Ignite 2.

0 : Understanding new concepts : WS3 Research: Dan Willingham:

Aug 2019

Question 4: Why do we find abstract ideas so difficult to understand, and so

difficult to apply when expressed in new ways?
Answer:​ Schooling has the important goal of abstraction. The teacher wants students to have the ability to
apply classroom learning in new contexts, including those outside of school. But this involves the
challenge that ​the mind does not like abstractions​. Our minds prefer the concrete. For this reason, when
we encounter an abstract principle—for example a law in physics such as net force = mass x
acceleration—we ask for a concrete example to help us understand.
Critical principle 4: We understand ​new​ things in the context of ​things that we already know​, and
most of what we know, we know ​concretely​.
For this reason, we find it difficult to comprehend abstract ideas, and difficult to apply them in new
situations. ​The surest way to help students understand an abstraction involves ​exposing them to
many different versions of the abstraction​—for example, to have them solve area calculation
problems about tabletops, soccer fields, envelopes, doors, and so on.​ Some promising new techniques
may speed up this process. [Or in physics, chemistry, math or biology, use ​multiple representations​:
pictures and diagrams ​and​ students writing ​and​ speaking to describe the situation in their own words,
and​ then using technical words ​and​ graphs ​and​ (finally) symbols ​and​ equations. (Note this progression.)]

Understanding: remembering in disguise

Factual knowledge has great importance in schooling, and we have discussed how to make sure that
students acquire those facts and how things get into memory. But we must not assume that from
accomplishing these things students ​understand​ what we wish to teach them. Students often find it
difficult to understand new ideas, especially ideas ​really​ novel to them—meaning the new ideas don’t
relate to other things they have already learned. What do cognitive scientists know about how students
understand things? The answer: ​People understand ​new​ ideas (things they don’t know) by relating
them to ​old​ ideas (things they do know)​.​ This helps us understand some familiar principles.
(1) The usefulness of analogies.​ Analogies help us understand something new by relating it to
something we already know about. For example, we commonly and usefully use water as an analogy
for Ohm’s law in electricity.
(2) Our need for familiar, concrete examples.​ Students find it hard to understand abstractions like
“net force equal mass times acceleration”, even after defining all of the terms. They need ​concrete
examples​ to illustrate what the abstractions mean. For example, before they can feel confident that
they understand iambic pentameter, they need to ​hear:​
Not just concrete, but Familiar
Examples require something more than just making abstractions concrete.​ For an example to help,
the student must have familiarity with it. A concrete example will not help much if the student does
not have ​familiarity​ with it. Suppose we had the following conversation:
Me: Different scales of measurement provide different kinds of information. Ordinal scales provide ranks,
whereas on an interval scale the differences between measurement points have meaning.
You: That sounded like utter gobbledygook to me.
Me: OK, I will give you some concrete examples. The Mohs scale of mineral hardness works as an
ordinal scale, whereas the Rasch model provides an interval measurement. See?
You: I think I’ll go get a coffee now.
So just giving concrete examples will not necessarily help. They must also have ​familiarity​ to the person
and most people have no familiarity with the Mohs scale and Rasch model. ​Importantly, the
familiarity​ helps, ​not​ the concreteness.​ ​But most of what students have familiarity with
also falls into the concrete category because we have concrete experiences in our
day-to-day lives and people find it hard to understand abstractions.
So, understanding ​new​ ideas mostly involves getting the ​right old, familiar​ ideas into working memory
and then rearranging them—making comparisons we had not made before, or thinking about a feature we
had previously ignored.
Now perhaps you can better see why we claim that ​understanding largely equals remembering in
disguise​. As much as we may wish it, and as much as traditional education methods may try, no one can
pour new ideas into a student’s head directly. ​The student must build every new idea on ideas that
they already know. To get a student to understand, a teacher (or parent or book or television
program) must ensure that the student pulls the ​right familiar​ ideas from their long-term memory
and ​put them into working memory​. In ​addition​, they must ​attend​ to the ​right​ ​features​ of these
memories and then ​compare, combine, or manipulate them appropriately​.