Thinking by Delano P. Wegener, Ph.D. August 2015 Copyright 2015 by Delano P. Wegener, Ph.D. All Rights Reserved.

Introduction What is Thinking

That is what does all our thinking and remembering and ••• http://www.livescience.com/29365-human-brain.html

It weighs about 3.3 pounds (1.5 kilograms) The human brain is the largest brain of all vertebrates relative to body size It weighs about 3.3 pounds (1.5 kilograms) The brain makes up about 2 percent of a human's body weight The cerebrum makes up 85 percent of the brain's weight It contains about 86 billion nerve cells (neurons), the "gray matter" It contains billions of nerve fibers (axons and dendrites), the "white matter" These neurons are connected by trillions of connections, or synapses http://www.livescience.com/29365-human-brain.html

Henry Ford cynically observed, “Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason why so few people engage in it.” Willingham, Daniel T. (2009-06-10). Why Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom (Kindle Locations 167-168). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

“Pitting the learning of basic knowledge against the development of creative thinking is a false choice.” “Both need to be cultivated.” “The stronger one’s knowledge about the subject at hand, the more nuanced one’s creativity can be in addressing a new problem.” “Just as knowledge amounts to little without the exercise of ingenuity and imagination, creativity absent a sturdy foundation of knowledge builds a shaky house.” Brown, Peter C. (2014-04-14). Make It Stick (p. 30). Harvard University Press. Kindle Edition.

“Our goal is not simply to have students know a lot of stuff—it’s to have them know stuff in service of being able to think effectively. ••• thinking critically requires background knowledge.” “Critical thinking is not a set of procedures that can be practiced and perfected while divorced from background knowledge.” Willingham, Daniel T. (2009-06-10). Why Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom (Kindle Locations 885-888). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

“Your brain serves many purposes, and thinking is not the one it serves best. Your brain also supports the ability to see and to move, for example, and these functions operate much more efficiently and reliably than your ability to think. It’s no accident that most of your brain’s real estate is devoted to these activities. The extra brain power is needed because seeing is actually more difficult than playing chess or solving calculus problems.” Willingham, Daniel T. (2009-06-10). Why Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom (Kindle Locations 171-174). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

“Compared to your ability to see and move, thinking is slow, effortful, and uncertain.” Willingham, Daniel T. (2009-06-10). Why Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom (Kindle Locations 184-185). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

“When you enter a backyard you take in the whole scene—lawn, fence, flowerbeds, gazebo—at a glance. Your thinking system does not instantly calculate the answer to a problem the way your visual system immediately takes in a visual scene. Willingham, Daniel T. (2009-06-10). Why Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom (Kindle Locations 198-204). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

“Second, thinking is effortful; you don’t have to try to see, but thinking takes concentration.” “You can perform other tasks while you are seeing, but you can’t think about something else while you are working on a problem.” This is clearly in opposition to the idea that you can multitask while learning or thinking. Willingham, Daniel T. (2009-06-10). Why Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom (Kindle Locations 198-204). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

“Finally, thinking is uncertain “Finally, thinking is uncertain. Your visual system seldom makes mistakes, and when it does you usually think you see something similar to what is actually out there—you’re close, if not exactly right.” “Your thinking system might not even get you close; your solution to a problem may be far from correct.” “In fact, your thinking system may not produce an answer at all.” Willingham, Daniel T. (2009-06-10). Why Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom (Kindle Locations 198-204). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

The Mechanism What is Thinking

“First, you should know that much of the time when we see someone apparently engaged in logical thinking, he or she is actually engaged in memory retrieval.” Willingham, Daniel T. (2009-06-10). Why Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom (Kindle Locations 705-706). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

“Thinking occurs when you combine information (from the environment and long-term memory) in new ways. That combining happens in working memory.” Willingham, Daniel T. (2009-06-10). Why Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom (Kindle Locations 333-335). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

What is Chunking?

A baseball consists of a central core tightly wrapped in several layers of different materials. Construction of a golf ball is similar. As a matter of fact many familiar objects, including the earth, have similar constructions.

On a more abstract level, simple mathematics concepts are similarly constructed. It is convenient to think of them as a central core (definition) tightly wrapped in several layers of illuminating information.

Complex mathematics concepts consist of many simple mathematics concepts joined together.

