Learning

💡 2-Sentence-Summary

Jo Boaler’s Mathematical Mindsets is a book that argues that anyone can learn math and excel in the subject if they have the right mindset. Boaler advocates for a growth mindset approach to mathematics, where mistakes and challenges are seen as opportunities for learning and growth, rather than signs of fixed ability.

💭 What I think about it

I read the book while I was still a math teacher back in 2018, and it helped me so much. Boaler’s book is an excellent resource for math teachers who want to help their students develop a growth mindset when it comes to math. Boaler convincingly argues that all students can learn math, and that the key to success lies in developing a positive attitude towards the subject. Boaler provides a wealth of research-based evidence to support her claims, as well as practical strategies and tips for teachers to implement in the classroom. The book is well-structured, with each chapter focusing on a different aspect of math mindset, such as the power of mistakes, the importance of visualization, and the value of collaboration.

One of the strengths of the book is that it is written in a clear, accessible style, making it easy for both experienced and new teachers to follow. Boaler also includes a variety of engaging examples and stories to illustrate her points, making the book both informative and enjoyable to read.

🌟 Who benefits from reading this book?

I can recommend Mathematical Mindsets to math teachers who want to inspire and motivate their students to excel in math. Boaler’s message is an important one, and her practical advice will undoubtedly benefit teachers and students alike.

📚 How the book changed my life

The book likely won’t chang your life, but the lives of your students. Firstly, the book promotes a growth mindset approach to learning math, which can help students develop a positive attitude toward the subject. By teaching students that their abilities are not fixed and can be improved through effort and practice, the book can help them overcome their fear of math and develop greater confidence in their ability to learn the subject. Secondly, the book provides practical strategies for students to use when learning math. For example, Boaler emphasizes the importance of visualization and encourages students to use visual models to help them understand math concepts. By providing students with concrete tools to use in their learning, the book can help them become more effective learners and achieve greater success in math. Thirdly, the book promotes a collaborative approach to learning math. Boaler argues that students can benefit greatly from working together and learning from one another. By encouraging students to collaborate and share their ideas and strategies, the book can help them develop important social and communication skills, as well as deepen their understanding of math concepts.

✍️ My Favorite Quotes

• We all have a personal narrative that we create about our abilities and potential in math.
• Mathematics is not about following rules, it’s about making sense.

💡 2-Sentence-Summary

Visible Learning and the Science of How We Learn by John Hattie is a comprehensive meta-analysis of educational research, providing evidence-based insights into what makes effective teaching and learning. Hattie’s work identifies key factors that contribute to student achievement, including the importance of feedback, teacher-student relationships, and student expectations. He emphasizes the need for educators to have a deep understanding of how students learn and to use this knowledge to inform their instructional practices, as well as the need for ongoing assessment and evaluation to ensure that teaching is effective.

💭 What I think about it

I loved every chapter, even though it’s more on the academic side of writing – this book is correctly regarded as a highly influential and important book for educators and learners. It’s a thorough analysis of educational research and offers practical implications for teaching and learning. Hattie’s work has had a significant impact on education policy and practice, and his meta-analysis is frequently cited in academic literature and teacher training programs.

🌟 Who benefits from reading this book?

I’d recommend this book to anyone interested in improving their own learning as you’ll gain a deeper understanding of the science of how we learn and apply this knowledge to your own learning practices. But more specifically, I’d recommend this book to three audiences:

• For educators, the book provides evidence-based insights into what makes effective teaching and learning, including key factors that contribute to student achievement, such as feedback, teacher-student relationships, and student expectations. It emphasizes the need for ongoing assessment and evaluation to ensure that teaching is effective.
• For researchers, the book provides a comprehensive meta-analysis of educational research, synthesizing a vast amount of data to identify what works and what doesn’t work in education.
• For policymakers, the book provides a roadmap for improving education outcomes, highlighting the need for evidence-based policy decisions that prioritize effective teaching and learning.

📚 How the book changed my life

By applying the insights from the book, I improved my teaching practices, leading to better learning outcomes for my writing online accelerator students. I gained a deeper understanding of the factors contributing to effective teaching and learning.

