southampton university - making kids cleverer
TRANSCRIPT
Making students cleverer
David DidauSouthampton University
1 s t March 2017
The problem with certainty
We can’t see when we’re wrong
We can’t see when we’re wrong
Shepard’s ‘Turning the tables’
Shepard’s ‘Turning the tables’
Michotte’s perception of causality
Michotte’s perception of causality
If it looks like a duck…
The Necker Cube
Can we all get cleverer?• Is the brain “like a muscle”?
• Intelligence is made up of fluid & crystallised intelligence – Fluid: the ability to reason and solve
problems– Crystallised: the ability to access and
utilise information stored in long-term memory
Learning is natural, but…
• Some things are easy to learn (biologically primary adaptions) – e.g. speech
• Other things are hard to learn (biologically secondary modules)– e.g. reading & writing
Geary (2007) Educating the Evolved Mind
2 key ideas about memory
1. We learn new ideas by reference to ideas we already know (prior knowledge)
2. Information must be transferred from working memory to long-term memory.
We learn new ideas by reference to ideas we already know
• The biggest individual difference between students is the quality & quantity of what they know
• Everything depends on knowledge – there are no ‘domain-general’ skills (Tricot & Sweller 2007)
Information must be transferred from working memory to long-term memory
Working memory
bottleneck
Long-term memory
storehouse
A simple model of memory
Environment
Working memory
Long-term memory
Remembering
Learning
Attention
Schemas
Reading: the cognitive processes• Visual auditory
– Attention– Blocking distractions– Visual systems– Application of rules associating letters to sounds– Saccades
• Higher level language comprehension– Meaning of words– Semantic & grammatical systems– Inference & hypothesis– Anticipation
MemoryLong term• Accuracy• Fluency• Prior knowledge• Vocabulary• StoriesFast, automatic, invisible
Working• Inferences• Clarifications• Hypotheses• Predictions
Requires attention & effort
The importance of fluencyTheygradually ascended fo
rhalf
a milethen found themselve
sat thetop of a
considerable eminence where thewood ceased theand eye was instantl
ycaught by Pemberley House situated
onthe oppositeside of the valley, intowhich the road with some abruptnes
swound.
Is comprehension possible?• How far did they climb?• Where did the characters find
themselves? • At what point did they first see
Pemberley House?• Where were they standing when they
first saw the house?• How did the author describe the road?
Comprehension depends on reading speed
They gradually ascended for half a mile then found themselves at the top of a considerable eminence where the wood ceased and the eye was instantly caught by Pemberley House situated on the opposite side of the valley, into which the road with some abruptness wound.
• How far did they climb?• Where did the
characters find themselves?
• At what point did they first see Pemberley House?
• Where were they standing when they first saw the house?
• How did the author describe the road?
Hacking working memory• Can you remember this?• 694 739 302 30 277 271
• What about this?• the cat sat on the mat
How much can you remember?
Memory & Concepts• Do chess masters have better
memories?
• Memory is down to pattern recognition
The Dutch Defence
Hacking working memory1. Schemas take up the same space in
working memory as isolated facts
2. Through practice we can automatise procedural knowledge so that it becomes background knowledge.
Key messages• Working memory/fluid intelligence is fixed
• Crystallised intelligence can always be increased
• There is no correlation between the ability to memorise and fluid intelligence
• The more you know the better you can think.
@DavidDidaulearningspy.co.uk
There’s nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.