The phenomenon of tying together separate pieces of information from the environment and/or long-term memory is called chunking. Willingham, Daniel T. (2009-06-10). Why Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom (Kindle Location 645). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

The Need for Facts What is Thinking

“If we’re all so bad at thinking, how does anyone get through the day “If we’re all so bad at thinking, how does anyone get through the day? How do we find our way to work or spot a bargain at the grocery store? How does a teacher make the hundreds of decisions necessary to get through her day? The answer is that when we can get away with it, we don’t think. Instead we rely on memory. Most of the problems we face are ones we’ve solved before, so we just do what we’ve done in the past.” Willingham, Daniel T. (2009-06-10). Why Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom (Kindle Locations 204-207). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

“••• your memory system is much more reliable than your thinking system, and it provides answers quickly and with little effort.” The Ebbinghaus forgetting curve comes into play and disrupts that nice clean theory. Willingham, Daniel T. (2009-06-10). Why Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom (Kindle Locations 211-212). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

The forgetting recorded by the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve is caused by inadequate retrieval paths. Knowledge does not disappear from Long Term Memory.

“One of the factors that contributes to successful thought is the amount and quality of information in long-term memory.” Willingham, Daniel T. (2009-06-10). Why Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom (Kindle Location 477). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

“It’s pretty obvious that having the appropriate procedure stored in long-term memory helps a great deal when we’re thinking.” Willingham, Daniel T. (2009-06-10). Why Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom (Kindle Locations 367-368). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

Forgetting is the biggest impediment to learning To overcome forgetting we need to strengthen the retrieval paths. Exercise strengthens!

“Not only does background knowledge make you a better reader, but it also is necessary to be a good thinker. ••• thinking critically and logically—are not possible without background knowledge.” Willingham, Daniel T. (2009-06-10). Why Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom (Kindle Locations 703-704). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

“Scientists are good at ‘thinking like scientists,’ but doing so depends not just on knowing and practicing the thinking strategies, but also on having background knowledge that allows them to use the thinking strategies.” Willingham, Daniel T. (2009-06-10). Why Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom (Kindle Locations 782-783). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

“••• the cognitive processes that are most esteemed—logical thinking, problem solving, and the like—are intertwined with knowledge. It is certainly true that facts without the skills to use them are of little value. It is equally true that one cannot deploy thinking skills effectively without factual knowledge.” Willingham, Daniel T. (2009-06-10). Why Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom (Kindle Locations 852-855). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

“Data from the last thirty years lead to a conclusion that is not scientifically challengeable: thinking well requires knowing facts, and that’s true not simply because you need something to think about. The very processes that teachers care about most—critical thinking processes such as reasoning and problem solving—are intimately intertwined with factual knowledge that is stored in long-term memory (not just found in the environment).” Willingham, Daniel T. (2009-06-10). Why Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom (Kindle Locations 552-555). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

Four ways that background knowledge is important it provides vocabulary; it allows you to bridge logical gaps that writers leave; it allows chunking, which increases room in working memory and thereby makes it easier to tie ideas together; it guides the interpretation of ambiguous sentences. * Chunking increases room in working memory and thereby makes it easier to tie ideas together; Willingham, Daniel T. (2009-06-10). Why Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom (Kindle Locations 690-693). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

Critical Thinking?

“Intellectual competence includes everything from developing study skills appropriate for college to developing sophisticated critical thinking and problem-solving abilities.” Ambrose, Susan A.; Bridges, Michael W.; DiPietro, Michele; Lovett, Marsha C.; Norman, Marie K. (2010-04-16). How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching (The Jossey-Bass Higher and Adult Education Series) (p. 160). Wiley Publishing. Kindle Edition.

“Part of critical thinking is to embrace complexity rather than oversimplify matters.” Ambrose, Susan A.; Bridges, Michael W.; DiPietro, Michele; Lovett, Marsha C.; Norman, Marie K. (2010-04-16). How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching (The Jossey-Bass Higher and Adult Education Series) (p. 181). Wiley Publishing. Kindle Edition.

“Critical thinking processes are tied to background knowledge “Critical thinking processes are tied to background knowledge. “ “The conclusion from this work in cognitive science is straightforward: we must ensure that students acquire background knowledge parallel with practicing critical thinking skills.” Willingham, Daniel T. (2009-06-10). Why Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom (Kindle Locations 564-566). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

“Just how useful or useless is fact learning “Just how useful or useless is fact learning?   Answer: There is no doubt that having students memorize lists of dry facts is not enriching.” “It is also true (though less often appreciated) that trying to teach students skills such as analysis or synthesis in the absence of factual knowledge is impossible.” Willingham, Daniel T. (2009-06-10). Why Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom (Kindle Locations 508-514). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

“Research from cognitive science has shown that the sorts of skills that teachers want for students—such as the ability to analyze and to think critically—require extensive factual knowledge.” Factual knowledge must precede skill. Factual knowledge must precede critical thinking. Willingham, Daniel T. (2009-06-10). Why Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom (Kindle Locations 508-514). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

T H I N K I N G Thinking is Difficult Thinking Requires Memory Thinking Happens in Short-Term Memory Thinking Is Combining of Information Thinking Uses Facts from Long-Term Memory Thinking Uses Procedures from Long-Term Memory Thinking is Slow, Effortful, and Uncertain