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SUMMARY by Julia Wilson __Why 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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In his book, “Why Don't Students Like School?” (Willingham, 2009) Daniel Willingham offers a fascinating counterpoint to much of the conventional wisdom concerning student cognition. Willingham organizes his book in a form of Q&A, with each chapter serving to answer a common question of educators. Each answer comes as an elaboration of a guiding cognitive principle. (p. 3) To begin, Willingham describes the human inclination toward thought as desirable but challenging; while we as humans enjoy thinking critically, it is not in our nature to do so. (p. 3) Thought of this kind requires attentiveness and commitment on the part of the thinker that content alone cannot create. (p. 12) Rather, a person must be motivated with a challenge that meets a particular set of needs: a problem that is intriguing, but not overwhelming; an adequately framed set of learning goals, and an acceptance the learners’ varied preparation and background. (pp. 19-22) ======

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Willingham describes thinking as the relationship between the environment, the ‘working memory’ (awareness and thinking), and the ‘long-term memory’ (factual and procedural knowledge). (p. 28) This relationship necessitates the presence of factual information to provide a framework for thinking processes (pp. 28-29). One of Willingham’s cognitive principles states that “memory is the residue of thought”, and advises teachers that “to teach well, you should pay careful attention to what an assignment will actually make students think about (not what you hope they will think about), because that is what they will remember.” (p. 54) For instance, Willingham challenges the idea that attempting to make content relevant to students is necessarily the most effective method to engage students. (pp. 20, 63-64) Rather, he contends that the mind creates meaning from effective storytelling; that is, storytelling that includes the 4 C’s of causality, conflict, complications, and character. (Willingham, 2009, pp. 67-69). He goes on to explain how lesson content can be organized according to story structure, which leads students to think about the meaning of the material in the way that the teacher intends. (pp. 70-75) Willingham describes how some of teachers’ most beloved ‘tricks of the trade’, including attention-grabbers, discovery-based learning, and the use of technology can go awry, and how to bring those tools in line with patterns of student cognition. (pp. 79-82) ======

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This idea of thought and memory leads Willingham’s discussion into the concept of abstraction. The goal of abstract thinking, Willingham tells us, is “transfer”, the method by which people recognize and apply the “deep structure” of a problem to different “surface structures”(pp. 97-99). Students often end up with only “shallow knowledge” of a concept, which makes them unable to transfer knowledge. (p. 93) Willingham’s solution to this problem is straightforward: make clear throughout the learning process, through example, comparison, repetition, and realistic goals, what deep structure and knowledge is to be obtained. (pp. 102-104) ======

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Willingham speaks to the question of whether drilling, or repetitive practice, is cognitively useful. In short, his answer is yes: “It is virtually impossible to become proficient at a mental task without extended practice.” (p. 107) Willingham cites the two common reasons that regular practice is useful: one, practice helps facilitate mastery, and two, practice helps to hone and refine particular skills. (p. 108) The chapter discusses additional benefits of regular, ongoing practice that occurs even when the skill is mastered and further refinement of the skill does not seem to be achieved. Willingham reminds us that thinking is, in a broad sense, the manipulation of items in working memory. (p. 109) The scope of an individual’s working memory is fixed; however, “chunking” of data and developing automatic processes frees a portion of that working memory to utilize for complex thinking. Sound-symbol decoding in developing reading and basic computational facts in mathematics particularly benefit from chunking and automaticity. (pp. 110-114) Additionally, ongoing practice increases the amount of knowledge that makes its way into long-term memory (p. 118) and improves transfer of deep structure and knowledge (pp. 120-121). Willingham then makes a declaration that many educators might find shocking: ======

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It’s not just that students know less than experts; it’s also that what they know is organized differently in their memory. Expert scientists did not think like experts-in-training when they started out. They thought like novices. . . no one thinks like a scientist or a historian without a great deal of training. This conclusion doesn’t mean that students should never try to write a poem or conduct a scientific experiment; but teachers and administrators should have a clear idea of what such assignments will do for students. (p. 128) ======

