southampton university - making kids cleverer

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

ddidau@gmail.com

There’s nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.