Quote 1:
“Of course you could make each decision with care and thought. When someone encourages you to “think outside the box” that’s usually what he means – don’t go on autopilot, don’t do what you (or others) have always done. Consider what life would be like if you always strove to think outside the box” (page 6).
This quote stuck out to me a lot when I came across it in the book. The author was talking about how we use our memory a lot of times when solving problems or finding answers instead of actually thinking. He mentions how we go on “autopilot” a lot or use our memory for answers. However, if we constantly use our memories of what people have taught us to or what we have learned from others we aren’t really thinking for ourselves. If we strove to think for ourselves instead of constantly going through the motions of learning from others, maybe we could come up with new and exciting things, things that are “outside the box”. As a teacher I think it is sometimes difficult to find time for your students to “think outside the box” because there is such a big effort to finish ideas to move on to other lessons. If we took the time so that kids can be off “autopilot” then new ideas and solutions could arise.
Quote 2:
“Working on problems that are of the right level of difficulty is rewarding, but working on problems that are too easy or too difficult is unpleasant. Students can’t opt out of these problems the way adults often can” (page 11).
Understanding that children are all on different levels of learning is important but understanding how to successfully challenge them is even more important and challenging. The book mentioned that when humans do difficult tasks all by ourselves we receive this sense of achievement. But when the problems in school are too easy or difficult, kids feel less successful and less likely to want to keep learning. Kids have this curiosity to learn but if that learning is too easy or too difficult, how are kids able to make connections to their learning? I think an important question arises which is how do we make work accessible to all different levels of learning without becoming too much of a distraction?
Quote 3:
“The solution to working memory overloads is straightforward: slow the pace, and use memory aids such as writing on the whiteboard to save students from keeping too much information in working memory” (page 19).
When reading this section of the book I found this quote very interesting. Throughout the chapter I read about working memory and how it taps into long-term memory when needed. Sometimes that working memory is overloaded with information which makes the memory system not very efficient in this aspect. Instead of students retaining that knowledge, everything is being packed tightly into the working memory and not effectively being stored or practically used. The book mentioned that using tools such as writing on whiteboards or slowing the pace can be effective towards retaining knowledge. I remember I had a teacher that used the whiteboard during Spanish class exactly like this. Right before we would go off into group work she would verbally give us instructions which we could listen to. At the same time she was also writing down vocab words she was using or snippets of directions which we could read off the board at the moment or later when we split off into group work. I believe this idea of not overloading a kid’s working memory is so important to students to be able to retain knowledge.
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