More Debunking from Professor Willingham

Professor Daniel Willingham, a cognitive psychologist at the University of Virginia, seems to making a career of debunking cherished concepts of those in the learning field. A few weeks ago, his target was the concept of learning styles, which he reviewed critically. This time it is “brain-based education” that he is after. The main problem for Willingham is the switching of “levels of analysis”; that is, the tendency to make correlations between classroom teaching practices and findings from neuroscience, especially to find “facts” in neuroscience to support a particular method of teaching. A much more cautious approach would be to take findings in neuroscience and relate them to specific cognitive processes, which then may lead to some conclusions about those processes that may then could be used to design specific teaching approaches. Instead, popular writers on the topic tend to glide from global phenomena such as behavior to interactions of neurons without making the careful journey of proper analysis and argument. Via Clark Quinn. (GW)

Learning Styles, Brain-based Learning, and Daniel Willingham | Learnlets | Clark Quinn | 11 September 2008

Tagged as: Brain-based learning, Learning Styles