#78, "Helping Children Succeed"

"Helping Children Succeed: What Works and Why"
Paul Tough

In the summer, I read Tough's first book, "How Children Succeed" (my Goodreads review here), which was an examination of why developing character traits such as determination, grit, conscientiousness, and optimism in students is as important as teaching them reading and writing. This follow up is a response to the question that has been asked of him ever since that book was published: "What do we do now?" That is, how do we take the concepts of character and interleave them into our educational policies and classrooms, especially in order to close the achievement gap and make a difference for disadvantaged children? This is a very tough subject, because there are so many theories, ideas and studies that seek to answer that very question. Again, Tough takes the role of a journalist, a reporter, parsing the data and filling in the blanks between.

Educators will not be surprised to hear Tough report that this battle is begun at home. Home environment has an enormous effect on the well-being and future success of children, starting almost from birth. The nurturing, loving interaction of an adult in the first 3 years of life can make an impact that gives a child psychological and cognitive strength that lasts a lifetime; the absence of this starts a child's life behind, sometimes devastatingly. For teachers, with whom most schoolchildren spend more time than their parents, the establishment of a healthy, nurturing, ordered and sensible environment is of utmost importance. Tough stresses (like Dweck, Brown, and Willingham) the importance of having and encouraging a growth mindset: the belief that, through hard work and perseverance, one can become smarter. Children need to believe that hard work makes a difference, even in adverse conditions. That can be the difference between catching up, getting ahead, and falling behind--both in school and in life.

Overall, the book is clearly written. Tough doesn't always nail his ideas perfectly, but the bulk of the material is good. The tricky part about writing on psychological research is that there are so many studies, you can nearly draw any conclusion you wish if you aren't careful. That being said, as Tough's conclusions have been echoed in different ways by so many others, I think his large points are salient and important. #whatIreadin2017

#75, "Make It Stick"

"Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning"

Peter C. Brown, 

How can you get surface learning into durable, easily retrieved memory? That is the central question behind this book, co-written by two psychologists and one self-described "storyteller." The authors explain, examine, and analyze an impressive array of studies describing how the mind works, study habits that foster durable learning, as well as those that are statistically meaningless, and 

The best way to learn, the authors tell us, is to enable memory retrieval. That is, learning occurs best when I hear or read something, then later try to recall it. When we first study something, say, a textbook, the information is immediately placed into "working memory," the frontline of cognitive function that deals with moment-by-moment comprehension, decision-making and instinct. Because so much happens in working memory, information tends to be shuffled to the back of the mind, or long-term memory, when it is not in use. That makes sense. Retrieval practice is therefore used to strengthen the connection between immediate working memory and long term memory. The effort to remember a thing builds that connection better than the standard study technique of cramming or rereading. Flash cards are a good example of a way to foster this kind of memory retrieval. This powerful practice, coupled with other techniques such as chunking (grouping small pieces of information into larger groups), interleaving (learning a thing in the context of another thing), using mnemonics and "memory palaces," spacing retrieval practice, and varying practice all add up to significant improvement in retention and  durable, sustained long term memory.

It also ties in very well to another book I read recently, nearly point-by-point in some areas. Both books tell of the importance of developing and maintaining a "growth mindset," a concept picked up from Carol Dweck's work. Both take time to discount the pervasive notion of learning styles (kinesthetic, auditory, visual). It is interesting to see similar material presented in different ways, but often in terms that I've now become familiar with. I think that has increased my understanding of the material, as I am coming into a topic with some background knowledge (another thing that both books talk about at length).

The authors also look at what they call "illusions of knowing," which they tie to the short-term gains that we seem to have when we reread a text. This illusion manifests initially in the ability to recall facts and bullet points, but often belies the truth that we are ignorant of foundational concepts or key ideas, which we are unable to retrieve beyond the short-term. Again, they stress that for long-term, deep and rounded learning, this surface-level "understanding" is best bolstered by the techniques mentioned above.

It is fairly easy to read, as long as you maintain focus--I had to go back in the middle of the section on chunking because I spaced out and missed an important concept--and has implications for both students (of all ages) as well as parents and teachers. As I am all three of these, I found it relevant, enlightening and engaging. #whatIreadin2017

#72, "Why Don't Students Like School?"

"Why Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom"

Daniel Willingham

I was surprised by this book. The title suggested to me a work that talked primarily about student attitudes about school and learning, and possibly ways to solve related problems that arise. That is not the case, however. The answer to the question posed by the title is given in the first chapter, in the first few paragraphs. Students don't like school because school requires thinking. Thinking is hard, so students dislike school. Of course, the title and these answers are purposefully general--not every student dislikes school, after all--and they instead serve as seeds that lead to a deep, thoughtful, and thorough examination of topics including the mind, thoughts and thinking, learning, memory, and teaching. The author relies on a massive (and occasionally overwhelming) trove of studies and works to make his points, the combination of which lead inexorably to his foundational and sober conclusions, all of which are then directly and practically related to the modern classroom.

Willingham has fascinating ways of describing thinking and memory, most of which I had never heard or had not heard in this way. As I mentioned above, his primary argument is that the human brain does not like to think. Thinking takes time and energy, and the brain therefore does whatever it can to streamline, organize, minimize, and even cheat at receiving and processing information in order to conserve time and energy. This requires the use of two types of memory: background knowledge (the library of information available in your mind) and working memory (the instantaneous retrieval of information that pertains to your moment-by-moment needs). The interaction between these two types of memory, including the importance of factual knowledge as well as abstract thought, comprise the "intelligence" of a mind. He goes on from talking about the mind to a psychological perspective on "fixed" versus "malleable" intelligence, with the conclusion that students perform best who believe that intelligence can be increased with hard work, not just through genetic "smartness".

There's much, much more, and all of it has direct power in our everyday interactions with students in the classroom. The mind is a wonderful, terrible, incredible thing. Mine could barely keep up with this excellent book, but I think enough seeped in to make a difference.

#whatIreadin2017