Ed 173 - Exam 3

Why do people believe in the learning styles?

- Intuitive appeal - everyone has the same potential, but we need to try different ways to reach them - confirmation bias - Kernel of truth: people have different strengths and weaknesses. Some ways of teaching are better than others. Previous knowledge matters

Cognitive styles theory must have the following three features:

- It should consistently attribute to a person the same style - it should show that people with different styles think - differ in ability

What is wrong with the multiple intelligence theory?

- Requires us to stretch the definition of intelligence - not independent - not very useful in deciding what to teach us

How do schools decide what content should be put into text books?

- What authors assume you already know - what society values - stuff that shows up over and over again in books, lesson plans etc.

What are two ways cognitive science might influence classroom practice?

- knowledge about students' minds offer insights into what curriculum content, lessons, pedagogy, etc. might be appropriate (ex: the importance of background knowledge in problem solving, working memory as a cognitive bottle neck, spacing and interleaving practice makes memories longer lasting and more flexible) - Knowledge about educators' minds offers insights into what types of preparation for instruction might be most appropriate

What can we from the twin study

- testing whether identical twins are close to each other in intelligence more often than fraternal twins will help us determine the importance of genes - we can examine whether the intelligence of siblings raised in the same household is more similar than the intelligence of siblings who were raised in different households

Why does the visual auditory kinesthetic theory true then?

1) It has to become commonly accepted wisdom 2) something similar to the theory is true 3) confirmation bias - once we believe something, we unconsciously interpret ambiguous situations as being consistent with what we already believe

growth intelligence

Intelligence is malleable

Field Dependent

people tend to see an object in terms of its relationship to others

Field Independent

people who are more likely to evaluate something they see independently of the object's relationship to other objects

heritability (genetic effect) is higher for adults, high SES children - what feature do these groups share that differentiate from most children, especially low SES children?

• Adults and SES kid have more choices, and live up to potential; suggest that children make their own environments • Genes influence the decisions they make • High ses children have more decisions that help them live up to their potential Interventions seem to increase intelligence by allowing disadvantaged children to live up to their genetic potential (by making their own environments)

How else can I help slow learners

• More classroom relevant: Believing intelligence is a fixed entity might cause children to attribute failure to their unchangeable shortcomings. • Attributing failures to insufficient effort might cause children to try harder next time. • Being praised for effort results in more persistence in the face of difficult problems than being praised for intelligence.

What is pedagogical content knowledge? How does this relate to the deep/shallow knowledge distinction we talked about earlier?

• Need deep structure of what you're teaching, enable generate of different ways of solving a problem, students solving problem is effective or it works just in this specific case • Examples of procedural knowledge teachers need - flag salute, easier side of what teachers do everyday, everyday teachers take attendance and do pledge allegiance, more defiantly with more practice

What is the key idea about genetics and environment?

Genetics and environments interact. Small differences in genetic inheritance can steer people to seek different experiences in their environment, and it is differences in these environmental experiences, especially over the long term, that have large cognitive consequences. For that reason, we shouldn't assume that twins have experienced different environments even though they were raised in different households. The fact that their genes are the same may well have encouraged them to seek out similar environments.

Is intelligence specific or general?

Intelligence is hierarchical (mostly general and somewhat specific

How are abilities and styles different?

Abilities are how we deal with content and they reflect the level of what we know and can do Styles are how we prefer to think and learn We consider having more ability as better than having les ability but we do not consider one style as better than any other style. One style might be more effective for a particular problem, but all styles are equally useful overall,, by definition

It seems that tailoring instruction to each student's cognitive style is potentially of enormous significance; perhaps struggling students would do much better with other teaching methods. At the same time, analyzing and catering to multiple learning styles in the same classroom seems like an enormous burden on a teacher. Which differences are the important ones?

An enormous amount of research exploring this idea has been conducted in the last fifty years, and the finding difference between Sam and Donna that would fit this pattern has been the holy grail of educational research, but no one has found consistent evidence supporting a theory describing such a difference.

Why doesn't Anne learn better when the presentation is auditory given that she's an auditory learner?

