Animoto by Damon Lange

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Animoto

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Animoto

I was drawn to this book because of the title, Why Don’t Students Like School? In the grade level that I teach, 2nd grade, students love to be at school. That doesn’t always mean they love learning. Most are still excited about learning, but by the middle of the year the students that are struggling with learning start showing signs of not being as excited to be in school. I was hoping the book would help me understand the reasons why they don’t like school. What stands out in my mind most from reading the book is that background knowledge is critical for students to be good thinkers. Students who don’t have many opportunities to build background knowledge before they enter school begin their education are at a disadvantage from those whose families do provide these opportunities. I enjoyed the information on working memory and long-term memory. I talked with my young students the other morning about how reading frequently used words over and over helps put these words into our long-term memory so that we can automatically remember them whenever we read. They appeared to kind of understand what I was trying to tell them. I think if teachers talked more with students about their thinking they would start thinking more about their own thinking. I am sure I will refer to this book in the future. I enjoyed it very much.

Reflection

The section of the book that stands out to me is the importance of balance between learning facts and comprehension and analysis of those facts. I think it is very important to a history teacher to have that balance. When I went to high school over 20 years ago, the teachers were more about giving the facts and making sure we got through the material. I struggled with this when I got into college and the tests were essay questions asking for my analysis of a time in history. It took a while for me to adapt to this and become a "B" writer. my goal as a history teacher would be to have that balance of making sure that students have the facts of a time in history and class discussions, journal posts, etc. to make sure that students understand why it happened and what effect it had in later years. That means I will not be able to give as much detail as the teachers I had in high school. My students will not have as many notes as I had to take. But, I believe that my students will have a better understanding of history and maybe have a bigger interest in the subject.

Final Reflection

Final Reflection of: Why Don’t Students Like School? By Daniel T. Willingham

The nine principles of the mind discussed in this book re-enforce what we do as teachers. We as teachers need to continue to build upon what we already know, and what the teacher before us has done so we give our students the best possible chance at being successful.

One thing I have always tried to stress and demonstrate in my classroom is a good work ethic and Willingham states in the cognitive principle: Children do differ in intelligence, but intelligence can be changed through sustained hard work. (pg 170) As teachers we need model a good work ethic, show how to gain knowledge by sharing experiences, have focused classroom discussions, teach study skills, and most importantly be persistent in expecting good effort in the classroom and make sure we praise their effort. I tell all my students that I teach and all my athletes that I coach that if you can work hard and put forth the effort you will go a long ways.

I found this book to be a positive experience. It was good to be refreshed with strategies that can be used with all students and in any grade level. It was a good read and made me want to try and improve my teaching each and every day.

Denise McCormick's Animoto

Final Reflection

As I reflect over the content of this book, the big idea seems to be the capacity of our working memory and how we can alter or use it most efficiently. Willingham offers wonderful information as well as useful examples that help to explain his cognitive principles.

It is exciting to know that children (and teachers) can always improve themselves by working hard. This is a principle that I teach to my students every year. It is nice to see some research to support what I already knew to be true.

I love the quote "Teaching is an act of persuasion". More and more I am hearing people complain about how kids do not want to learn and they will not do any work. I believe that all children want to learn, but we do not always persuade them to do so. You have to "Know your Audience" as individuals. They are all so unique and have so much to offer if we can just tap into how they work best.

This year I have a student teacher in my classroom and it interesting to watch her interact with the students. Sometimes I wonder why she is not seeing a child's behavior or why she is not reacting to it the way that I would. What Willingham discussed in Chapter 6 about how novices and experts think differently because of what they can do in their working memories made a lot of sense. She is very knowledgeable of content, but watching her try to put that knowledge into practice is sometimes frustrating to her as she thinks she should be able to apply it more effectively. It is great for me to be able to share quotes from this book to help her be more patient with her continued learning. As Willingham also tells us that we need to continue to practice to improve on skills.

I like the suggestions at the end of the book about videotaping our learning and then having a partner to share feedback with to better ourselves as teachers. My student teacher had to videotape herself teaching a lesson last semester and I felt bad for her because I viewed it as being so scary to watch myself. But after reading this last chapter I think I will continue to use it as a teaching tool and modeling to her of what a good reflective teacher does. She can give feedback to me as well as me to her.

I am so glad that I had a chance to read this book. It has provided me with some great insights as a teacher of children, but also as a mentor to my student teacher.

Final Reflection

I felt like the book was a reminder of things we probably all know. The hard part is remembering to continually practice these things and not fall into a comfort zone. It is hard to remember sometimes that students, just like adults, are more likely to remember things that emotionally affected them. It is easier to say, "We went over this, and then we practiced it, and they still can't remember!" Background knowledge was an important section in the book too. It really made me think of standardized tests and how hard they must be for students who don't have a lot of world experience. I think, however, the most important thing to take away from the book is that students don't like school because of the way it is often presented to them. All to often, it doesn't fit into their schema, it doens't appeal to their emotions, and it doesn't engage them the way they want. Furthermore, the author drives this point home in the final section where he asks all teachers to reflect more on themselves and how they are teaching. The book truly was a lesson in practicing, reflecting, and improving your teaching methods every day using science and statistics.