✍️ My Favorite Quotes

• The key to making a difference in the learning of students is to identify what impacts positively on student learning and to implement these actions.
• Know thy impact. It’s not enough to have high expectations, we need to know what effect our teaching is having.
• The biggest effects on student learning occur when teachers become learners of their own teaching, and when students become their own teachers.
• We know since the beginnings of behavioral science the importance of feedback for academic achievement. And yet, the variability of feedback effectiveness is massive. Some feedback is way better than other. (Source: Reviews of the literature on feedback (Hattie & Gan, 2011; Hattie & Timperley, 2007))
• The key question is, does feedback help someone understand what they don’t know, what they do know, and where they go? That’s when and why feedback is so powerful, but a lot of feedback doesn’t—and doesn’t have any effect
• In a nutshell: The teacher decides the learning intentions and success criteria, makes them transparent to the students, demonstrates them by modelling, evaluates if they understand what they have been told by checking for understanding, and re-telling them what they have told by tying it all together with closure.

💡 2-Sentence-Summary

Daisy Christodoulou, in her book “Seven Myths about Education,” challenges widely accepted beliefs in education, such as the idea that teachers should be guides rather than imparting knowledge, that group work is always beneficial, and that critical thinking is best learned through open-ended tasks. She argues that these myths are based on flawed assumptions and research and that returning to evidence-based practices, such as explicit instruction and knowledge-based curricula, can improve student outcomes.

💭 What I think about it

I worked hard when I was a teacher for 100 students in a secondary school. But I didn’t use evidence-based methods. I did what everybody else was doing, unknowingly replicating methods that don’t work. And many popular methods don’t work. There’s no evidence for the learning styles theory — the belief students learn better through their preference for auditory or visual material. Eliminating fact-based learning or direct teacher instruction is one of the worst things to do. Factual learning is a precondition for acquiring twenty-first-century skills such as problem-solving, creative and critical thinking. This book helped me understand what really works in terms of teaching and learning.

🌟 Who benefits from reading this book?

“Seven Myths about Education” by Daisy Christodoulou can benefit a wide range of readers, including educators, school administrators, policymakers, parents, and anyone interested in improving education. The book provides a critical examination of popular educational myths and presents evidence-based solutions that can improve teaching and learning. It can help educators to reflect on their own practices, challenge their assumptions, and adopt evidence-based teaching strategies that can benefit their students. Policymakers can use the book to inform their decisions about education policy, and parents can gain insights into the strengths and weaknesses of different educational approaches.

📚 How the book changed my life

This book inspired me to advocate for evidence-based education practices in their schools and communities, potentially leading to systemic changes in how education is delivered, and led, for example, to write this article.

✍️ My Favorite Quotes

• So when we want to solve a problem, we hold all the information relating to the problem in working memory. Unfortunately, working memory is highly limited. There is some debate in the literature about exactly how limited working memory is, but some of the most recent research suggests that it may be limited to as few as three or four items.28 That is, we can hold only three or four new items in working memory at any one time.
• Our long-term memory does not have the same limitations as working memory. It is capable of storing thousands of pieces of information.
• Long-term memory is capable of storing thousands of facts, and when we have memorised thousands of facts on a specific topic, these facts together form what is known as a schema. When we think about that topic, we use that schema. When we meet new facts about that topic, we assimilate them into that schema – and if we already have a lot of facts in that particular schema, it is much easier for us to learn new facts about that topic.
• The very processes that teachers care about most – critical thinking processes such as reasoning and problem solving – are intimately intertwined with factual knowledge that is stored in long-term memory (not just found in the environment).
• Direct teacher instruction was the third most powerful teacher factor. The only two more powerful teacher factors were feedback, which is not opposed to direct instruction and indeed is a part of it, and instructional quality, which again is not in opposition to direct instruction.
• Problem-solving, creative thinking, critical thinking and relating to people are all incredibly important skills. There is not one skill listed above that I would cavil at. But there is nothing uniquely twenty-first century about them. Mycenaean Greek craftsmen had to work with others, adapt and innovate.
• E.D. Hirsch has this to say: There is a consensus in cognitive psychology that it takes knowledge to gain knowledge.
• When one looks at the scientific evidence about how the brain learns and at the design of our education system, one is forced to conclude that the system actively retards education.
• They argue, correctly, that the aim of schooling should be for pupils to be able to work, learn and solve problems independently. But they then assume, incorrectly, that the best method for achieving such independence is always to learn independently. This is not the case. Teacher instruction is vitally necessary to become an independent learner.

