After reading Why Students Don't Like School, the author Daniel T. Willingham is currently a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia. He has long studied the learning and memory mechanism of the brain, and paid special attention to the application of this subject in the field of basic education. This book is a teaching reference book for primary and secondary school teachers. Its purpose is to help teachers understand the human thinking mechanism and make better teaching plans accordingly. Some conclusions in the book are consistent with our experience or intuition, while others are the opposite. But all the arguments are based on the scientific research of the author himself and other cognitive scientists, so they deserve to be taken seriously.
The author divides the book into nine chapters, and each chapter expounds a clear cognitive conclusion. Among these conclusions, I think the most important ones should be the following three:
First, human beings are not good at thinking.
Don't get me wrong, if compared horizontally, human beings are definitely the most thoughtful animals. What is said here is that although human beings have the largest brains of all animals, most of them are not used for thinking. In the long history of brain evolution (hundreds of millions of years), the history of brain evolving rational ability is only a trivial point (hundreds of thousands of years? )。 Compared with logical and rational thinking, human beings are better at dealing with the stimulation of sensory signals. So this explains why students don't like going to school, because it is human nature to seek advantages and avoid disadvantages, and learning and thinking are inherently difficult and painful. In fact, people should be curious about why humans have evolved the ability to think and are willing to think in many cases. According to the author's conclusion, curiosity is the main driving factor of thinking, and the sense of accomplishment gained by thinking and answering questions can also make up for the pain we feel when thinking.
Inference: Learning goals can only be achieved through hard work. At the age of 26, Leibniz was still a jurist engaged in diplomatic work. He embarked on the road of inventing calculus because a mathematician friend gave him a problem to calculate (1+1/3+1/6+11/. Leibniz solved the problem with layman's intuition. But if the question is too difficult or too easy, I'm afraid it can't ignite his passionate enthusiasm for mathematics.
Second, if you want to avoid the pain of thinking, you must think more.
After all, pain is not what I want. How can we avoid the pain of thinking and enjoy the fruits of thinking as much as possible? This has to start with the mechanism of thinking. The author divides the factors related to thinking into external environment, working memory and long-term memory. When thinking, people mainly use working memory to get information from the external environment and long-term memory, and then process it. The capacity of ordinary people's working memory is very limited and it is difficult to expand it. For example, most people will find it difficult to multiply two digits (34*76 or something) in their lives. In contrast, long-term memory can be greatly expanded. For example, a child who has just started to learn addition can only count his fingers because there is no relevant information in his long-term memory. But most adults can casually say the answers to single-digit addition and subtraction operations, because they have carved the relevant answers into long-term memory through many exercises. The thinking process of entering working memory many times will enter long-term memory and be accepted as a whole. In this way, when similar problems occur in the future, the human brain will directly retrieve the results without repeating the thinking process. In this way, people can save limited working memory space. There are not only knowledge points, but also internal laws in long-term memory. When dealing with new problems that have not been remembered, people with long-term memory-related experience can easily find internal laws through some superficial phenomena, which is also an important aspect of improving thinking ability. In short, from common skills such as oral English, arithmetic, driving and typing to profound fields such as writing, performance, gymnastics and scientific research, the key to improving the level is one: practice makes perfect.
Inference: A lot of repeated practice is the only way to learn, and there is no shortcut. Of course, there are some skills in practice. For example, the effect of intensive continuous learning is not very good. If you spread the same study time over a longer period of time, after the first study, you will review it every few days, and your memory will be deeper.
Third, intelligence is not only born, but also acquired through hard work.
Generally speaking, we all know that intelligence level consists of two factors: congenital (gene) and acquired (education, nutrition and environment). Previous research results tend to think that congenital factors are the main factors, supplemented by acquired factors. However, recent studies increasingly show the importance of acquired factors. Perhaps it is more appropriate to say that genes will affect the direction of intellectual development in the initial state, but the degree of development depends more on acquired factors. A research result listed in the book shows that professional piano players spend an average of 50% more time practicing than ordinary piano teachers. But the practice time of first-class and second-class players is similar. In other words, a genius must be diligent. Diligence may not make a genius, but at least it can make a talent.
Inference: Praising others for their cleverness will only make them stupid. This is because, traditionally, we are used to thinking that IQ is innate, so we think that intelligence is fixed. People who are praised as smart are often smart, so they are often afraid of failure and avoid challenges. It is the challenges that may fail that make us think, so we may add more things to our long-term memory. Therefore, the author suggests that praise for cleverness should be changed to praise for hard work. No matter who does well or not, praising his efforts will encourage him to do better.
