How To Get Students Thinking - E110

This week, we are starting a new book talk series! We are chatting about our learning and reflections on chapter 1 from Daniel Willingham's book, Why Don't Students Like School? There are lots of great brain-based and scientifically-backed ideas for your classroom in this book! 

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Featured Content
**For detailed show notes, please visit our website at https://edugals.com/110**

• Why Don't Students Like School by Daniel Willingham
• More Info about Daniel Willingham (cognitive scientist)
• Chapter 1: Why Don't Students Like School
• Guiding principle: "people are naturally curious, but we are not naturally good thinkers; unless the cognitive conditions are right, we will avoid thinking"
• We mostly do things on auto-pilot and relies on our memory; very little is true thinking
• What is thinking? It is taking information from the environment and long-term memory (facts and procedures) and bringing them together into working memory to combine the ideas in new ways
• Thinking tasks need to be challenging enough to engage but not so challenging that it causes frustration
• Connections to Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics by Peter Liljedahl
• Differentiation, mastery-based learning = engagement!
• Gaps in background knowledge (facts and procedures) can limit engagement in thinking tasks
• Background knowledge is key - Googling takes way too long and distracts from the problem-solving process
• Implications for the classroom:
  • Be sure that there are problems to be solved
  • Respect students' cognitive limits
  • Clarifying the problems to be solved
  • Reconsider when to puzzle students
  • Accept and act on variation in student preparation
  • Change the pace
  • Keep a diary

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