"Children do differ in intelligence, but intelligence can be changed through sustained hard work." – Willingham I believe very strongly in the malleability of intelligence. The old idea that intelligence was fixed mostly by genetics has been largely disproven. This doesn't mean genes have no role to play, it just means their role is much…
We all know kids are different. Yet we all have brains made out of the same stuff. So do the differences in our kids mean we should teach them differently? This is how learning style is usually presented. If your kids remembers pictures better than things he hears, then you should teach just with pictures….
There has been a push in modern education to shift away from teaching kids about stuff (like facts & concepts & patterns) to attempting to teach them how to think like experts. Is such a thing possible? Can you think like an expert before you are one? Do experts become experts because they think differently…
We are all familiar with the term "drill and kill", yet we also know that practice makes perfect. "It is virtually impossible to become proficient at a mental task without extended practice" WillinghamIf we must practice to become proficient, how do we keep that practice from killing our children's love of learning? Often, when we…
Without knowledge of facts, it is hard to think. Thought is not a vacuum and our brains need facts as a framework for thought. (You are reading the second post in a series about cognitive science in your homeschool, click here for the introductory post and links to the other posts in this series.) Critical…
“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason why so few people engage in it.” – Henry FordThe first cognitive principal Daniel T. Willingham dives into in his book Why Students Don’t Like School is that while curiosity is natural, thinking is hard. Let’s unpack this principal, which is supported by…
Perhaps the picture is completely irrelevant to this post, but I had to type "pencil bubbles" into the Pixabay search to get a good picture, and well, this one is just so much more fun than the picture of a test. It's time for end-of-homeschool-year testing. We all know standardized tests leave a lot to…
“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason why so few people engage in it.” – Henry FordSource file: Thinking_is_Hard_How_to_Help_Your_Child_Think.docxAuthor: Marla SzwastCreated: 2018-04-16 22:24:00Modified: 2018-04-16 22:47:00 “Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason why so few people engage in it.” – Henry Ford The first cognitive…
Sometimes we are so caught up in the heat of friction within our child-parent relationships that we forget to take a step back, think objectively about what developmental needs our children have, and use that information to inform our parenting decisions. What is the most important thing we can do to support our children right…
Math is separate from life. It is vastly different than all other subjects, and therefore, could never be integrated like other subjects can be. It is abstract and unnecessary. We should not ask that all kids learn so much math, after all, how many of them will use it in their life? Let’s put aside…