Psych 85 - Reaction Page

Emily Tom

Psych 85

November 10, 2015

Reaction Page 11

        In “Productive Thinking,” Max Wertheimer first presents an interesting case about his observations in a classroom where the teacher was teaching his students how to find the area of a parallelogram. When given the same types of problems as they were taught, students were able to do well with them, as they could effortlessly repeat the steps. However, when Wertheimer simply rotated the parallelogram or made a gap in the shape, the students (and the teacher) responded with, “Well how are we supposed to know how to do that? We weren’t taught that!” A problem like this can distinguish between the learners who actually understood the thinking behind the solution, and those who simply memorized the process and applied it to each new problem. In an extreme case, Wertheimer shows “A and B reactions”; a B reaction is when a student merely copies what the teacher taught, without taking into account the context of the problem. The example he used is how a student attempted to apply one solution to a parallelogram to another parallelogram with different dimensions. He calls the A reactions the intelligent reactions, and the B reactions the blind reactions.

        Wertheimer uses three variables s, m and g, to describe the situation, means and the goal. The question becomes how we apply the correct m to the right s to achieve our g.  In my own personal experience, especially with math, I have learned that it is imperative for me to not only practice several problems of the same kind, but to also understand the processes to obtain the answer. Several times, professors will post practice tests, and I will feel a false sense of security when I discover that I can easily solve all the problems. However, when the real test comes, and the problems are slightly tweaked, I find myself with a blank brain. Being able to regurgitate material is only the first and most basic level of learning. The ability to synthesize and apply the material is what creates higher order thinking.