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Learning

Mathematical Mindsets by Jo Boaler

April 23, 2023 by

💡 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.

Visible Learning by John Hattie

April 23, 2023 by

💡 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.

Seven Myths About Education by Daisy Christodoulou

April 23, 2023 by

💡 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.

Sensuous Knowledge by Minna Salami

April 23, 2023 by

💡 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.

How We Learn by Stanislas Dehaene

April 23, 2023 by

💡 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.

Natural Born Learners by Alex Beard

January 12, 2022 by

💡 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.

Educated by Tara Westover

January 11, 2022 by

💡 3-Sentence-Summary

An unforgettable memoir about a woman who was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom and, despite her extremely difficult family circumstances, managed to earn a Ph.D. from an elite university. Throughout the book, she shares all the lessons she learned on her way. Tara’s story will continue to motivate you long after reading. You’ll feel empowered to tackle any challenge that lies ahead of you.

💭 What I think about it

If Tara managed to earn her degree despite all the struggles, what will withhold you from achieving your goals? There’s a reason you’ll find plenty of praise for this book from the world’s greatest thinkers.

🌟 Who benefits from reading this book?

This book is not only beautifully written, but it’s also one of the most powerful success stories about higher education. You’ll peek inside a Mormon family and off-grit Idaho life. Tara’s story will motivate and stick with you long after reading.

📚 How the book changed my life

Here are the three key lessons I took away from the book:

  1. Education can be a way out of the most difficult situations.
  2. Whatever learning challenge you face, you can do it.
  3. Life is a quest for learning; one is never done with it.

✍️ My Favorite Quotes

  • “You can love someone and still choose to say goodbye to them,” she says now. “You can miss a person every day, and still be glad that they are no longer in your life.”
  • My life was narrated for me by others. Their voices were forceful, emphatic, absolute. It had never occurred to me that my voice might be as strong as theirs.
  • The thing about having a mental breakdown is that no matter how obvious it is that you’re having one, it is somehow not obvious to you. I’m fine, you think. So what if I watched TV for twenty-four straight hours yesterday. I’m not falling apart. I’m just lazy. Why it’s better to think yourself lazy than think yourself in distress, I’m not sure. But it was better. More than better: it was vital.
  • We are all of us more complicated than the roles we are assigned in the stories other people tell.
  • Everything I had worked for, all my years of study, had been to purchase for myself this one privilege: to see and experience more truths than those given to me by my father, and to use those truths to construct my own mind. I had come to believe that the ability to evaluate many ideas, many histories, many points of view, was at the heart of what it means to self-create. If I yielded now, I would lose more than an argument. I would lose custody of my own mind. This was the price I was being asked to pay, I understood that now. What my father wanted to cast from me wasn’t a demon: it was me.
  • I began to experience the most powerful advantage of money: the ability to think of things besides money.
  • The skill I was learning was a crucial one, the patience to read things I could not yet understand.
  • Curiosity is a luxury for the financially secure.
  • An education is not so much about making a living as making a person.

Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know by Adam M. Grant

January 11, 2022 by

💡 3-Sentence-Summary

Think Again can make you more humble, self-aware, and intelligent by showing how intellectual ignorance can harm you. Grant differentiates between preacher mode, politician mode, and scientist mode. According to Grant, the right thing to do is to follow the scientist mode and doubt what you know, be curious about what you don’t know and update your beliefs when presented with new evidence.

💭 What I think about it

This book inspired me and I dedicated an entire article to the key lessons. Changing your opinion when presented with evidence or arguments is more important than ever.

🌟 Who benefits from reading this book?

This book is literally for everyone who is willing to expand their mind. The key ideas from the book can improve your ability to rethink and change your mind.

📚 How the book changed my life

When you just read a few books in your life, you’re likely aware of what you don’t know. But once you’ve read through some hundred books, you tend to become ignorant. You might be too confident, too sure, and less aware of the things you don’t know. Nassim Nicholas Taleb says: “Read books are far less valuable than unread ones.” This book reminded me to stay curious and question everything I learned – despite (or because of!) reading so much.

