Daniel T. Willingham

Cognitive psychologist at the University of Virginia who translates cognitive science for teachers. He wrote the long-running "Ask the Cognitive Scientist" column in American Educator. His research focuses on the role of consciousness in learning (Willingham — Critical Thinking, Why Is It So Hard to Teach).

In this wiki

• Author of the wiki's first thinking & learning source, which argues that critical thinking is bound to domain knowledge rather than a transferable skill.
• His bedrock memory principle, "you remember what you think about," extended to thinking: "you learn to think critically in the ways in which you practice thinking critically." It underlies Metacognitive Strategies and Surface vs Deep Structure.
• His work is the trigger for Method Reflection: it is the first source to question how this wiki itself stores knowledge.

Other works (not yet ingested)

• Cognition: The Thinking Animal (textbook); co-edited Current Directions in Cognitive Science with Barbara Spellman.
• Why Don't Students Like School? (2009) is his best-known book; it extends this article's argument. Not flagged #to-read unless you want it.

Sources

• Willingham — Critical Thinking, Why Is It So Hard to Teach