I joined an online discussion about Why Don’t Students Like School. Below is the initial post of the moderator Scott McLeod. As usual I’m interested in any thoughts you might have, especially about the last part of the post. I’ll post more from chapter two soon.
McLeod writes:
"I’m kicking off the conversation with a post about each of our first two chapters. Remember that you can post as well as comment (just log in and enter the Dashboard; instructions how are here). Please do so. Otherwise you’re all just responding to me. That’s not a book club!
Willingham says that people are naturally curious, but curiosity is fragile. (p. 7) He also says that the pleasure is in the solving of the problem (p. 8) and that working on problems of the right level of difficulty is rewarding, but working on problems that are too easy or too difficult is unpleasant. (p. 10) His recommendations, which are based on a large body of cognitive psychology research, are that teachers make sure that there are problems to be solved and make those problems interesting to students (pp. 15–16).
Worksheets … and end-of-chapter questions … and doing 50 practice problems despite having the concept down after 5 … and sitting passively for long periods of time while teachers or other students talk … and (insert other common classroom activities here) … aren’t these all in direct violation of these basic cognitive principles that Willingham outlines here in Chapter 1? And, if so, why are these so prevalent in our classrooms and what do we do about it?"
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