I met some confusion in the process of educating children, so I read this book. After reading it, I found it very helpful to myself. Is to remember.
Supplement: Teach students in accordance with their aptitude, not in accordance with their aptitude.
People's cognitive differences can be defined as two kinds: differences in cognitive ability and differences in cognitive style. The difference of cognitive ability determines people's learning efficiency, and the difference of cognitive style means that people may prefer different cognitive or learning styles, for example, some people like listening and some people like watching. The difference between ability and style lies in superior ability and inferior style. A large number of scientists try to identify people's cognitive style and teach according to this style, hoping to achieve better teaching results. But they got almost nothing. On the contrary, some studies have found that if we choose specific cognitive means according to the content of teaching rather than the students being taught, it will have better results. For example, you should always listen when learning a language, always watch when learning painting, always reason when learning geometry, and always feel when learning poetry. Therefore, although teaching different students should set different goals, there is no need to adopt different methods.
Reflections on why students don't like going to school 2. Why students don't like going to school? Willingham, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, is an important work of educational psychology, which is welcomed by students and teachers.
In the eyes of many parents in China, whether children like school or not is related to whether children are smart. Smart children are not difficult to learn, and naturally they are not afraid of going to school. In the author's view, "there are too many factors that affect children's learning process: nutrition, family environment, cultural background, etc." Of course, it also includes intelligence. Using the principles of cognitive psychology, the author analyzes in detail the learning process of students and some problems that teachers must pay attention to in classroom teaching. Every chapter in the book uses a basic principle of cognitive psychology. When reading this book, the first thing that comes to mind is that students don't like going to school. This is not a problem for China students, but a universal problem. Therefore, this book has universal guiding significance. This book lists many novel ideas:
At the beginning of this book, the author puts forward an amazing conclusion: the brain is not used for thinking, but its real function is to make you avoid thinking. In the author's opinion, thinking is slow, not as fast as our eyes capture information; Secondly, thinking is laborious, because thinking requires concentration; Finally, thinking is unreliable, and it is very likely that you will not get a positive solution after thinking. Since the main function of the brain is not thinking, we like thinking.
According to the author's theory, students like to think, but what they want to think must be what they are interested in. Students' thinking is based on their fragile curiosity. If a student is curious about a problem, it will prompt him to further explore the content behind the problem. But students' curiosity is very fragile, and we need to protect it. How to protect students' innate curiosity and make them think? The author points out that whether students like school or not depends largely on whether the school can continuously let students experience the fun of solving problems. Teachers should be able to give students positive encouragement in their studies. At the same time, the difficulty of the question is also related to whether the students' curiosity can last. From the perspective of cognitive psychology, solving problems that are too simple or too complicated will easily make students feel tired of learning. The key to keep learning interest is to let students solve difficult and appropriate problems. Therefore, teachers should be able to meet the students' cognitive level, which means that the questions we give students should not be too simple, so that they are not interested in thinking, nor too difficult, so that they lose confidence in thinking.
In the third chapter of the book, the author mentioned that a good teacher should be able to "make the class interesting" and make students think meaningfully. I have a little experience about this. At work, in order to attract students to listen to my class, I will list many cases and fresh stories in class. Creating problem situations is the idea put forward by the new curriculum. So I almost always give an example or create a situation when I talk about a problem. I thought these interesting examples would make students listen carefully, but in fact, students pay more attention to the stories I listed and are indifferent to the problems. As a result, the students remembered the story, but forgot why they told it, or what inspiration it gave them. In this class, I keep students active, but I can't make them calm down and think seriously. It is meaningless not to give students meaningful thinking in class. In the book, the author suggests that teachers should "use it carefully to catch attention". To make students interested, they should be able to know the stories behind these interesting cases, that is, they should be able to think about all kinds of interesting cases accordingly. At the same time, teachers should be able to think clearly and methodically in teaching, and link the main points of content so that students can understand it, not just memorize it mechanically.
The tactics of asking questions about the sea always bear a bad name. Critics often say that repeated training stifles students' inner motivation to learn. Willingham has proved with a large number of examples that repeated practice can gain and improve your ability. Even if you have mastered a certain ability, no matter how you practice it, you may not be able to improve it significantly. Repeated practice can also bring three other obvious benefits: preparing for learning new skills, preventing forgetting and improving migration. Therefore, it is of positive significance to carry out necessary targeted training for students. Of course, the difficulty of homework should be suitable for students' own problem-solving ability.
