Brief Summary of Daniel Willingham - Why Don't Student Like School Essay Example
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Pauline Christianti – 00000001568
The answer to the question ‘why don’t students like school’ was explained very clearly on the first chapter. It was made clear that our brains are slow and unrealiable. Our brains tend to avoid thinking, which makes it unlikely for us to like thinking. But apparently our brains release some amount of dopamine when there are cases of ‘successful thinking’. So the trick is to give students problems that are challenging but also solvable.
There are 3 types of memory stated in the book; the ‘environment’ memory, working memory and also long-term memory. For us to remember things better, we can trick our working memory with techniques such as ‘chunking’ since things can only get to the long-term memory through working memory. Emotion and interest also play a part in the remembering process. Things that grab our interest would trigger our mind to think, and memory is believed as the residue of thought while emotional events will be better remembered–unrelated to repetition–such as weddings, 9/11 tragedy or birthday parties.
Sometimes we go on ‘auto-pilot’ on stuff that we regularly do, this is caused by repetition or practice, it can help us focus on other important things while still doing our regular activities such as chewing food, driving, reading and etc. The working memory has a very limited capacity, our brain can’t take too much information, if we do, it could lose track of what we’re doing and thinking fails. As an example, that’s what actually happened to me when I was reading the book, the first chapters really crowded my brain and it was actually hurting. Putting the material in a story form can also help students remember because stories are easy to comprehend, interesting and somehow easy to remember.
Background knowledge is crucial during learning process as it helps new information to stay in our memory as it was stated that ‘Understanding new ideas is mostly a
Pauline Christianti – 00000001568
The answer to the question ‘why don’t students like school’ was explained very clearly on the first chapter. It was made clear that our brains are slow and unrealiable. Our brains tend to avoid thinking, which makes it unlikely for us to like thinking. But apparently our brains release some amount of dopamine when there are cases of ‘successful thinking’. So the trick is to give students problems that are challenging but also solvable.
There are 3 types of memory stated in the book; the ‘environment’ memory, working memory and also long-term memory. For us to remember things better, we can trick our working memory with techniques such as ‘chunking’ since things can only get to the long-term memory through working memory. Emotion and interest also play a part in the remembering process. Things that grab our interest would trigger our mind to think, and memory is believed as the residue of thought while emotional events will be better remembered–unrelated to repetition–such as weddings, 9/11 tragedy or birthday parties.
Sometimes we go on ‘auto-pilot’ on stuff that we regularly do, this is caused by repetition or practice, it can help us focus on other important things while still doing our regular activities such as chewing food, driving, reading and etc. The working memory has a very limited capacity, our brain can’t take too much information, if we do, it could lose track of what we’re doing and thinking fails. As an example, that’s what actually happened to me when I was reading the book, the first chapters really crowded my brain and it was actually hurting. Putting the material in a story form can also help students remember because stories are easy to comprehend, interesting and somehow easy to remember.
Background knowledge is crucial during learning process as it helps new information to stay in our memory as it was stated that ‘Understanding new ideas is mostly a