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Friday, May 20, 2011

Can't Believe It Took Me this Long to Discover Willingham

I've just discovered the work of Daniel Willingham and am finding it to be so relevant and helpful, not to mention seeing examples of "inflexible knowledge" everywhere I look.

Check out the comments in this post for real life examples of "inflexible knowledge" from an SAT tutor.

And Catherine's post about the woman who calls 911 because she can't figure out how to open her car door is worth reposting.

9 comments:

  1. Dan Willingham's book "Why Don't Students Like School?" was an amazing insight into cognitive psychology in the classroom. You don't need to be a scientist to understand it. It is simply the most useful, accessible book I've found in years.

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  2. Catherine, have you seen this EdWeek article?

    http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/05/11/30report-2.h30.html

    "Content Coverage Differences Across Districts/States: A Persisting Challenge for U.S. Education Policy"

    U.S. students typically encounter easier math curricula than those in many other nations, a new study finds, with wide differences also seen across...


    I don't have a subscription, but if you do, you might be interested in blogging it.

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  3. "Inflexibility of knowledge"

    Reminds me of a video I saw in a teaching workshop. Harvard graduates can't describe why there are seasons and why there are phases of the moon.

    http://www.learner.org/resources/series28.html?pop=yes&pid=9

    --Bill

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  4. Thanks Hainish!

    Is that a story on William Schmidt's new article?

    If so, I tried to pull the original and found it's not in the NYU online library.

    Going to look at it now.

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  5. Shoot - yes, that's the one & I still can't get it unless I want to pay $14 to read it.

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  6. I re-read Willingham's book every year, usually right about at the end of school. I'm doing so now. I also make sure to re-read most of the articles on his website. It's like comfort food for me, as a teacher.

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  7. wow!

    I need to go back and re-read...

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  8. we do engineering for industry rather than a government agency.

    right - I knew that

    My question wasn't clear

    I'm probably asking what engineers do!

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