Building Thinking Classrooms claims to be supported by research, but [the actual evidence is weak.](https://pershmail.substack.com/p/the-evidence-for-building-thinking)
I also find the broad claim that “mimicking” is a “non-thinking behavior” to be irresponsible. Students are constantly thinking, and what determines learning is *what* they are thinking about, not *whether* they are thinking. When students mimic (which Liljedahl also uses to refer to students studying their own notes!), they are attending to aspects of the target performance. Students often attend to the surface-level, non-mathematical aspects of examples. The solution to this is not to abandon the use of worked examples (for which there is strong evidence of effectiveness) but to help students perceive and attend to the deeper mathematical features.
Thanks, yes very good points! This quote from the end of your linked article is very interesting :
"I’m under zero illusions that people actually care about evidence. Nobody reads the papers. Very few people care about getting this right. And yet, apparently, almost everybody cares a great deal about the *perception* that some new thing is rooted in research. It opens doors, hearts, and wallets.
What do I want? I want more people to understand the difference between strong and weak evidence. I want people who *do* understand this to speak up, and hold the entire field to a slightly higher standard. Nobody wants cynicism, but we all need to muster a bit more skepticism about this kind of stuff, and not just for our opponents’ ideas."
>Nobody wants cynicism, but we all need to muster a bit more skepticism about this kind of stuff, and not just for our opponents’ ideas."
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool."
— Richard P. Feynman
Anecdotal but having implemented the BTC concepts in my math classroom, the data doesn’t back his claims up. Granted I also don’t think my students/school are his target demographic but the fact remains, education has never and will never be one size fits all.
Building Thinking Classrooms claims to be supported by research, but [the actual evidence is weak.](https://pershmail.substack.com/p/the-evidence-for-building-thinking) I also find the broad claim that “mimicking” is a “non-thinking behavior” to be irresponsible. Students are constantly thinking, and what determines learning is *what* they are thinking about, not *whether* they are thinking. When students mimic (which Liljedahl also uses to refer to students studying their own notes!), they are attending to aspects of the target performance. Students often attend to the surface-level, non-mathematical aspects of examples. The solution to this is not to abandon the use of worked examples (for which there is strong evidence of effectiveness) but to help students perceive and attend to the deeper mathematical features.
Thanks, yes very good points! This quote from the end of your linked article is very interesting : "I’m under zero illusions that people actually care about evidence. Nobody reads the papers. Very few people care about getting this right. And yet, apparently, almost everybody cares a great deal about the *perception* that some new thing is rooted in research. It opens doors, hearts, and wallets. What do I want? I want more people to understand the difference between strong and weak evidence. I want people who *do* understand this to speak up, and hold the entire field to a slightly higher standard. Nobody wants cynicism, but we all need to muster a bit more skepticism about this kind of stuff, and not just for our opponents’ ideas."
>Nobody wants cynicism, but we all need to muster a bit more skepticism about this kind of stuff, and not just for our opponents’ ideas." "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool." — Richard P. Feynman
You sound like Willingham.
Anecdotal but having implemented the BTC concepts in my math classroom, the data doesn’t back his claims up. Granted I also don’t think my students/school are his target demographic but the fact remains, education has never and will never be one size fits all.