Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

I thought this was a pretty good article. I don't think that we've yet "unlocked the science of how kids think" but the way the article is set up allows us to set the overstatement aside and focus on how we think about some principles of learning in our day-to-day work. The context is set by looking at how we approach teacher training. For example, "teachers report that their education is overly theoretical and not of great utility." Willingham says "they are required to learn some basic principles of psychology as part of that education, but it is not clear that practicing teachers remember what they were taught." May or maybe not, but I would say that the key factor here is whether they believe what they were taught. They won't if someone simply tells them things (I certainly wouldn't). So the way to look at psychological principles is to look at their application, first in the training of teachers themselves, then in the wider classroom. 

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Mar 28, 2024 2:09 p.m.

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