Section 6, Chapter 9: What about my mind?

In chapter nine, Willingham addresses the teacher as a learner and his or her impacts on students. He begins by restating a key principle that if you wish to improve you must practice. Willingham writes, "Teaching, like any complex cognitive skill, must be practiced to be improved." With that he reviews the idea that for memory to be effectively used you must first have sufficient room in your working memory, but you must also have the right factual and procedural knowledge in your long term memory. He then makes the connection that to be an effective teacher you must be able to balance information between working memory and procedural knowledge. For example, procedures such as handing out papers falls under the stored procedures in your long term memory. Other items like pedagogical knowledge are classified as important as well. Willingham asserts, however, that this knowledge is not truly useful if you do not use your memory to improve and practice your teaching.

The rest of the chapter tackles ways to use memory to practice and become more a more effective educator in the classroom. He stresses again that it is virtually impossible to become proficient at a mental task without extended practice. To practice he suggests a variety of tasks. All of the tasks require personal and outside feedback. He suggests to first find a partner you feel comfortable working with. After finding that partner, he suggests taping yourself teaching. Watch the tape alone and give yourself feedback about what surprises you, what you didn't already know about your class, and yourself. Willingham suggests that you should watch tapes of other teachers together with your partner. After watching other teachers, take the time to comment to one another about what you viewed. After becoming comfortable with your partner, he suggests you watch each others tapes. Finally, Willingham asks that you bring the comments back into your classroom and follow up. One of his last sections asks that you always try to improve and make a conscious effort to continue practicing at being a teacher.

Final Reflection

Why Don’t Students Like School – Final Reflection

To be honest, my first thought about this book was that there were a lot of studies shared with us and it made it all a bit overwhelming. However, there were key concepts that I picked out that I feel I can take to my classroom.

• Accept and Act on Variation in Student Preparation – Students come to us with all sorts of different backgrounds and levels of preparedness. As professionals, we need to recognize this and modify as necessary.
• Change the Pace – I get stuck in a routine and I get stuck that we have to keep moving on. I need to remember that I need to switch it up to engage my students and to speed up or slow down based on their needs.
• We Remember Better when Things have Meaning – Sometimes I wonder why we need to know all of this math I can only imagine what students are thinking. I need to improve on creating final projects that will help put meaning to all of this math.
• Background Knowledge – I can’t assume that students are coming to me knowing how to do all the necessary skills. I need to assess that background knowledge before introducing new skills.
• Practice – I need to encourage my students to practice the basic skills to put it in their mental ability to make room for more challenging lessons. Stress that it will help them to reinforce skills, helps them to not forget, and improves transfer.
• Classroom Environment – I loved the analogy that Willingham gave with the TV show House. He talked about all the mistakes Dr. House makes in an episode to get to the right answer. I need to create that environment in my classroom.
• Slow Learners – I need to practice the advice Willingham gave us to help the slow learners. It was a great reminder that the gap won’t be closed overnight but that it takes hard work on everyone’s part (especially the student) to close that gap.
• Keep a Teaching Diary – This would be a great challenge for me to do, but overall I believe that this would help me to become a better teacher.

Denise McCormick's Blabber

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Section 5 - Chapter 8 - How Can I Help Slow Learners?

Willingham starts off the chapter with the million dollar question: “How can school be optimized for students who don’t have the raw intelligence that other students have?” The chapter is then written with the principle that “children do differ in intelligence, but intelligence can be changed through sustained hard work.”

Willingham explains the theories of what makes people intelligent. It comes back to the old debate of nature (genetic) vs. nurture (experience). Willingham explains that the thought process in the past was that it was probably both, but mostly genetic. In recent years, that has changed to both, but mostly environmental. He shared some of the results from many tests done on both identical and fraternal twins. It was determined that “genetics seems to play a huge role in general intelligence; that is, our genes seem to be responsible for something like 50 percent of our smarts.” Other aspects were that when twins were separated and placed in a home with greater means, the intelligence level increased but the effect was usually small. He goes on to share a study done in 1982 where intelligence scores went up 21 IQ points. They realized that this had to be more environmental than genetics because a genetic pool doesn’t change that quickly. However, this still didn’t fit with the results from the twins study. He gave the example of twins that were separated but genetically tall. Because of their genetics, there was an interest in basketball for both of them. In both cases, each twin asked parents for basketball things. As a result, they practiced and both of their skills improved. It was concluded that their genetics led them to an environment that included basketball. “Genetic effects can make you seek out or select different environments.” “The key idea here is that genetics and the environment interact. Small differences in genetic inheritance can steer people to seek different experiences in their environments, and it is differences in these environmental experiences, especially over the long term, that have large cognitive consequences.”

