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Uncommon Sense Teaching Practical Insights in Brain Science to Help Students Learn
A groundbreaking guide to improve teaching based on the latest research in neuroscience, from the bestselling author of
A Mind for Numbers
.
Neuroscientists have made enormous strides in understanding the brain and how we learn, but little of that insight has filtered down to the way teachers teach. Uncommon Sense Teaching applies this research to the classroom for teachers, parents, and anyone interested in improving education. Topics include:
- strategies for keeping students motivated and engaged, especially with online learning
- helping students remember information long-term, so it isn't immediately forgotten after a test
- how to teach inclusively in a diverse classroom where students have a wide range of abilities
Drawing on research findings as well as the authors' combined decades of experience in the classroom, Uncommon Sense Teaching equips readers with the tools to enhance their teaching, whether they're seasoned professionals or parents trying to offer extra support for their children's education.
Neuroscientists have made enormous strides in understanding the brain and how we learn, but little of that insight has filtered down to the way teachers teach. Uncommon Sense Teaching applies this research to the classroom for teachers, parents, and anyone interested in improving education. Topics include:
- strategies for keeping students motivated and engaged, especially with online learning
- helping students remember information long-term, so it isn't immediately forgotten after a test
- how to teach inclusively in a diverse classroom where students have a wide range of abilities
Drawing on research findings as well as the authors' combined decades of experience in the classroom, Uncommon Sense Teaching equips readers with the tools to enhance their teaching, whether they're seasoned professionals or parents trying to offer extra support for their children's education.
Paperback
First published June 15, 2021
745 people are currently reading
5858 people want to read
About the author
Barbara Oakley
40 books1,280 followersBarbara Oakley, PhD, a 'female Indiana Jones,' is one of the few women to hold a doctorate in systems engineering. She chronicled her adventures on Soviet fishing boats in the Bering Sea in Hair of the Dog: Tales from Aboard a Russian Trawler. She also served as a radio operator in Antarctica and rose from private to captain in the U.S. Army. Now an associate professor of engineering at Oakland University in Michigan, Oakley is a recent vice president of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. Her work has appeared in publications ranging from The New York Times to the IEEE Transactions on Nanobioscience.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 113 reviews
August 19, 2021
I am a foreign language tutor and I highly recommend this valuable and really practical book to all teachers no matter what subject you teach. Also it would be really useful for parents and students to better understand the process of learning and improve it.
I actually gave this wonderful book 4 starts only for the reason that I have already known many of the aspects that are described in the book, as I had seen the famous course "Learning How To Learn" by Barbara on coursera.
I must say that many of the techniques presented and explained in the book appeared to be quite familiar to me because I have been taught the majority of them on CELTA course. But I loved the book anyways because it was really practical and it actually reminded me about some techniques that I knew but failed to use.
School season starts in two weeks and this was the very right time for me to read this book!
I think I will prepare a check list for me in order to make sure I use most of the techniques and tools available in this book. Going to go through my lesson plans right now! :)))
I actually gave this wonderful book 4 starts only for the reason that I have already known many of the aspects that are described in the book, as I had seen the famous course "Learning How To Learn" by Barbara on coursera.
I must say that many of the techniques presented and explained in the book appeared to be quite familiar to me because I have been taught the majority of them on CELTA course. But I loved the book anyways because it was really practical and it actually reminded me about some techniques that I knew but failed to use.
School season starts in two weeks and this was the very right time for me to read this book!
I think I will prepare a check list for me in order to make sure I use most of the techniques and tools available in this book. Going to go through my lesson plans right now! :)))
February 24, 2022
I bought this book hoping to gain key insights into improving my underlying teaching toolset. What I found interesting is that it made me re-assess the core idea of what teaching is. In other words, it reminded me that teaching is helping students to put knowledge into their long-term memory and to be able to recall it in contexts that are different to those in which they were learned so the skills, ideas and theories can be practised in a variety of situations. This is so common sense that a preteen could likely have developed the definition; yet, as teachers, it's easy to forget.
