Another chapter debunked the idea of multiple intelligences -- my take-away here is that kids don't learn better with differentiated lessons because different kids do better under each approach, but because the students as a whole are less likely to get bored when the material presentation changes repeatedly: it keeps folks interested and on-topic. Other interesting chapters are on praising effort rather than results, the need for thousands of hours of practice before expert status, and so on, but many of these have gotten enough coverage in the past five years that those chapters weren't as fascinating to me as they might have been if I'd read the book earlier. Recommended as a well structured, fast read that brings insights. no reviews | add a review
Research-based insights and practical advice about effective learning strategies In this new edition of the highly regarded Why Don't Students Like School? cognitive psychologist Daniel Willingham turns his research on the biological and cognitive basis of learning into workable teaching techniques. This book will help you improve your teaching practice by explaining how you and your students think and learn. It reveals the importance of story, emotion, memory, context, and routine in building knowledge and creating lasting learning experiences. With a treasure trove of updated material, this edition draws its themes from the most frequently asked questions in Willingham's "Ask the Cognitive Scientist" column in the American Educator. How can you teach students the skills they need when standardized testing just requires facts? Why do students remember everything on TV, but forget everything you say? How can you adjust your teaching for different learning styles? Read this book for the answers to these questions and for practical advice on helping your learners learn better. Discover easy-to-understand, evidence-based principles with clear applications for the classroom Update yourself on the latest cognitive science research and new, teacher-tested pedagogical tools Learn about Willingham's surprising findings, such as that you cannot develop "thinking skills" without facts Understand the brain's workings to help you hone your teaching skills Why Students Don't Like School is a valuable resource for both veteran and novice teachers, teachers-in-training, and for the principals, administrators, and staff development professionals who work with them. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)370.1523Social sciences Education Education Theory of education; Meaning; Aim Psychology applied to educationLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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