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This statement is a stark departure from current learning standards, which emphasize students’ ability to generalize and transfer knowledge between areas of content (Texas State Board of Education, 2009). Willingham describes experts as individuals who “think functionally” (2009, p. 136) This functional thinking, or thinking in terms of deep structure, comes from practice. While students have a limited ability to recognize deep structure and transfer knowledge, “the only path to expertise, so far as anyone knows, is practice.” (p. 137) In a variety of research studies, a pattern emerges: those who are exceptional in their fields do not seem to be set apart by IQ, but rather by their capacity for sustained work and practice. The research supports the idea of the “ten-year rule”, which states one cannot become an expert in a given field in less time than approximately ten years. (pp. 139-140) Teachers can take from this reality a new focus related to expert knowledge. Learning in the classroom should focus on the understanding of knowledge vs. the creation of it. Activities that would be appropriate for experts can be offered to students, so long as educators recognize the activity for its engagement qualities as opposed to any legitimate opportunity to build knowledge. (pp. 142-143) A novice does not approach a skill in the same way that an expert would, because their scope of knowledge simply doesn’t allow it: “it may well be that the expert used to do it the way the novice does it, and that doing so was a necessary step on the way to expertise.” (p. 144) ======

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In another dramatic break with current belief in the educational community, Willingham largely dismisses two schools of thought: the visual-auditory-kinesthetic learner theory (pp. 155-157) and Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences (pp. 159-162). In discussing the flaws of the visual-auditory-kinesthetic theory, Willingham points out that learning and memory are related to the meaning assigned to information. While a student might have auditory or visual acuity, that does not generally relate to what teachers expect students to learn about content. He shows that the widespread belief in this theory can be attributed to other phenomena. (pp. 155-157) While he supports Gardner’s basic claim that some abilities of the mind should not claim hierarchical superiority over others, Willingham does not support the ideas that schools should develop curriculum to foster all the ‘intelligences’ or that various ‘intelligences’ are interchangeable. Furthermore, he states that Gardner himself disavows these claims, as well. (pp. 162-163) While Willingham recognizes the individuality of a student’s interests and abilities, he categorically denies that these differences should act as a backdrop for individualized instruction. Instead, teachers should use varying presentations as guided by the nature of the content and the needs of the class entire. (pp. 164-165) ======

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Willingham takes this framework for cognition and advises teachers on how to facilitate learning for students who do not have high intrinsic levels of aptitude. He asserts that while intelligence does have a genetic component, it is still malleable and can be groomed, developed, and changed through sustained hard work. (p. 170) Students’ internal perceptions about intelligence change the nature of how they approach new learning challenges. Students who see intelligence as “fixed” are less likely to engage in the sustained practice necessary for cognitive development than students who perceive intelligence as “malleable”. (p. 180) Studies on the nature of praise as it relates to understanding of intelligence demonstrate that children’s perceptions of intelligence are affected by the messages they receive from others. It is not in a student’s interest to see intelligence as unchanging, because this student will not feel comfortable taking academic risks to acquire new knowledge. (pp. 182-184) Willingham charges teachers with ensuring that children work in an environment where students are praised for effort over achievement, where failure is seen as simply a part of the learning process, and where regular, ongoing practice is seen as the norm (pp. 184-187). ======

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As a capstone to the book, Willingham reminds us that educators’ minds are no different than the minds of their learners, and that teaching is a cognitive skill that, like any other, requires ongoing practice to develop and refine. (p. 189) He clarifies the differences between simply engaging in an activity and practicing that activity, and cites the presence of intentionality and feedback as factors that separate one from the other. (p. 195) He particularly highlights the need for taping actual instruction, critically analyzing the results, and soliciting feedback from a partner teacher. (pp. 196-199) The final piece becomes applying new insights and ideas in the classroom, and creating a cycle of ongoing analysis and application. This process is time-consuming and challenging, by Willingham’s own admission, but stands as an investment in teacher-craft. (p. 203) ======

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The overarching message of “Why Don’t Students Like School?” relates the science of the mind to the practices of the classroom. Willingham’s ideas fly in the face of what many educators hear in college, professional development, and the teacher’s lounge. And yet, his principles meet criteria that show them to be reflective of long-standing, well-researched standards in cognitive science. (pp. 211-212) While the classroom holds many components of learning; the social, the emotional, and the motivational; the cognitive component has finite guidelines that can, and should, govern teaching principles. “Education makes better minds,” Willingham says, “and knowledge of the mind can make better education” (p. 213) ====== =Works Cited= Texas State Board of Education. (2009). // Chapter 112. Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Science. // Retrieved June 16, 2010, from Texas Education Agency: http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/teks/112-001n.htm#112.7 Willingham, D. (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: Jossey-Bass.