9 Cognitive Principles and How they Impact Teaching

From Why don’t students like school? here are some good pointers.  They don’t really do the book justice, but hey…

Cognitive Principle Required Knowledge about Students Most important classroom implication
1. People are naturally curious but they are not naturally good thinkers What is just beyond what my students can know and do? Think of to-be-learned material as answers, and take the time necessary to explain to the students the questions
2. Factual knowledge precedes skill. What do my students know? It is not possible to think well on a topic in the absence of factual knowledge about the topic.
3. Memory is the residue of thought What will students think during this lesson? The best barometer of every lesson plan is “Of what will it make the students think?”
4. We understand new things in the context of things we already know. What do students already know that will be a toehold to understanding this new material? Always make deep knowledge your goal, spoken and unspoken, but recognise that shallow knowledge comes first.
5. Proficiency requires practice How can I get students to practise without boredom? Think carefully about which material students need at their fingertips and practice it over time.
6. Cognition is fundamentally different early and late in training What is the difference between my students and an expert? Strive for deep understanding in your students, not the creation of new knowledge.
7. Children are more alike than different in terms of learning. Knowledge of students’ learning styles is not necessary Think of lesson content, not student differences, driving decisions about how to teach.
8. Intelligence can be changed through sustained hard work. What do my students believe about intelligence? Always talk about successes and failures in terms of effort, not ability.
9. Teaching, like any complex cognitive skill, must be practised to be improved. What aspects of my teaching work well for my students and what parts need improvement? Improvement requires more than experience; it also requires conscious effort and feedback.
May 26th 2009 | * Comments(2) | Notes on


Declining female happiness

[via Noah].  The NBER spot a possible problem with “progress”.

By many objective measures the lives of women in the United States have improved over the past 35 years, yet we show that measures of subjective well-being indicate that women’s happiness has declined both absolutely and relative to men. The paradox of women’s declining relative well-being is found across various datasets, measures of subjective well-being, and is pervasive across demographic groups and industrialized countries. Relative declines in female happiness have eroded a gender gap in happiness in which women in the 1970s typically reported higher subjective well-being than did men. These declines have continued and a new gender gap is emerging — one with higher subjective well-being for men.

May 23rd 2009 | Comments(0) | Notes on


The Pursuit of Happiness

Interesting article over at Atlantic with a really rather beautiful conclusion.

“The project is one of the longest-running—and probably the most exhaustive—longitudinal studies of mental and physical well-being in history. Begun in 1937 as a study of healthy, well-adjusted Harvard sophomores (all male), it has followed its subjects for more than 70 years.

From their days of bull sessions in Cambridge to their active duty in World War II, through marriages and divorces, professional advancement and collapse—and now well into retirement—the men have submitted to regular medical exams, taken psychological tests, returned questionnaires, and sat for interviews. The files holding the data are as thick as unabridged dictionaries.”

And the lead researcher, Geroge Vaillant’s conclusion, based on this exhaustive research?

“Happiness isn’t about me.  Try being funny.  Try falling in love.  Try forgiving someone … Happiness is love.  Full stop.”

May 20th 2009 | Comments(0) | Notes on


Always nice

… when a friend gets on TV.  However undeservedly.  John, my thoughts are with you

May 20th 2009 | Comments(0) | Life on


Students should not be the driving force of lesson planning

From Daniel Willingham’s excellent “Why Don’t Students like School?” (which I suspect I’ll be quoting more from):

I’ve always been bothered by the advice “make it relevant to the students", for two reasons.  First, it often feels to me that it doesn;t apply.  Is the Epic of Gilgamesh relevant to the students in any way they understand right now?  Is trigonometry?  Making these topics relevant to students’ lives will be a strain, and students will probably think it’s phony.  Second, if I can;t convince students that some material is relevant, does that mean I shouldn’t teach it?  If I’m continually trying to build bridges between students’ daily lives and their school subjects, the students may get the message that school is always about them, whereas I think their is value, interest and beauty in learning about things that don’t have much to do with me.  What I’m suggesting is that students should not be the main force of lesson planning.  Rather, they might be used as initial points of contact that help students understand the main ideas you want them to consider, rather than as the reason or motivation for them to consider these ideas.

May 18th 2009 | Comments(0) | Notes on


The TED Commandments

I enjoy the talks over at TED. Tim has kindly transcribed the TED Commandments, the rules that every  speaker needs to follow

  1. Thou Shalt Not Simply Trot Out thy Usual Shtick
  2. Thou Shalt Dream a Great Dream, or Show Forth a Wondrous New Thing, Or Share Something Thou Hast Never Shared Before
  3. Thou Shalt Reveal thy Curiosity and Thy Passion
  4. Thou Shalt Tell a Story
  5. Thou Shalt Freely Comment on the Utterances of Other Speakers for the Sake of Blessed Connection and Exquisite Controversy
  6. Thou Shalt Not Flaunt thine Ego. Be Thou Vulnerable. Speak of thy Failure as well as thy Success.
  7. Thou Shalt Not Sell from the Stage: Neither thy Company, thy Goods, thy Writings, nor thy Desparate need for Funding; Lest Thou be Cast Aside into Outer Darkness.
  8. Thou Shalt Remember all the while: Laughter is Good.
  9. Thou Shalt Not Read thy Speech.
  10. Thou Shalt Not Steal the Time of Them that Follow Thee
May 12th 2009 | Comments(0) | Notes on