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It distinguishes applied science that improves classrooms from basic science that describes the world, then explains how scientific methods and findings can shape practice and receptiveness to new ideas. 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Teachers’ instructional decisions are based on a mix of theories learned in teacher education, trial and error, craft knowledge, and gut instinct. Such knowledge often serves us well, but is there anything sturdier to rely on?  \nCognitive science is an interdisciplinaryfield of researchers from psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, philosophy, computer science, and anthropology who seek to understand the mind. In this regular American Educator column, we consider findings from this field that are strong and clear enough to merit classroom application.  \nDaniel T. Willingham is a professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Virginia. He is the author of When Can You Trust the Experts? How to Tell Good Science from Bad in Education and Why Don’t Students Like School? His most recent book is The Reading Mind: A Cognitive Approach to Understanding How the Mind Reads. For his articles on education, [go to www.danielwillingham.com. Readers can pose ques](go to www.danielwillingham.com. Readers can pose ques)tions to “Ask the Cognitive Scientist” by sending an email [to ae@aft.org](to ae@aft.org). Future columns will try to address readers’ questions.  \nBy Daniel T. Willingham  \nQuestion: Is it useful for teachers to know the basic science of how children learn? I thought it was, but a professor in my teacher education program disagreed; what teachers need to know, she said, are research-based findings about what works in classrooms. She thought there’s not much point in learning abstract science that doesn’t directly apply to classrooms.  \nAnswer: There’s no doubt that research bearing directly on classroom practice is crucial. But I respectfully disagree with your professor and maintain that it’s useful for educators also to know the basic science around children’s cognition, emotion, and motivation, because beliefs about what children are like inevitably influence your practice. Everyone has such beliefs; the purpose of learning the science would be to broaden and deepen that knowledge, and to disabuse you of any misconceptions you might have. Still, not everything of concern to scientists is valuable to educators.  \n30 AMERICAN EDUCATOR | SUMMER 2019  \nS  \ncientific knowledge can influence educational practice in more than oneway. Sometimes the applications are overt, as when scientific descriptions of how children learn offer new ideas for instructional methods. For example,  \nresearchers have described the learning benefits of spacing out practice,1 and some educators have sought to incorporate that finding into their classrooms.  \nScience can also influence education through the use of scientific methods to evaluate the effectiveness of different educational practices. Scientists have a lot of experience designing experiments and can offer useful techniques to help decide whether, for example, two reading programs differ in how much they motivate children to read independently.  \nBoth types of applications are overt and self-conscious. They are what researchers usually call “applied science.” That contrasts with “basic science,” research that is conducted not with the aim of improving education, but with the aim of providing a scientific description of the world. In this case, the basic science of concern tells us about how children learn, their emotional lives, and what motivates them. It’s a scientific view of what kids are like and how they develop. That basic scientific knowledge is the third avenue through which science can influence educational practice.  \nAn educator’s practice is, of course, influenced by her beliefs about what children are like. Teachers try to tune their practice to what they believe tobe children’s nature, in the perfectly reasonable belief that teaching will be more successful if it accounts for the way chil","cbCaidFClPPvtiTD","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaidFClPPvtiTD","pdf",322293,"English","# ASK THE COGNITIVE SCIENTIST\n## Should Teachers Know the Basic Science of How Children Learn?\n## Applied Science vs Basic Science\n## How Teacher Beliefs Shape Practice\n## Scientific Statements and Misapplication","[{\"question\":\"Why does the article say teachers should know basic science about learning?\",\"answer\":\"Because beliefs about children’s cognition, emotion, and motivation inevitably influence teaching practice, and learning the science can broaden, deepen, and correct misconceptions.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the article distinguish applied science from basic science?\",\"answer\":\"Applied science targets improving education through instructional ideas and experimental evaluation, while basic science aims to describe how children learn and develop without directly seeking classroom improvement.\"},{\"question\":\"What role do scientific methods play in education according to the article?\",\"answer\":\"They help evaluate whether different educational practices are effective by designing experiments and comparing outcomes, including differences in motivation for reading.\"}]","ASK THE COGNITIVE SCIENTIST - Should Teachers Know the Basic Science of How Children Learn? | PDF",1792072890]