tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5013861940136295603.post7844845617786806131..comments2023-11-02T02:30:17.817-07:00Comments on The Relevant Classroom: My Existential Moment and Why Teachers "Making It Relevant" in the Classroom Bothers a Cognitive Scientist Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17788639825518734443noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5013861940136295603.post-51506671268344319532013-08-05T17:25:53.797-07:002013-08-05T17:25:53.797-07:00Great points Rachel! First of all, don't worry...Great points Rachel! First of all, don't worry about me trashing relevance. I am keeping the name of my blog and I am still passionate about it :) I just have a more balanced perspective now and am grateful for that. I like what you said about using relevance to compare different fields or material - I hadn't thought too much about that and I think that encourages some important synthesis and abstract thinking skills that are essential to deep learning. <br /><br />Thanks for reading, and thanks for sharing!Greghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17788639825518734443noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5013861940136295603.post-41626866935373484032013-08-05T17:23:28.177-07:002013-08-05T17:23:28.177-07:00That is a good way of putting it Pa, I agree with ...That is a good way of putting it Pa, I agree with you that he isn't against relevance at all - but desires a more balanced approach than some folks take. It seems a certain degree of relevance and just pure recognizing the fact that learning is hard (as Tyler Jarvis so eloquently said in his BYU devotional talk) is the middle ground all educators must continue to work for!Greghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17788639825518734443noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5013861940136295603.post-66554789042840392892013-08-05T09:59:43.572-07:002013-08-05T09:59:43.572-07:00Interesting post. I love it when my theories are p...Interesting post. I love it when my theories are put to the test, because then I'm forced to re-process why they matter, or if they matter. It sounds like that's what you had to do here. Some thoughts I had while reading your blog post:<br />Just because relevance isn't the number one factor that helps students learn doesn't mean it should be discarded—a teacher that cultivates an (appropriate) emotional tie with students AND makes the subjects relevant will likely be more effective than a teacher who doesn't, right?<br /><br />And what about using relevance to create a sense of wonder? I don't think I would have grasped the concept of the size of an electron until someone explained to me its size in relation to a football field (that may be a tired comparison, but it was effective the first few times I heard it).<br /><br />What about relevance being to other subjects? I've found it helps me get more excited about learning things when I see connections between different things I've learned—such as my biology class using a math principle to calculate the population growth, or a literature selection explaining someone's reaction to a history event. I think relevance can be cultivated between subjects that a student is learning, and that will help them learn better, and see application, even though it's still in the world of school.<br />Along those lines, I am interested in nonfiction essay writing, and a main tenant of that genre is finding connections between seemingly unconnected things. That really stretches my brain and gives me many more ways of looking at the same thing.<br /><br />So maybe instead of trashing relevance, you may consider adding elements to its meaning? Rhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10714023966007153802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5013861940136295603.post-3525078109042802212013-08-04T20:52:10.740-07:002013-08-04T20:52:10.740-07:00Great to see you willing to consider negative evid...Great to see you willing to consider negative evidence to your theory. However, I would ask it this way, is Willingham arguing for "irrelevant" curriculum? I doubt that. I think he's just saying that you should push learners to consider something other than what they already know. That is probably true but I sure wish some of my math teachers had cared at all about making things more relevant than they were and I might have actually studied what they were talking about instead of just passing their tests and vowing never to get deeper into math than I had to!David Williamshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16568170037330971913noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5013861940136295603.post-21964894702949046372013-08-03T09:37:31.938-07:002013-08-03T09:37:31.938-07:00Very well stated Jacob. It sounds like you have st...Very well stated Jacob. It sounds like you have studied much more on this subject, and I am happy to find that I agree with your perspective. Time and time again the word that keeps coming back to me is balance. There needs to be a balance between qualitative and quantitative research, between hooks and content, relationships and order, surface level exposure and deep/intimate level learning. The list could go on to involve any number of things such as politics to cooking, sports to doing well in college! I think this episode I had with cognitive science was a helpful reality check in keeping my educational paradigm well-balanced. Greghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17788639825518734443noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5013861940136295603.post-87595640146801762232013-08-03T08:27:51.386-07:002013-08-03T08:27:51.386-07:00I think cognitive research has a lot of value, or ...I think cognitive research has a lot of value, or at least I hope so given the amount of time I spent in college studying cognitive research in education. But having spent as much time studying statistics, I also know the limited value of anything "researchers" have found to be true. <br /><br />That being said, I definitely think the primary finding that organization and relational bonds are the defining factors of success in a student's learning is spot on. And based on what I've studied, learning styles don't actually exist, at least not in any empirically meaningful way. But there's a nuance to qualitative data that no matter how much you code or quantify just doesn't measure well. Plus since research is so caught up in probabilities, it's hard to tell how genuinely meaningful it is without various checks to validity. <br /><br />So anecdotal evidence that some people are visual thinkers or kinesthetic learners is not irrelevant, but also not in anyway universally true. So as far as relevance goes, I think it's value is most clearly the "hook" we learned about in Institute for the "Why" key points of the INM. And I think a degree of relevance is totally necessary for building that relationship that makes the student have a positive emotional connection to the teacher. But I also agree that students need constant exposure and conditioning to understand the world isn't about them and that some information is critical to future knowledge or application that is slightly beyond their current context. Jacob Hicksonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03416865402639009385noreply@blogger.com