💡 2-Sentence-Summary

“Sensuous Knowledge” by Minna Salami is an eye-opening read emphasizing the importance of embodied and sensory experience as a source of knowledge and power. Salami argues that by reconnecting with our bodies and the natural world, we can transform ourselves and society towards greater empathy, creativity, and justice.

💭 What I think about it

This was one of the most refreshing reads this decade. Especially the first chapter on knowledge would make the book worth the purchase. Salami revealed my own biases when it comes to knowledgeable in the Europatriarchal context and surfaced how inherently oppressive it is. I loved how she suggested different forms of knowing. My favorite essays in this book were the ones on Knowledge, Womanhood, Blackness, Power, and Beauty.

🌟 Who benefits from reading this book?

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in feminism, social justice, and personal growth. This book is particularly relevant for those who want to explore the connections between the body, emotions, and knowledge, and how these can be harnessed to create positive societal change. It is also a great read for those who are looking for a fresh perspective on intersectionality and the role of culture in shaping our experiences and identities.

📚 How the book changed my life

Reading “Sensuous Knowledge” by Minna Salami can change your life in various ways. It can inspire you to challenge conventional norms and expectations and explore new ways of being and knowing that is grounded in empathy, creativity, and justice. It can help you to develop a more nuanced understanding of intersectionality and how different forms of oppression intersect and reinforce each other. It can encourage you to reconnect with your body and senses and develop a deeper understanding of how your cultural and social background shapes your experiences. Overall, the book can provide a powerful framework for personal growth and social transformation by highlighting the importance of sensuous knowledge and embodied experience in shaping our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.

✍️ My Favorite Quotes

• important to develop language and knowledge that works for and not against those excluded from the privileges of the status quo
• How we move and feel in the world, the air we breathe, the health of our trees, the food we eat, the ideologies we support, the way we dance and make love are all reflections of what we know.
• The idea that calculable reasoning is the only worthy way to explain reality through is one of the most dangerous ideas ever proposed.
• We need an approach to knowledge that synthesizes the imaginative and rational, the quantifiable and immeasurable, the intellectual and the emotional. Without feeling, knowledge becomes stale;
• We need an approach that measures wisdom not only by science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) or gross domestic product (GDP) but also by how ethically we develop our societies. We need knowledge that affects the interior as well as the exterior. Ogbon-inu and ogbon ori. Sensuous Knowledge.
• Instead of producing thriving, exciting, and wise societies, as knowledge should do, Europatriarchal Knowledge creates a world of social, political, psychological, and spiritual suffering.
• the more I resisted, the more I realized that to change society, one must first change oneself. But to change myself, I did not merely need new knowledge; I needed a new understanding of knowledge.
• What we can strive to do is cultivate a mind at rest and ease regardless of the fleeting events in life, which is necessary for making empowering choices. Feminism ought to focus more on providing tools that bring clarity.

💡 2-Sentence-Summary

“How We Learn” by Stanislas Dehaene is a comprehensive exploration of the latest neuroscience research on learning, covering topics such as attention, perception, memory, and reasoning. The book offers practical insights into effective learning strategies, including the importance of motivation, engagement, feedback, active learning, and spaced repetition, based on scientific evidence.

💭 What I think about it

If you’ve followed my content for a while, you know that I continue to argue how learning to learn is arguably the most important factor for academic success. I loved this book as it debunks many learning myths (learning styles, rereading, highlighting, etc) and surfaces the science-based principles that work. It’s a great read to understand recent advances in cognitive psychology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and education sciences and includes practical applications that lead to a better was to learn.

🌟 Who benefits from reading this book?

Basically, anyone interested in how our brains work and how we can optimize learning. It’s well-written and highly accessible. Dehaene, a cognitive neuroscientist and professor at the Collège de France, examines the different processes involved in learning, including attention, perception, memory, and reasoning. He also delves into the brain’s capacity for learning, discussing topics such as neuroplasticity and the role of sleep in memory consolidation.