✍️ My Favorite Quotes

  • The smarter you are, the more complex the problems you can solve—and the faster you can solve them. Intelligence is traditionally viewed as the ability to think and learn. Yet in a turbulent world, there’s another set of cognitive skills that might matter more: the ability to rethink and unlearn.
  • Cognitive laziness. Some psychologists point out that we’re mental misers: we often prefer the ease of hanging on to old views over the difficulty of grappling with new ones.
  • We laugh at people who still use Windows 95, yet we still cling to opinions that we formed in 1995.
  • No matter how much brainpower you have, if you lack the motivation to change your mind, you’ll miss many occasions to think again.
  • The purpose of learning isn’t to affirm our beliefs; it’s to evolve our beliefs.
  • If knowledge is power, knowing what we don’t know is wisdom.
  • You can be confident in your ability to achieve a goal in the future while maintaining the humility to question whether you have the right tools in the present. That’s the sweet spot of confidence.
  • This evidence is new, and we still have a lot to learn about when impostor syndrome is beneficial versus when it’s detrimental. Still, it leaves me wondering if we’ve been misjudging impostor syndrome by seeing it solely as a disorder.
  • Psychologists find that admitting we were wrong doesn’t make us look less competent. It’s a display of honesty and a willingness to learn.
  • Rethinking depends on a different kind of network: a challenge network, a group of people we trust to point out our blind spots and help us overcome our weaknesses. Their role is to activate rethinking cycles by pushing us to be humble about our expertise, doubt our knowledge, and be curious about new perspectives.
  • Agreeableness is about seeking social harmony, not cognitive consensus. It’s possible to disagree without being disagreeable. Although I’m terrified of hurting other people’s feelings, when it comes to challenging their thoughts, I have no fear. In fact, when I argue with someone, it’s not a display of disrespect—it’s a sign of respect. It means I value their views enough to contest them.
  • Changing your mind doesn’t make you a flip-flopper or a hypocrite. It means you were open to learning.
  • When we choose not to engage with people because of their stereotypes or prejudice, we give up on opening their minds.
  • Psychologists have a name for this: binary bias. It’s a basic human tendency to seek clarity and closure by simplifying a complex continuum into two categories.
  • A fascinating example is a divide around emotional intelligence. On one extreme is Daniel Goleman, who popularized the concept. He preaches that emotional intelligence matters more for performance than cognitive ability (IQ) and accounts for “nearly 90 percent” of success in leadership jobs. At the other extreme is Jordan Peterson, writing that “There is NO SUCH THING AS EQ” and prosecuting emotional intelligence as “a fraudulent concept, a fad, a convenient band-wagon, a corporate marketing scheme.” Both men hold doctorates in psychology, but neither seems particularly interested in creating an accurate record. If Peterson had bothered to read the comprehensive meta-analyses of studies spanning nearly two hundred jobs, he’d have discovered that—contrary to his claims—emotional intelligence is real and it does matter. Emotional intelligence tests predict performance even after controlling for IQ and personality. If Goleman hadn’t ignored those same data, he’d have learned that if you want to predict performance across jobs, IQ is more than twice as important as emotional intelligence (which accounts for only 3 to 8 percent of performance)

The New Science of Learning by Terry Doyle and Todd Zakrajsek

January 11, 2022 by

💡 3-Sentence-Summary

Learning how to learn is one of the most powerful skills you can learn. This book reveals how most people’s learning strategies are inefficient, ineffective and wrong. The book reveals how effective learning strategies look like and how you can retain knowledge and skills for a lifetime (vs just for a test).

💭 What I think about it

While this is not my favourite book on learning, it is a good refresher on the underlying principles of learning how to learn. For example, it explains learning and memory need two components: the learned information itself and a so-called retrieval cue that helps you find the learned material. It also enforces why retrieval is so powerful: when you recall a memory both it and its cue are reinforced. With every additional retrieval, you strengthen the connection and can access your memory faster.

🌟 Who benefits from reading this book?

This book is particularly good for students who look for ways to improve their learning.

📚 How the book changed my life

To be honest, the book didn’t change my life in a meaningful way. But it taught me how to use new information to make meaningful connections in my brain and that a multi-dimensional learning experience that involves many senses is effective.

✍️ My Favorite Quotes

  • Higher education is odd in that we don’t typically teach teachers how to teach, students how to learn, or administrators how to lead.
  • Better learning does not always require more effort or more time; rather one need only effectively align how the brain naturally learns with the demands of the college classroom.
  • New learning requires a considerable amount of practice and a meaningful connection to other information in order to become a more permanent part of memory.
  • Your teacher’s goal is to get you to do as much of the work in the learning process as possible, because the more work your brain does, the greater the number of connections established. More connections in turn increase the likelihood that more permanent memories will be formed.
  • Only when you practice, read, write, think, talk, collaborate, and reflect does your brain make permanent connections. Your teachers cannot do this for you, and at times this work will make you tired.
  • To remember what you need to know in school, you need to have repeated exposure to the material and then you need to use it. This strengthens both the memory and the cues for recovering the memory so that you can use the information when you need it.

How to Take Smart Notes: by Sönke Ahrens Summary

January 11, 2022 by

💡 3-Sentence-Summary

How to Take Smart Notes is an actionable, well-research how-to guide on improving your writing, reading, learning, note-taking, and knowledge management. Sönke Ahrens has spent years exploring the Zettelkasten (slip-box method). This book is the best English literature on the topic and explores fleeting notes, literature notes, and permanent notes in depth.

