Learning Flashcards
Daniel Willingham: Three things that a rich factual background improves
(1) Reading
(2) Critical thinking
(3) Memory
Daniel Willingham: Ways that a rich factual background improves reading (4)
(1) Increases vocabulary
(2) Allows interpretation of ambiguous sentences
(3) Allows chunking
(4) Allows inferences when information is missing
Chunking: baseball / double play experiment
Inferences/ambiguous sentences: laundry description without mentioning laundry
Daniel Willingham: Ways that a rich factual background improves critical thinking (3)
(1) Intuition - when solving a problem we generally start by calling up problems we’ve seen before
(2) Chunking
(3) Plausibility - We need to be able to determine an unexpected result
Chess players - using intuition rather than slow reasoning
Wason card test - works when you use checking ages
Daniel Willingham: Ways that drilling helps (3)
(1) Memory - It guards against forgetting
(2) Automatic processing - frees up working memory room
(3) Deep structure - We only understand deep structure if we see similar problems several times
Daniel Willingham: Ways that a rich factual background improves memory (2)
(1) Meaning - We remember things better if they mean something
(2) Connections - The more you know, the more you can connect new to existing knowledge
Willingham: Working memory capacity is correlated to reasoning skills. We can’t change our working memory capacity, but there are two things we can do:
(1) We can make information packets smaller so we can fit more in (through chunking / factual knowledge)
(2) We can make processes more automatic, to take up less working memory space
What is the “Feynman technique”?
You don’t really know something until you can explain it accurately to a six-year-old
When it comes to creating assessments, what is the key principle?
Validity: your assessment needs to measure only what you intend it to measure