Willingham believes that experts are not only knowledgeable, but also innovative, adding new knowledge to this field. For students, the more cautious and practical goal is to understand knowledge. The student may not put forward his own scientific theory, but he can deeply understand the existing theory. The student may not put forward a brand-new view on historical facts, but he can understand the comments written by others. Our goal should be to provide students with some ways for others to innovate knowledge, rather than directly let students innovate knowledge.
Through the study of this book, I have reflected and examined students and myself, which is of positive guiding significance for re-understanding students and teachers. The above is my superficial understanding of several viewpoints in Why Children Don't Like School, and there are still many improper and incomprehensible places in understanding. Please give me your advice.
Reflections on why students don't like going to school 3. Why don't students like going to school? Willingham, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, is an important work of educational psychology, which is very popular among students and teachers. Many ideas in the book are novel and profound. After reading this book recently, I felt a lot.
What impressed me most was that he thought that teaching, like any other complicated cognitive skill, must be improved through practice. Only when this kind of exercise can be programmed can our thinking be efficient. This seems to be in line with the educational viewpoint that we are currently pursuing, and it seems to provide a theoretical support for the tactics of the sea! This doesn't sound like an American point of view. But that's it! Professor Daniel actually wants to tell us that practice is very important, but to improve the efficiency of practice, firstly, feedback is needed, and only timely feedback can improve the quality of practice; Second, we should spend some time on non-target tasks and improve our ability to complete target tasks. For example, if we want to be an excellent teacher, we can't just prepare lessons, attend classes and correct homework. We also need to keep learning, read widely, observe and be observed in class, and discuss with others. To improve our teaching ability; Third, practice in sections, often review the old and learn the new, and avoid surprise, so that the content of the practice can be printed in your mind as a long-term memory, rather than stored in a short time. This also explains from another angle why you may get good grades in the exam by doing a lot of questions suddenly, but all the contents are returned to the teacher after the exam.
Not everything needs constant practice. So, how to improve students' comprehensive ability through effective ways? In this regard, I combine my own practical experience in English teaching and the "three subjects in one" and "new three good" in our school (speaking less is better than talking more, and intensive reading is better; It is better to practice more than to practice less, and it is better to keep improving; Cooperation is better than going it alone.
Practice what?
First, choose intensive exercises and autonomous learning. In teaching, we should choose representative exercises according to students' actual situation and phased learning needs. In addition, students should practice more on the questions with low scoring rate in the usual exams. For example, in the English composition section, students write articles in Chinese because they can't think in English. Now students have a lot of simulation questions in their hands, so it is impossible to do every composition. When I teach students, I show them all kinds of model essays and teach them how to write in different genres. Students' ability will be cultivated day by day.
Second, teachers should pay attention to analysis and induction, give incisive explanations and answers to students' difficult problems, and make students' knowledge system get detailed analysis. Students should pay attention to wrong questions, find out the reasons for doing wrong questions, understand correct answers, and even read or recite the basis of correct answers, so as to effectively correct wrong thinking and cultivate correct English thinking.
Third, according to the existing teaching resources, design rich teaching content to help students improve their comprehensive ability. For example, using English Weekly, we can design different training programs according to the rich content of different pages. Read newspapers, complete related reading comprehension questions, and train students to read; Ask students to make a simple induction after reading the newspaper or adapt the essay into a sketch to train students to express orally; Ask the students to write down their feelings after reading and practice writing. In addition, in addition to the necessary exercises, homework should be related to real life as much as possible.
How to practice
There is no need to concentrate all the exercises on one concept in a short time. In fact, it makes sense to practice scattered. Memory will last longer after scattered practice, and students will have more time to think about how to apply what they have learned. If all the exercises are concentrated, students will guess what they will encounter. Each question must be related to the main idea to be practiced. If you give students a problem a week ago, a month ago or even three months ago, you should think about how to solve it and what knowledge you have may help.
The root of all wisdom lies in memory. The principle of memory changes with time, and the speed of forgetting is very fast within a few days after learning. But after a week, the speed of forgetting slowed down. Therefore, the key to memory is to consolidate review in the most easily forgotten days. Choose the best period of memory, because everyone's situation is different, and you can't draw an absolute conclusion. But mastering time arrangement is the eternal truth to improve memory ability. In order to fight against forgetting, the correct arrangement of review time is to choose the best study period.
