Tyler McCubbin’s Reviews > Why Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom > Status Update

“Rote knowledge might lead to giving the right response, but it doesn’t mean the student is thinking.”

Really interesting insight of transferability issues by explaining surface versus deep structures to demonstrate learning. “Our cognitive system is always struggling to make sense of what we’re reading or hearing…background knowledge always concerns surface structure…deep structure is not obvious”.

“Unless the cognitive conditions are right, we will avoid thinking” (1)

“Mental work appeals to us because it offers the opportunity for that pleasant feeling when it succeeds” (8). If that mental work is either too easy or too difficult, our brain gets a) no reward or b) no satisfaction, so we get no pleasure for learning in that type of environment.