Willingham believes that “intelligence can be changed.” He is quick to point out that this isn’t something that can be fixed quickly, but rather over time. He then concludes the chapter with things that we can do in our classroom to help the slow learners.
• Praise Effort, Not Ability - He encourages us to encourage them that intelligence is under their control and can be increased by hard work. He cautions us about dishonest praise.
• Tell Them That Hard Work Pays Off – We need to remind students that the students who do well in school are the ones that work hard and put forth the effort.
• Treat Failure as a Natural Part of Learning – We need to create an environment in our classrooms that makes it ok for students to fail and to teach them that by failing, they are ready to learn.
• Don’t Take Study Skills for Granted – We need to remember that as students continue in their education and that things become more independent that they may not know how to study or manage their time.
• Catching Up is the Long-Term Goal – Remind them that to catch up they must work harder than the brighter students. It is also wise to set up goals that they can reach in a shorter amount of time and to get the help of parents.
• Show Students That You Have Confidence in Them – Set high standards and then praise them when those standards are met. When we praise work that isn’t up to par, we lower our standards for them.

Section Four Summary

“What’s the Secret to Getting Students to Think Like Real Scientists, Mathematicians, and Historians?”
According to Willington, they are unable to.

He explains in this chapter that “Experts” have a very different way of using their cognition then do “Novices”. When novices are compared to experts, experts have extensive background knowledge that they can use to access the “right” information from long-term memory efficiently, they can transfer what they know to similar situations, and they can solve problems in a reasonable way. The novices have similar background knowledge to the expert, but lack the ability to access it as readily, they are unable to transfer their knowledge to similar situations, and they lack the reasoning necessary to solve problems. He says that experts are able to think abstractly because they are automatic at the things that they have practiced; where as novices can only think at the surface level because they still need to think about everything they are doing. He goes on to say that while novices are using their working memory to think about what to do experts are using their working memory to talk to themselves, thinking about their own understanding and what they can do to make things better.

He says to improve your working memory you have to increase background knowledge and practice time. Researchers have agreed on the ten year rule to be considered an expert, but once you are considered an expert you will only maintain it if you continue to learn and practice. He says that it is important to remember that no one is an expert right away and quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Every artist was once an amateur.”

He talked about how novices (our students) are unable to create new information because of their deficit in thinking abstractly. So he feels that although the creativeness of projects is not successful that creative projects do seem to motivate students. He thinks that “knowledge comprehension” is more likely to be where students are able to be successful thinkers. This makes me wonder what he would think about the revised or original “Bloom’s Taxonomy”.

In chapter 7, Willingham discusses the differentiation of learners that teachers sometimes use talking about cognitive styles versus cognitive ability. He defined cognitive ability as the types of thinking, and cognitive styles as thinking in a certain way. He concluded that the differences between the two don’t matter to teaching.

He gave many examples around the visual-auditory-kinesthetic learner concluding once again that these styles do not mean much to the teacher. He says that children will have a tendency to have stronger visual and auditory memories, but not necessarily that they will learn better by having things presented in a certain way. He does admit that presenting content in different styles throughout the lesson refocuses their attention and therefore makes it more interesting to students.

He states that although differentiation is good and necessary in the classroom, scientists are not able to offer any research as to how to categorize students or what instruction would best suited to each category. He recommends that teachers know best in how to do this in their classrooms.

I thought his comment about not telling a student that he/she is smart was interesting. That he says it will actually make them less smart. I agree with him and have some thoughts as to why this may be true, but I wonder what the research behind it might be?

Section Three Summary

The beginning of section three the author starts by talking about memory and memory that lasts. He talks about his high school Geometry class and how much of the material that he has forgotten over the years. The author then talks about research that has been done about studying for tests. He talks about cramming for tests as opposed to studying in shorter increments over a period of several days. The research showed that cramming helped a student do well on a test, but they didn't remember it as long as the student that studied in shorter increments.
The author then talks about solving problems. People who practice math regularly are more likely to remember freshman algebra better than those who do not. Engineers are more likely to remember their old freshman Algebra problems, even though they are doing much more complicated math at work. The more this person practices doing math, the better that person can transfer that information to another problem, and have a better chance to solve that problem.
The author says that students that are more motivated to learn will be able to retain that information for a longer time and increase that opportunity of that learning tranferring to new situations.
Chapter 6 talks about the difference between teaching students facts and information and teaching them to think beyond just the facts and think about why things happen. The author talks about getting students to take information and process it to solve problems. To thinks like mathematicians, scientists, and historians.
The author talks about adjusting teaching styles for different types of learners. The author claims that although all students have different interests and abilities, most students share the same learning style.