First, review in time. Bring back the materials that have been memorized for consolidation. Its physiological basis is to strengthen temporary nerve connection and further consolidate traces. Because forgetting is fast first and then slow, so review must be timely, before forgetting has started on a large scale.
Second, arrange the review reasonably in time and quantity. Experiments show that learning the same content for a relatively concentrated period of time has a good memory effect. But it should also be dispersed appropriately, because the review time is too concentrated and easily disturbed; Too scattered and easy to forget.
Third, alternately allocating time to study can also improve memory. Scientific experiments have proved that it is fast to stimulate brain nerve cells with electric pulses of equal frequency, but once the stimulation time is too long, the response of nerve cells disappears. After a period of rest, the reaction recovered. The same is true of human memory. Madame Curie, a French scientist, once said, "I read several books at the same time, because studying only one thing will make my precious mind tired." Therefore, we must "alternate distribution" to remember.
Basic skills are skills that need to be practiced until they are mastered, but this does not mean that students cannot practice in a higher level environment. Automation needs a lot of practice, and it is wise to disperse the time and environment of practice. Try to design creative methods to practice the most critical skills, and at the same time let students learn basic skills in a higher level environment.
First, classroom situational teaching
High school students spend most of their time in school, and the classroom is their main way to get in touch with English. Therefore, teachers should create various situations in the classroom to stimulate students' interest and make them form English thinking habits. Since 20xx, Hunan Province has started to use Oxford Senior High School English -Advance with English. This set of teaching materials is designed from the perspective of learners. All the contents in the textbook are presented in English, and the selected language materials are close to the times, life and students, with a distinct flavor of the times. In any link of the textbook, students have the opportunity to contact with real and authentic English, which provides students with a certain language environment, and the life-oriented curriculum content also requires us to combine with real life in the teaching process; At present, classroom teaching is still the main teaching method. Under this specific condition, to make teaching alive, we must rely on situational teaching. According to the course content, create scenes and atmosphere full of life breath, and create various problem situations, so that students can feel, observe and think in these situations close to life, so as to acquire knowledge and skills. Combined with the structural characteristics of Oxford senior high school English, the activity situation is created through the creation of intuitive scenes, classroom environment and modern audio-visual means. Using situational teaching method can better use teaching materials to stimulate students' enthusiasm, improve students' participation and truly improve students' comprehensive ability.
Second, create a campus situation
On campus and outside the classroom, make full use of our teaching resources, create a real big language environment, and expand and extend the time and space for students to learn English. Such as: English corner, lectures on British and American culture, etc.
As written in the book, education is to pass on accumulated wisdom to children. We enthusiastically believe in its importance, because we know that it can make every child have a better life, which is also in the interest of all of us. Education makes people smart, and smart people can make education better!
Reflections on why students don't like going to school 4. Why don't students like school? Willingham, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, is an important work of educational psychology, which is very popular among students and teachers. Using the principle of cognitive psychology, he analyzed in detail the learning process of students and some problems that teachers must pay attention to in classroom teaching. Every chapter in the book uses a basic principle of cognitive psychology, such as "factual knowledge precedes skills", "memory is the residue of thinking", "we understand new things in a known environment", "children are more similar than different in learning" and "teaching skills can be improved through practice". Why don't students like school? It is a popular reading about cognitive psychology and an introductory book about educational psychology. Many ideas in the book are novel and profound. For example, the author thinks that the brain is not used for thinking, but its real function is to make you avoid thinking. Although human beings are born with curiosity, we are not born with outstanding thinkers. Unless the cognitive environment meets certain requirements, we will avoid thinking as much as possible. The author points out that whether students like school or not depends largely on whether the school can continuously let students experience the fun of solving problems. What should teachers do in the face of such problems?
First of all, there will be a lot of homework in study. How much homework can be welcomed by students? How difficult is homework to be welcomed by students? Selected intensive exercises and autonomous learning. According to the actual situation of students and the needs of students' phased learning, select representative exercises in teaching. In addition, students should practice more on the questions with low scoring rate in the usual exams. Repetitive practice is an important part of teaching and learning. In the teaching process, we should pay attention to the reproduction of key knowledge and content. In order to avoid the boredom of memory, what we can do is to mobilize students to practice some knowledge and skills repeatedly in different forms, and to continuously activate students' working memory while satisfying their interest in learning. Students' ability will be cultivated day by day.
