Constructing Ideas or Collecting Information?

Send us Fan MailI summarize my 10 principles of learning. These principles respect the way God designed the brain to learn. That framework moves from questions that pique our curiosity and motivate exploration of the concrete. This exploration is a search for patterns which the brain constructs as a web of interconnected concepts (which are abstractions). Through this conceptual web we process new experiences and modify the web as we learn more.

Send us Fan MailThe myth of learning styles is a hindrance to deep and durable learning. It plays right into the myth of learning as mere retrieval. While we have individual preferences about the sensory channels we like information to be delivered over, the nature of the thing to be learned determines how it is best learned.

Send us Fan MailThe cognitive power tools of the well-taught beginner create increasingly useful knowledge as the learner's skill level increases through practice that challenges plateaus. This episode makes the case that learning should always be embedded in a way of thinking; thinking like a biologist, a historian, an economist, a mathematician, etc. Learners should engage with authentic problems in a scaled-down junior version of every subject. Pedagogy in the early years of learning that privileges the creation of concepts over the collection of information will pay substantial dividends as the student grows.

Send us Fan Mail"Drill and kill," the mindless and seemingly endless repetition of facts, kills motivation to learn. "Repetition aids learning" is only true with carefully crafted variety in the repetition. "Extended practice" is a better way to approach the need for the brain to wrestle with ideas in an intriguing journey to understanding.This episode will help parents operationalize effective homework that embeds their kids in a stimulating exploration of ideas and their consequences. And, oh yes, the facts their school expects come along as a bonus.

Send us Fan MailHow can you help your child move from being absorbed with taking in information in the classroom to a fixation on understanding ideas? This is key to durable learning that is extensible; learning that you can build on and apply to solving real world problems. This episode operationalizes the creation of robust networks of powerful ideas.

Send us Fan MailMany parents and children view their inability to memorize as their greatest educational weakness. Learning is more than remembering, but it is not less. Today's episode centers on the reality that durable memory is the byproduct of thinking about ideas. Using mnemonics and other gimmicks to bypass the need for thinking is doomed to fail and is boring to boot.

Send us Fan MailMost schools design curriculum around a fact forward approach. Facts are always in the foreground while ideas lurk in the background and generally make only cameo appearances. This is exactly wrong. The role of facts is to support ideas. Facts are organized by ideas and not the reverse. It is ideas that have consequences. While there may be "inconvenient facts," they are inconvenient only to ideas that fail to take them into account. Critical thinking seeks to give structure and meaning to facts and harness them for much greater ends than mere retrieval.This episode seeks to put facts in their rightful place and empower parents to help their children focus on ideas even when the education establishment does not.

Send us Fan MailChildren are all born learners—at least until they go to school. Many children and their parents are frustrated and mystified by the setbacks that are experienced at school and it doesn't need to be this way! This is the first episode of an entire season dealing with why your child may not like school and what to do about it. The season is structured around Daniel Willingham's book, Why Don’t Students Like School? Willingham articulates 10 principles of learning and I interact with his first principle in this episode. Contrary to Willingham, I emphasize the reality that children are born looking for patterns, but they are not good at finding the flaws in those patterns. By asking questions, you as a parent can help correct and solidify their mental categories and help them to thrive in any educational environment.

Send us Fan MailWorldview is the key grid through which we filter and formulate ideas, yet it is not systematically developed in most educational programs. This is particularly likely on the university level. Make no mistake—a worldview is being developed anyway, but likely full of flaws and non sequiturs.

Send us Fan MailNo one wants to kill the joy of learning in a young child, but that's likely with the majority of preschool and elementary pedagogies. This podcast helps you sort through the educational philosophy underlying some major options.