Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Super Summary pages 1-25

Willingham, Daniel T. (2009). Why Don’t Students Like School? : A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What it Means for the Classroom. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

SUPER SUMMARY Pages 1-25

The author suggests that people do not enjoy thinking unless they feel they can solve the problem presented. If they feel the problem is too hard for them to solve, they become bored and will not work on it. Consequently students stop listening to teachers and disengage when they don’t understand the concept the teacher is encouraging them to think about. So a teacher’s job is to make thinking enjoyable.

According to Willingham (2009),“People are naturally curious, but we are not naturally good thinkers; unless the cognitive conditions are right, we will avoid thinking.” (p. 3). Willingham asserts that by combining adequate knowledge of a subject with a student’s innate curiosity, that student will find solving a problem in class to be an enjoyable experience and achieve the success necessary to engage in the learning process. As teachers, we need to make sure our students have the background information necessary to make problem solving enjoyable.

The author suggests that teachers engage the students’ interest in a subject by asking a question at the start of a lesson. If the students have adequate knowledge of a subject they will want to think about the question and try to answer it. This essential question should be something the students have an interest in since thinking is rearranging information already present in long-term memory and combining it with information from the environment in such a way that a problem can be solved.

This presents some challenges in the classroom. A problem cannot be too hard or too easy; it has to be just right. As teachers try new lesson plans they must keep a journal and note what works and what doesn’t to challenge students and achieve optimum engagement in learning. Since not all students are in the same place lessons must be tailored to each student’s ability. In order for a student to critically analyze information they need to have the facts necessary to accomplish the task.

5 comments:

  1. Thank you for the great summary of the first chapter. Balancing the "too hard" or "too easy" aspect of a lesson is difficult, especially with the various levels of abilities and backgrounds that students possess. I know that I will navigate towards something that I am confident I can succeed at and it takes more determination for me to attempt something I am unsure of. I believe that now more than ever, it is important to students that what they are learning will be relevant to their lives.

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  2. I agree with Tami's comment on the "too hard" or "too easy". This is the challenge of differentiating instruction and reaching the diverse levels of learners in a classroom. Another challenge is the student's background knowledge. I think sometimes we assume students have the necessary prior knowledge to keep up with the current lessons. I don't think the studnents understand the importance of this and know how to voice that they are lost.

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  3. Ooh...how true. I know first-hand how it feels when students become disengaged because the lesson-material is too difficult! That is always a challenge for a teacher--i.e. to present new material in a 'just right' way. We want to peak students' interest, and then instruct in a way that is not too easy, or too difficult for the students. The idea about asking a question at the onset of a lesson has always been a good strategy for me (when I remember to do it). That way, the children are at least thinking about the concept initially, and will hopefully have some curiosity about learning more about it.

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  4. In our student teaching they stressed teaching at Lev Vygotsky's ZPD level, so it was interesting to see this mentioned in a different way. I must admit I'm getting better at having intervention and extensions ready for most of my lessons. It helps alot when you know your children and can anticipate which students will need what.

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  5. I agree that we need to discriminate between to easy and to hard but keeping the students attention is also a main key. I also think that making sure that all the students have the correct amount of background knowledge is important.

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