Because auditory information is not what's being tested. Auditory information would be the particular sound of the voice on the tape. What's being tested is the meaning of the words. Anne's edge in auditory memory doesn't help her in situations where meaning is important. Most of the time students need to remember what things mean, not what they sound like or look like.

The cognitive principle guiding Chapter 7 is

Children are more alike than different in terms of how they think and learn - There are no categorically different types of learners

The cognitive principle that guides chapter 8 is

Children do differ in intelligence, but intelligence can be changed through sustained hard work

How do psychologist test these proposals?

First, they try to show that cognitive style is stable within an individual second, Cognitive styles should also be consequential; that is using one cognitive style or another ought to have implications for the important things we do Finally, we have to be sure that a cognitive style is not really an ability measure - styles are supposed to represent biases in how we prefer to think; they are not supposed to be measured of how well we think

The twin studies consistently show that genetics counts for a lot. But the rapid IQ increase over a short period cam't be due to genetic factors. How can this paradox be resolved?

Flynn claims that the effect of genetics is actually fairly modest. It looks larger because the effect of genetics is to make the person likely to seek out particular environments. - Genetic effects can make you see out or select different environments (Example: twins separated at birth - genes made them tall, and being tall nudged them toward environments that include a lot of basketball practice. Practice - an environmental factor - made them good at basketball, not their genes

What is the truth about the visual auditory kinesthetic theory

Matching "preferred" modality of a student doesn't give that student any edge in learning

What was the result of the twin study?

Most researchers seemed to have the sense that the range of intelligence was set mostly by genetics and that a good or poor environment moved one's intelligence up or down a bit within that range

How can schools be optimized for students who don't have the raw intelligence that other students have?

Our genetic inheritance does impact our intelligence, but it seems to do so mostly through the environment. There is no doubt that intelligence can be changed

What is the kernel of truth behind learning styles?

People have different strengths and weaknesses. Some ways of teaching are better than others. previous knowledge matters. Students have a preferred way of learning but there is no real solid evidence that these students exceed or learn better when taught with their preferred style of teaching. It doesn't mean that teachers shouldn't find ways of teaching new content in new ways but to realize that some students are good remembering auditory or visual information (e.g. co workers voice, someone being spotted at the adult bookshop.

What features characterize deliberate practice?

Practice: intentional, aimed at improving performance, designed for your current skill level, combined with immediate feedback and repetitious Trying to improve over time Receive informative feedback and knowledge of results of your performance

What is the key prediction with visual auditory kinesthetic theory?

Students will learn better when instruction matches their cognitive styles

What is the Flynn Effect?

The Flynn effect is the substantial and long-sustained increase in both fluid and crystallized intelligence test scores measured in many parts of the world from roughly 1930 to the present day - The Flynn effect is strong evidence that the environment has a powerful impact on intelligence, because geneticists agree that the gene pool could not change rapidly enough to account for this change in IQ

What is the meaning of intelligence?

The ability to acquire knowledge and skills

I'be said that intelligence is very likely a product of genetic and environmental factors combining in complex ways. So how can we untangle them?

The most common strategy is to examine whether pairs of people are similarly intelligent. (Ex. Twins, Fraternal Twins)

What is the point of the Visual auditory kinesthetic theory?

The point of the the theory is that the same material can be presented in different ways to match each student's strength

Nonshared Environment

Things that make you different: friends, experiences, genetic relatedness (identical, fraternal)

Shared Environment

Things that make you similar: prenatal, family, home, school and community

What is general intelligence?

We don't exactly know. Distributed throughout the brain. Probably has something to do with processing speed and working memory capacity

what is cognitive styles

biases or tendencies to think in a particular way (Example: to think sequentially [one at a time] or holistically [of all of the parts simultaneously])

The Visual-auditory-kinesthesia theory

everyone can take in new information through any of the three senses, but most of us have a preferred sense

Fixed intelligence

intelligence is determined at birth and because it's unchangeable

what is cognitive ability

it means capacity for or success in certain types of thought (Example: Sarah has a lot of ability in math because she learns math concepts more quickly then others)