Educational Leadership - February 2012

focusing instruction primarily on differences may not be as effective as one may hope. Further, individual difference theories typically argue for a more fluid and contextual perspective, making static categories rather unwieldy, if not plain impossible. That is, a student may process lessons in science differently than he or she does in art or history. If this student is assigned to the same group in both domains, we may actually be subverting the learning process.

All students do have
certain things in
common. Indeed, it
would be astonishing

References

Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T., & Rohrer, D. (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 132, 354–380.

Hecht. S. A. (2002). Counting on working memory in simple arithmetic when counting is used for problem solving. Memory and Cognition, 30, 447–455.

Kalyuga, S., Chandler, P., Tuovinen, J., & Sweller, J. (2001). When problem solving is superior to studying worked examples. Journal of Educational Psychology, 93, 579–588.

Pashler, H., Bain, P., Bottge, B., Graesser, A., Koedinger, K., McDaniel, M., & Met-calfe, J. (2007). Organizing instruction and study to improve student learning (NCER 2007-2004). Washington, DC: Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.

Penner, D. E., & Klahr, D. (1996). The
interaction of domain-specific knowledge
and domain-general discovery strate-
gies: A study with sinking objects. Child
Development, 67, 2709–2727.

Daniel Willingham is professor and director of graduate studies, Psychology Department, University of Virginia, Charlottesville; Willingham@virginia.edu. David Daniel is professor of psychology, James Madison University, Har-risonburg, Virginia; danieldb@jmu.edu.

if they didn’t.

Of course, students will differ with regard to how they respond to and benefit from any single instructional strategy in a given lesson. There is no doubt that students have individual differences that are both situational and preferential. And there is no doubt that effective teachers address these differences using their own experience as a guide.

But when it comes to applying research to the classroom, it seems inadvisable to categorize students into more and more specialized groups on the basis of peripheral differences when education and cognitive sciences have made significant progress in describing the core competencies all students share. Teachers can make great strides in improving student achievement by leveraging this body of research and teaching to commonalities, not differences. ;L

A BRIGHTER FUTURE
FOR EDUCATION

Andy Hargreaves and Michael Fullan capitalize on their former differences to collaborate on a new book that will transform the teaching profession. Riveting in its insights and irresistible in its ideas for action, this is a book that no-one connected with schools can afford to ignore. A book so different, we can’t reveal the title until publication.