Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning.
As an instructor, I am always looking for ways to improve my teaching and ensure that people are retaining the information I am sharing. This book, brings numerous tips backed by science, research, and the author practicing them to the reader.
I really appreciated the way he presented the information broken down into three major parts. (1) Knowledge and how we learn it (2) Understanding which is taking the knowledge and DOING something with it, and (3) Inspiration. What are some tips on how to inspire our students.
Each section introduces the theory, then gives models of use, review principles to remember, and provides a nice tips and summary.
My big take aways are that you have to practice retrieving from memory and the more times you can do that, in different ways, the more you will remember. Reminds me of the time I had to memorize what seemed like over a hundred trees by their bark, leaf, and their Latin names. We played pool at night in the local bar and your opponent would give you a quiz. If you answered it right, you got to shoot. 🙂
He also introduces ways to “interleave” learning by adjusting your class time. Things like using the first or last 5 minutes of each class to review key points. Using short quizzes that are not heavily graded and spreading them out before you give the test that has many points attached to it.
I particularly liked his section on Inspiration and how he demonstrates the importance of telling stories to improve learning. Stories on one of the foundations of my career coaching practice and it was good to see the research behind this.
If you teach in classes to any level, even if it is in a hybrid model, or totally online, this books has lots of tips that will improve what you do.
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