The "learn it, link it" methodology is simple and easy-to-remember yet functionally useful overall. However, although this book focuses a lot on long-term memory recall, it's disappointing that multi-contextual mastery was barely addressed. The most important goal of education (application of knowledge to problem-solving in novel situations), therefore, received barely a mention as did "higher-order" taxonomies such as "extended thinking" (Webb’s Depth of Knowledge) and "creating" with existing knowledge (Bloom's Taxonomy).
It was also aimed at younger children, and many of the strategies and ideas don't fit the university context. Therefore, I can't say I found many of the classroom strategies useful either for my own higher education or in teaching at university level. However, many of the "teaching principles" were interesting and can be generalised into some very interesting teaching strategies. The book also explains the remembering "half" of the teacher's goals very well. I like that it took a stand against lecture, for example, emphasising instead active learning and direct instruction balanced with procedural learning: strategies not often applied at the university level.
Another thing I didn't love about this book is the emphasis on test-taking. I think information should be learned for application not assessment; this, I believe, is one of the biggest failures in education at all levels: you get what you measure. If you measure assessments, you get an education system that gets very good at optimising performance in assessments. This book only emphasised that problem, and many of the strategies reinforced unhealthy educational culture.
The writing was also focused more on US Schools, as the heavy emphasis on tests suggests. Surely a less ethnocentric view would have made the book much more useful for the broader English-speaking audience? But the idea of American authors focusing exclusively on the American social context is so common now it's a cliché!
Despite complaints about the focus of the book, I learned a lot, it gave me a lot to think about, and it was well written overall and easy to follow.
What did this book leave me with?
The "learn it, link it" methodology is simple and easy-to-remember yet functionally useful overall. However, although this book focuses a lot on long-term memory recall, it's disappointing that multi-contextual mastery was barely addressed. The most important goal of education (application of knowledge to problem-solving in novel situations), therefore, received barely a mention as did "higher-order" taxonomies such as "extended thinking" (Webb’s Depth of Knowledge) and "creating" with existing knowledge (Bloom's Taxonomy).
It was also aimed at younger children, and many of the strategies and ideas don't fit the university context. Therefore, I can't say I found many of the classroom strategies useful either for my own higher education or in teaching at university level. However, many of the "teaching principles" were interesting and can be generalised into some very interesting teaching strategies. The book also explains the remembering "half" of the teacher's goals very well. I like that it took a stand against lecture, for example, emphasising instead active learning and direct instruction balanced with procedural learning: strategies not often applied at the university level.
Another thing I didn't love about this book is the emphasis on test-taking. I think information should be learned for application not assessment; this, I believe, is one of the biggest failures in education at all levels: you get what you measure. If you measure assessments, you get an education system that gets very good at optimising performance in assessments. This book only emphasised that problem, and many of the strategies reinforced unhealthy educational culture.
The writing was also focused more on US Schools, as the heavy emphasis on tests suggests. Surely a less ethnocentric view would have made the book much more useful for the broader English-speaking audience? But the idea of American authors focusing exclusively on the American social context is so common now it's a cliché!
Despite complaints about the focus of the book, I learned a lot, it gave me a lot to think about, and it was well written overall and easy to follow.
What did this book leave me with?
February 11, 2024
I found this book very applicable. Although I've covered these methods at the university, I've struggled to implement them successfully. In a month, I'll start conducting my first lessons with students, so I've decided to include this book in my preparation for it, as it offers practical insights on effective teaching and learning methods.
August 15, 2021
There is so much good material in this book. I definitely intend to give it another listen. One thing it impressed upon me is why lectures on new material tend to be ineffective for students, for it is like the lecturer continues to toss new balls of information, and the only way to juggle the new ones is to drop the previous bits. Also, the moment distraction comes (like the end of the class), all the balls of knowledge can fall to the ground. There must be opportunities for students to attempt to file some of the most important content into their long-term memory. Oakley shares important methods for this filing and indexing of information. I hope to incorporate some of the methods this school year.