📚 How the book changed my life

The book increased my understanding of the meta-layers of learning. Dehaene provides fascinating insights into how our brains work and how we can optimize our learning to improve our lives in both personal and professional domains.

✍️ My Favorite Quotes

• No, learning does not occur passively through simple exposure to data or lectures: on the contrary, cognitive psychology and brain imaging show us that children are budding scientists, constantly generating new hypotheses, and that the brain is an ever-alert organ that learns by testing the models it projects onto the outside world.
• No, errors are not the mark of bad students: making mistakes is an integral part of learning, because our brain can adjust its models only when it discovers a discrepancy between what it envisioned and reality.
• No, sleep is not just a period of rest: it is an integral part of our learning algorithm, a privileged period during which our brain plays its models in a loop and enhances the experience of the day by a factor of ten to one hundred.
• Pay attention to attention. Attention is the gateway to learning: virtually no information will be memorized if it has not previously been amplified by attention and awareness.
• We should expose children to a second language as early as possible. We should also bear in mind that plasticity extends at least until adolescence. During this entire period, foreign language immersion can transform the brain.
• Keep children active, curious, engaged, and autonomous. Passive students do not learn much. Make them more active. Engage their intelligence so that their minds sparkle with curiosity and constantly generate new hypotheses.
• Just as medicine is based on biology, the field of education must be grounded in a systematic and rigorous research
  an ecosystem that brings together teachers, patients, and researchers, in a ceaseless search for more effective, evidence-based learning strategies.

💡 2-Sentence-Summary

Beard has visited schools on every continent of the earth, talked to the leading neuroscientists and experimental psychologists, and met the most fabled educators. In this book, he compares the experimental classes in Silicon Valley, public schools in US, Shanghai, Finland, Hongkong, and South Korea, and offers a comprehensive overview of the educational programs our children can benefit from or be victim of.

💭 What I think about it

I loved the book! It’s the best book to gain a broad overview of different education systems and philosophies around the globe. This book is absolutely underrated. I only discovered it because I met him through Teach For All – a global network of organisations to mobilise the leadership of teachers, kids, parents, principals and policymakers to improve learning in their communities for everyone.

🌟 Who benefits from reading this book?

Basically anyone interested in learning and education systems. It’s a well-written account of Beard’s journey of travelling and testing school systems around the globe.

📚 How the book changed my life

The book changed my understanding of different education systems and pointed me towards many other valuable resources I have yet to read and watch, e.g. this book by Brett Schilke, this TED Talk by Sugata Mitra , or this book by Kathy Hirsh-Pasek.

✍️ My Favorite Quotes

• The brain is alive, unruly, engaged in an unending process of inquiry.
• Schools borrow increasingly from paradigms of the factory or market, vaunting efficiency and competition.
• Taking care requires us to build our systems around shared values, not new technologies, framing them as ecosystems rather than corporations. The well-being of our species, and of our planet, depends on developing our social and emotional intelligence. We must learn to co-operate in building the future we wish to see
• Every child was born to learn, but our systems, rather than building on that potential, seemed to be inhibiting
• If a child can’t learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn.
• The LA iPad fiasco called to mind an earlier case where every child in Thailand was given a tablet to aid their learning. The result? Thanks to a lack of teacher training, test scores got worse overall. Computers could transform learning – but only in the hands of expert practitioners.
• Schools shouldn’t ask, “How do I use this tool?” They need to ask, “What am I trying to achieve, can a tool help?”’
• Learning even prompted changes in our genes. Scientists have long recognised the nature-versus-nurture debate as fallacy. Genes are now known to ascribe a direction of travel and set limits on our growth (a baby chimp can’t grow into a human kid, however much it wants to), but they are expressed only in interaction with the environment.
• Today it no longer matters what you know, but what you learn.
• What can’t be counted still counts.
• The real reason Korean kids did so well on PISA, according to Ju-Ho Lee, was their indefatigable commitment to hard work and self-study. They succeeded in spite of schools.
• Learning to think meant knowing something, but above all it meant learning to doubt.
• Education is the answer. Schools aren’t to blame for the ills of our societies – we must redistribute wealth, tackle poverty at its roots, create a fairer, more ethical and sustainable world, alter the ideas that govern our actions – but they are the solution.
• Instead of teaching our kids to know, we need to teach them how to learn.