💭 What I think about it

Because of its applicability, this is my favorite book on note-taking. You’ll not only understand how note-taking works as a learning tool, but also get actionable insights on how to implement this into your life. The book is like “Make it Stick” applied to note-taking.

🌟 Who benefits from reading this book?

This book is for anyone who wants to level up their personal knowledge management.

📚 How the book changed my life

These are several ways this book (in combination with setting up a Digital Zettelkasten in RoamReseach) has transformed my thinking, learning, and writing. I wrote an entire article about this here.

  • Increased productivity. I write and create faster. Instead of using my brain to browse through books and digital bookmark notes, I have everything in one place. A research-based 1,300-word article used to take me three hours to write— with Zettelkasten, it takes me one and a half.
  • Original ideas. Whenever I write or research a topic, I browse through my Roamkasten and find what I’m looking for, plus connections between domains I hadn’t thought about in the first place.
  • Better thinking. New information challenges my thinking and helps me overcome cognitive biases. I gain a deeper understanding of everything I read.

✍️ My Favorite Quotes

  • Every intellectual endeavour starts with a note.
  • To seek as many opportunities to learn as possible is the most reliable long-term growth strategy.
  • A good workflow can easily turn into a virtuous circle, where the positive experience motivates us to take on the next task with ease, which helps us to get better at what we are doing, which n return makes it more likely for us to enjoy the work, and so on.
  • Not learning from what we read because we don’t take the time to elaborate on it is the real waste of time.
  • Notes are only as valuable as the note and reference networks they are embedded in.
  • We learn something not only when we connect it to prior knowledge and try to understand its broader implications (elaboration), but also when we try to retrieve it at different times (spacing) in different contexts (variation), ideally with the help of chance (contextual interference) and with a deliberate effort (retrieval)
  • If we accompany every step of our work with the question, “What is interesting about this?” and everything we read with the question, “What is so relevant about this that it is worth noting down?” we do not just choose information according to our interest

Make it Stick by Peter C. Brown Summary

July 23, 2021 by

💡 3-Sentence-Summary

The research group around neuroscientist Henry Roediger and psychologist Mark McDaniel spent ten years exploring learning strategies. ‘Make it Stick’ summarizes six evidence-based, application-ready strategies that help you learn better and store new knowledge in your long-term memory. The six strategies include retrieval practice (recall something you’ve learned in the past from your memory), spaced repetition (repeat the same piece of information across increasing intervals), interleaving (alternating before each practice is complete), elaboration (rephrasing new knowledge and connecting it with existing insights), reflection (synthesize, abstract, and articulate key lessons taught by experience), self-testing & calibration (answer a question or solve a problem before looking at the answer and identify knowledge gaps).

💭 What I think about it

Because of its applicability, this is my favorite book on evidence-based learning. You’ll realize the factors that shape your intellectual ability lie to a surprising extent within your own control. After reading, you’ll understand how to make the best learning techniques work for you.

🌟 Who benefits from reading this book?

This book is for anyone who wants to become a better learner.

📚 How the book changed my life

This book helped me understand fundamental truths about learning: Here are some powerful concepts from the book explores:

  • Your brain’s capacity is unlimited. Contrary to common belief, our brains are never full. The more we learn, the more we can remember. Learning is a virtuous circle. The more cues we have, the easier it is to encode new information to these cues. As long as you connect further information to existing brain branches, you can store much more than you think.
  • To learn, you first need to forget. I always thought forgetting is a character’s flaw. But it isn’t. Forgetting is necessary for new learning. That’s why spaced repetition is among the most effective learning strategies. You allow forgetting to occur and thereby strengthen your memory.
  • The power of reflection. Reflecting leads to stronger learning. To reflect, you need to retrieve, connect, and visualize earlier memories. Often, you mentally practice what you’d do the next time differently. That’s why regular thinking breaks are so valuable.

 

✍️ My Favorite Quotes

  • Mastery, especially of complex ideas, skills, and processes, is a quest. Don’t assume you’re doing something wrong if learning feels hard.
  • Trying to solve a problem before being taught the solution leads to better learning, even when errors are made in the attempt.
  • Many teachers believe that if they can make learning easier and faster, the learning will be better. Much research turns this belief on its head: when learning is harder, it’s stronger and lasts longer.
  • Rereading has three strikes against it. It is time-consuming. It doesn’t result in durable memory. And it often involves a kind of unwitting self-deception, as growing familiarity with the text comes to feel like mastery of the content. The hours immersed in rereading can seem like due diligence, but the amount of study time is no measure of mastery.
  • It’s not just what you know, but how you practice what you know that determines how well the learning serves you later.
  • Learning is deeper and more durable when it’s effortful. Learning that’s easy is like writing in sand, here today and gone tomorrow.

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