This book 2010 by Lilienfeld, S.O., Lynn, S. J. Ruscio, J.
and Beyerstein, B.L. came up several times in the reference notes section of
the Hattie and Yate’s book ‘visible learning and the science of learning summarised in last week's blog.
The book is in the CPIT library, so dipping in and out of
the book over several days provided for some interesting updates of some of my
pre/mis-conceptions and food for thought on how to progress with work completed
last year on the ‘learning a trade’ project.
In the introduction, the 10 sources of how myths occur are
discussed. These sources are efficiency of ‘word of mouth’ information sources;
human desire for easy answers and quick fixes; our selective perception and
memory; inference of causation from correlation; ‘after this, therefore because
of this’ approach to reasoning; exposure to biased samples; reasoning by
representativeness; misleading film and media portrayals; exaggeration of
kernels of truth; and terminological confusion.
The myths are collated into 11 sections. The following
sections are of most interest to educators:
Section 1 on brain power has 5 myths. 2 myths – most people
only use 10% of their brain power and some people are left brained, others
right brained – would be most relevant. We use large %age of our brains at all
times and both brain hemispheres work in synchrony.
Section 2 ‘from womb to tomb’ covers myths on human
development and aging. The myth of relevance is the one about playing Mozart to
infants to boost intelligence – alas this does not work.
Section 3 covers myths about memory. Here the myth about the
brain being like a video recorder is important. Our memories of things pass ARE
selective and cannot be relied on.
Section 4 discusses myths on intelligence and learning. In
this section, we find out IQ tests actually have some credence; if you are not
sure of the answer it might not be the best option to stick to a hunch; dyslexia is not just envisioning words with reversed letters; and the most
important, learning styles are critiqued and debunked.
Consciousness, emotions and motivations, interpersonal
behaviour and personality and covered in the next 4 sections. Myths of interest
are: we are not actually able to learn languages if we listen to the new
language while we sleep; men and women communicate in subtly similar and dissimilar ways which are not generalizable to either sex; and inkblots and
handwriting do not reveal personality traits.
The postscript is also worth some study. Myth busting
pointers are suggested. These are: not to trust ‘gut instinct’, ‘word of
mouth’, media coverage, biased samples and in-built human biases. Instead, do
‘due diligence’, check sources and keep an open mind.
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