My Sociology 101 professor taught me something over ten years ago that has stuck with me ever since. I struggled in that class, and once again I raised my hand and expressed my confusion. "Kevin, you know the secret to academic success." Really? I was fighting for my B+ at the time. "You know what you don't know." Later I would learn that he was referring to meta cognition--thinking about thinking--knowing what you know and don't know.
Fast forward to fall 2009. I'm reviewing for a Hamlet identification test in which I supply a series of passages from the play and my students would be required to identify the speaker and the significance. Typically I would read a quotation and ask the class to volunteer an answer. When I'm at my laziest, I call on Student A, the one who raises a hand. She responds with the correct answer. When I think about it, this accomplishes very little for any of my students. The girl with the raised hand already knows the answer so reviewing that particular item does nothing more than affirm what she already knows she knows.
Student B doesn't raise his hand, even though he knows the answer. It's safer for him to let Student A answer.
Student C knows she does not know the correct answer and naturally wants to avoid exposure to her teacher and peers. She will not raise her hand. If we're lucky she will learn the correct answer from Student A, recognize that she has some studying to do and will prepare diligently for the exam. Another possibility is that she is discouraged, feels like she's just not good at English, and decides that Shakespeare is stupid. Either way, there is no mechanism for me to intervene.
I want to focus on Student D. He does not know the correct answer, but when student A reveals the correct answer, he thinks to himself, "Oh yeah, I knew that." He is a victim of what my colleague and AP Psychology teacher, Cammy Torgenrud, identified as hindsight bias: the tendency for people to have false memories of errant predictions. Hindsight bias and meta cognition do not get along.
Many of us were victims of hindsight bias during the balloon boy fiasco. I was eating lunch at the time when my wife IM'd me about it, so we spent the next 15 minutes watching the CNN feed in horror with millions of other gullible Americans.
At some point I did write, "He's hiding in the garage. I know the type. I was a hider as a kid." However later RiaMengin who is an editor at The Salinas Californian posted on Facebook:
Reporter instincts say: The whole "my kid's in our UFO balloon!" thing was planned to get fame/sponsors.
I noticed my brain performing fantastic gymnastics to convince myself that I too had identified the family as a fraud. In truth, I was actually suffering confirmation bias, believing that the boy was like me when I was a boy. I liked to terrify my parents by hiding. I've gotten over that. My hindsight bias struck when I (Student D) pretended that I had recognized the family's fraud once I read Ria's (Student A) post on Facebook.
In my classes, Student D needs my attention. Not just because he's not prepared for the test, but more importantly, his mindset prevents him from recognizing that he's not prepared. I'd like to provide that attention before the test, not after. In a future post I will present a cool little piece of free technology that will help me accomplish this so we could all know what we don't know.
As I mentioned in my previous post, the first thing I do in class is have my students write and deliver two minute introductions. Obviously it gives me a sense of their writing and presentation skills, but more importantly it allows me to know who they are. Here's the prompt I give them: Your first formal assignment is to compose and present a short introduction so I may better get to know you. I'm only looking for a two minute introduction. I would like you to type it out and then read it to the class. Make sure you save your work somewhere because I'm going to ask you to post it in your portfolio (more on that later). I'd like to get a sense of who you are and what your voice is. Not sure what to write? No problem ... here are some ideas to help get you started: What are you passionate about? What are some of your goals for the year? For your life? What is the most important physical object in your life? (take a photo of it and bring it to class) What is y
Android App Inventor android.kevinbrookhouser.com 1. Go to and bookmark ai2.appinventor.mit.edu 2. Start a new project "grumpyapp" (no spaces or symbols) 3. Drag a button into your screen 4. Make the button this image. 5. Download these MP3 files. meow and hiss . upload it as a new sound in App Inventor. 6. If you have an Android device, get the A12 Companion App for Android and c onnect your Android to the computer. 7. If you don't have an Android device, get this chrome app and install this apk . 8. Go to "Blocks" and create this. MITs Android App Inventor Get the App! Connect Android Device to Computer over WIFI Get the Moto E Animal Dashboard Video bit.ly/ARC_Welder_Chrome You need this cat. Right click [save image as]. And you need the meow at the bottom of this page. Hello Purr Instructions Magic 8 Ball Instructions The App Inventor YouTube Channel Publ
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