Secondly, teachers' teaching attitude has a great influence on students. Teachers should pay attention to all students, especially those with poor academic performance, and patiently answer students' difficult questions so as to make a detailed analysis of students' knowledge system. Students should pay attention to wrong questions, find out the reasons for doing wrong questions, understand the correct answers, and even read or recite the basis of correct answers, so as to effectively correct wrong thinking and cultivate correct thinking.
Thirdly, it is difficult for students to keep their attention in class. If the content is not enough to keep students' attention, under what circumstances will curiosity have a long-term motivation? Willingham's research confirms that the answer lies in the difficulty of the problem. Interest is the first teacher. The cognitive law of human beings determines that only by constantly setting reasonable questions to stimulate students' interest in the teaching process can we obtain better teaching results and let students feel "pleasure" in the process of solving problems. An important reason why students like going to school depends on whether school education can continue to let students experience the fun of solving problems.
Fourth, for students, excessive ability requirements cannot attract students' enthusiasm for learning. In the teaching process, it is very important to properly arrange the matching relationship between factual knowledge and ability improvement and understand the degree of students' background knowledge, which is what we usually call "preparing students". Distinguish the background knowledge level of each student, and put forward methods to improve students' background knowledge in their spare time for different students, so that students can improve not only in their own classroom, but also in most extracurricular time.
After reading why students do not like school, 5. When I opened this book, I thought it was a very good book when I first saw the title, but when I saw the back, it was exactly what we thought. "Why don't students like school?" I thought it was telling us directly what to do, but there was no direct answer. Also said that the brain is not used for thinking. My idea is how to think without thinking. I don't know what the brain can do until I see the back. There are many things that we think are directed by brain thinking, but they are not. Our brain has a very large memory space, which is used to store many things. This is what we should do, and store the useful knowledge we have seen and heard in our brains so that we can use it conveniently in the future. The memory relationship mentioned in the book is very good, which comprehensively tells us how to store all the things we have learned in our brains. Why can't we remember something? This book has found a clear answer. The importance of memory mentioned in the book. There are many things in our memory that we don't remember, which is a big reason why children don't like learning.
"Why is it so difficult for students to understand the concept of snapshots?" How many times have I seen it again and again before I understand some truth? The important thing is that what we have in our brains can't be combined with what we see now. Just like water and oil, they can't blend together. So we should combine what we know with what we see in our brains, so that we can better understand abstract concepts.
"Is the sea tactics useful?" What I saw here today, combined with my chat with my friends a few days ago. He also said the word sea tactics at that time. Although I didn't hear his analysis, I found it in a book today. I realized that the strategy of asking questions about the sea is to make us better transfer knowledge to long-term memory in our brains. But also helps our brains to move. Isn't there a saying that "the brain need not rust", which fully tells us that we must use our brains more, so that we can have more knowledge reserves.
"What is the secret of making students think like real scholars?" Every child is not a natural scientist, but we can guide them to the top of all industries. Then let the children read and write more. Although I didn't know what was in it at first, I read too much, and finally I would think about what was in it, so that children could keep using their brains and exercise their brains. Children are constantly reading, just like small drops of water gathering together. Finally, his brain is full of knowledge. Will you still worry about his lack of knowledge then? It's good to read more books, but write them. As the master said, it is important to turn the knowledge in books into our own. If you just read and don't write, at most, you know all the words above.
"How do we teach students in accordance with their aptitude?" At the beginning, we included this child, and no one knew what kind of person he wanted to be. We can help children find their hobbies slowly. At first, he can learn all kinds of skills in an all-round way, only after he has learned all the skills. Only in this way can we find out what he likes and teach students in accordance with their aptitude. Because each child's ability is different, only in the all-round development of children's skills can we work harder to find out what children need to do and where their shortcomings are.
"How to help students with chronic fever" For each child's knowledge, their acceptance ability is different. Some children may be able to do it once, some may have to do it twice, and some may need more times, but we can't say that this child can't do it. We can do more training for the child with chronic fever, and then find out why this child is chronic fever from the training. Find out the problem, can't it be solved well? And we can't hurt the child's self-esteem because of his weak acceptance, which will make the child completely finished.
"Where's the teacher?" As teachers, we need to work harder in front of students, so that students can respect and fear us. Only by constantly learning from ourselves can we lead students to move forward with us. Observe children's behavior, communicate their own advantages and disadvantages with other teachers, so as to better grasp the characteristics of each student.
This book details how to educate and train children. The truth has changed the way we educate our children. We always thought that our educational methods were correct. After reading this book, I have subverted many things and my views on children's education. This is a very good book. Thank you for your recommendation.