I have already told you about Daniel T. Willingham. An eminent American cognitive psychologist, he has published remarkable writings for teachers and students over the past fifteen years. They equip them to distinguish between what is (more) scientifically sound, what is not, and what is downright pseudoscience; they suggest to them, starting from there, means of applying all that follows.
Willingham has long maintained a superb column in the journal American Educator. Based on credible research, he answered very concrete questions that teachers asked him.
He has also published six important works in education. The most recent has just been released. It is titled: Outsmart Your Brain. Why Learning Is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy. In short: “To be smarter than your brain. Why learning is difficult and how how to make the job easier. We can hope that it will soon be translated into French.
Willingham recounts in this book how he came to work and intervene in education. It deserves to be remembered.
A course
After a doctorate in cognitive science devoted to learning, Willingham became a university professor and researcher in this field.
Ten years later, he is asked to give a lecture on learning to 500 teachers. He is tempted to refuse, convinced that they know perfectly well everything he could want to tell them about it. With hindsight, he goes all the same and presents to teachers, he writes, “things that one learns in his very first course on learning” in cognitive sciences. To his surprise, his conference is a success. The teachers knew almost nothing of all this and consider this knowledge very useful.
Willingham’s professional career will change from this moment and become what I said above.
In his latest book, which I highly recommend, he gives very practical advice based on evidence.
Here are some of the topics covered. How to listen to a lesson? How to take notes? How to study for an exam? How do we know if we are ready to pass it? How to overcome procrastination? How to manage anxiety?
To make you want to read it (and, who knows?, a publisher to translate it), here are some examples taken from this essential work. They are about how best to read difficult books — just like textbooks are.
Smarter than his brain
Willingham first gives a short text (about ten lines…) on the Manhattan Project, a text that could well be found in a textbook. However, the last sentence contradicts the first… but, on the test, 40% of the students did not notice it.
When they read, like us, they pay close attention to new words, grammar and seek to understand each sentence individually. But understanding is more than that. We must, and this is crucial, be able to globally rethink the meaning of what we read, especially because sentences can have very different meanings depending on their context. It takes effort. Your brain will prefer to read for pleasure, not to strain too much to coordinate ideas and to rely on the author to make the connections.
To outsmart him, you’ll need to “use specialized comprehension strategies that match both the type of material you’re reading and the goals you’ve set for reading it.”
Examples ?
To pupils and students, he recommends what follows. Don’t do what most people do, which is to read and highlight what you think is essential. You don’t really have, at the start, what it takes to judge it.
Give yourself a concrete task to complete while reading. The best known was proposed more than 80 years ago and is called, in English, SQ3R, for survey, question, read, recite and review.
Take notes as you read, notes inspired by your reading goal. This will prevent you from reading, let’s say, casually.
Plan the time that you will devote to your reading by putting the effort that it requires.
To teachers, he recommends the following. Don’t assume your students can read and teach them good reading strategies.
If necessary, do an activity in class that shows that they may understand less than they think. It could be about the Manhattan Project…
Be very clear about why you are asking for a particular reading and what the pupils or students should learn from it.
If your wish is for them to read in depth, may your course live up to this expectation. The number of pages assigned should, for example, be reasonable, and the assessments focus on the expected in-depth reading, and not on the recall of simple facts.
Happy reading (not casual: in-depth!) of this very rich work, which will make you make great discoveries.