Students are naturally curious but not naturally good thinkers. Their brains try to avoid thought. Successful thinking relies on information from the environment, facts and procedures stored in long-term memory, and the limited capacity of working memory. Classrooms need to ensure they present problems that can actually be solved, clarify the problems, reconsider when puzzling students is appropriate, and change pace.

1. Why Don’t Students Like School? An exploration of Daniel Willingham’s book

2. People are naturally curious, but we are not naturally good thinkers.

3. Our brains try and AVOID thought

4. For Example: Try This In an empty room are a candle, some matches, and a box of tacks. The goal is to have the lit candle about five feet off the ground. You’ve tried melting some of the wax on the bottom of the candle and sticking it to the wall, but it wasn’t effective. How can you get the lit candle five feet off the ground without having to hold it there?

5. If we’re so bad at thinking, How do we get through the day?

6. And yet, we ENJOY thinking

7. Why are many people fascinated by the problem on the left, but very few will work on the one of the right? Fill the 9 X 9 Grid so each column and row contain the digits 1-9 Prove that the midpoint of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equidistant from the vertices of the triangle

8. How Thinking Works Environment WORKING MEMORY (site of awareness and thinking) LONG TERM MEMORY (factual knowledge and procedural knowledge?

9. For Example: 18 x 7 LONG TERM MEMORY Environment WORKING MEMORY (rules, board with current position, etc) Multiply 8 and 7 Retrieve the fact that 8x7=56 from long term memory Remember that 6 is part of the solution, then carry 5 Multiply 7 and 1 Retrieve fact: 7x1=7 Add carried 5 to 7 Retrieve 5+7=12 Put 12 down, append the 6 Answer: 126

10. Successful thinking relies on: Information from the environment Facts in the long-term memory Procedures in long-term memory And the amount of space in the working memory. If any of these factors is inadequate, thinking will likely fail.

11. Classroom implications

12. Be sure that there are problems that can be solved

13. Clarify the Problems to be Solved

14. Reconsider when to puzzle students

15. Change the Pace

16. Background Information Daniel Willingham is a cognitive scientist who explores some key questions about education. This presentation deals with the question “Why don’t students like school?” – Chapter 1 in the book. All images are part of the creative commons and used accordingly.