Saturday, November 6, 2010

Chapter 2: How Can I Teach Students Skills They Need When Standardized Tests Require Only Facts?

The chapter starts out with the concerns from teachers about the time factor in teaching skills and preparing for standardized tests. Is fact learning useful or useless? Willingham states that the cognitive principal guiding the chapter is, “Factual knowledge must precede skill.” (pg. 25) He gives examples where having background knowledge on a topic allows the student to learn and remember more taught about that topic. He discusses how background knowledge is stored in long-term memory which aids in critical thinking processes such as reasoning and problem solving. (. 28) He then goes on to talk about how working memory, which has a limited capacity, can keep more stuff it in it by “chunking” together separate pieces of information from the environment. He demonstrates this with examples such as how the letters F B and I can be remembered better if chunked together as FBI. He says, “. . . background knowledge allows chunking, which makes more room in working memory, which makes it easier to relate ideas, and therefore to comprehend.” (p. 35) I agree with his statement, “. . . comprehension depends on background knowledge, and that’s where kids from privileged homes have an edge. They come to school with a bigger vocabulary and more knowledge about the world than underprivileged kids. And because knowing things makes it easier to learn new things, the gap between privileged and underprivileged kids widens.”(p. 37) I see this as a growing concern in our district. We have an increased number of students coming to school each year from lower economic families. He ends the chapter with the following suggestions for helping children learn background knowledge to aid in making cognitive processes work better:

· Be sure that the knowledge base is mostly in place when you require critical thinking,

· Shallow knowledge is better than no knowledge.

· Do whatever you can to get kids to read.

· Knowledge acquisition can be incidental.

· Start early with knowledge.

· Knowledge must be meaningful.

4 comments:

  1. I'm glad you brought up the point about the gap between the privileged and the underprivileged. I see this a big concern in our district as well. Don't get me wrong, I don't think we necessarily have to go back to the grouping of "sharks", "minnows", and "goldfish" but when the gaps are becoming so significant how do these students ever get caught up? When do they (we)go back and fill in those gaps?

    I also liked the reference Willingham made about the baseball stories. He explained that the students that knew something about baseball had a better comprehension of a baseball story than a student who didn't have the prior knowledge. I feel like this is something I face almost daily as a math teacher. For example, if they aren't coming to me with prior knowledge of multiplication then division will be a nightmare for them. Again, the gap just widens.

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  2. I'm sure by the middle school and high school years the students' gaps are enormous. The best place to address these gaps of background knowledge really do need to be in the early years of the students. That is why I think programs such as Parents As Teachers and Head Start are so important.

    Sorry about the teeny, tiny font on my post. I'm having issues with my copy/paste from Word to the Post. I hope you had a magnifying glass to read it!
    Carol

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  3. I too was interested in the gaps between learners. I found myself having a sense of urgency to do major interventions for my lower children, wondering what needs to be done to help to close the gap between our learners. I thought it was amazing a sad at the same time when he said that children who understand will gain so much more understanding and those that do not get further behind. "the rich get richer"

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  4. I previously taught eighth grade and by then the gaps are very noticable. I now teach fifth grade, and I try to work on ways to minimize these gaps; but prior knowledge can be a hard thing to manage. During a common noun and proper noun lesson I had a student express concerns about capitalizing Kentucky, because should a food be capitalized? He did not realize Kentucky was a state, rather he was sure it was just a type of chicken. It is very difficult to jump those types of barriers.

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