February 18, 2024
Rating: 10/10
One Sentence Summary: Barbara Oakley's guide empowers teachers with effective, research-based methods for enhancing student learning
Likes:
Since reading "A Mind For Numbers," I've become a massive fan of Barbara Oakley (she has a great TedTalk called "Learning How To Learn" that I highly recommend watching)
Her writing effortlessly blends entertainment with clarity, making complex concepts accessible through engaging analogies and vivid storytelling
Despite not being a teacher myself, as a self-teacher and learner, I found Oakley's advice immensely valuable. For example, I plan to create my own structured learning framework for learning new languages
Oakley delves deeply into the neuroscience of learning, exploring various memory types and offering actionable insights to improve our learning abilities
I genuinely wish I discovered Oakley in High School and University because of how great she is. I'm excited to employ some new concepts like spaced repetition and interweaving into my self-studies
Note: The target audience for this book is teachers. However, there is still a lot that one can learn from and apply to themselves.
Next, I want to read her book "Learning How To Learn"
One Sentence Summary: Barbara Oakley's guide empowers teachers with effective, research-based methods for enhancing student learning
Likes:
Since reading "A Mind For Numbers," I've become a massive fan of Barbara Oakley (she has a great TedTalk called "Learning How To Learn" that I highly recommend watching)
Her writing effortlessly blends entertainment with clarity, making complex concepts accessible through engaging analogies and vivid storytelling
Despite not being a teacher myself, as a self-teacher and learner, I found Oakley's advice immensely valuable. For example, I plan to create my own structured learning framework for learning new languages
Oakley delves deeply into the neuroscience of learning, exploring various memory types and offering actionable insights to improve our learning abilities
I genuinely wish I discovered Oakley in High School and University because of how great she is. I'm excited to employ some new concepts like spaced repetition and interweaving into my self-studies
Note: The target audience for this book is teachers. However, there is still a lot that one can learn from and apply to themselves.
Next, I want to read her book "Learning How To Learn"
June 6, 2024
TL;DR
For (classroom) teachers who need to understand why something works before they "get it."
Review
Loved it! I highly recommend it to seasoned teachers looking to refine their teaching process. It doesn't cover EVERYTHING you'd ever want to know about classroom teaching strategies, but what it does, it does well. The book certainly delivers on its title.
Recommendation
If you come to this book with student-learning-related problems, you will discover practical solutions you can implement the next day. Chapter 9 is dedicated to online instruction. This book isn't just for teachers; it could easily be the required textbook for a high school or college class on "How to Learn."
4 Main Cognitive Processes and Learning Strategies
1. Remembering 101:
- Acing drill and kill practice lulls us into the false confidence of having mastered the content. In reality, those mental connections never get linked to long-term memory, leading us to conclude we must be poor test takers when we fail to recall info during exams.
- Hebbian learning emphasizes the importance of retrieval practice and strengthening neural connections in order to transfer knowledge from working memory to long-term memory. "Learn it, and Link it."
- Cognitive load theory highlights the limited capacity of working memory (3-6 "chunks") and the need to periodically offload information to long-term memory to prevent overload. (The reason why spacing out instruction is important.) The size of chunks in working memory can increase based on relevance to existing long-term memory, impacted by familiarity with the topic.
- Working memory capacity affects classroom performance. Learners with a smaller working memory need a slower pace, and more breaks and scaffolding.
- Scaffolding minimizes the gap between current knowledge and the end goal, aiding learning progression. You “lose” fewer learners along the way.
- Declarative memory recalls facts or events using the hippocampus and neocortex, while procedural memory learns procedures and habits using the basal ganglia and neocortex.
- Both memory types develop through active practice and can be combined for enhanced learning.
2. Declarative Learning:
- How declarative learning works: To employ an antiquated analogy, the hippocampus is like the brain's library card catalog. It serves as a indexing system by forming temporary links with the neocortex (long-term memory storage), which over time, allows direct access from the pre-frontal cortex (primarily responsible for working memory) without relying on the hippocampus. Your mental librarian is like, “Oh, I know right where that book is.”
- The direct instruction continuum: Begin with teacher-directed instruction to assist in the "learn it" phase. In this phase, students require instruction, demonstration, and guided practice. Student-directed construction should be increasingly phased in for the "link it" phase, emphasizing independent, exploratory or experiential problem-based inquiry.
- To convert lectures into effective direct instruction, key ideas should be chunked to match working memory capacity. Incorporating retrieval practice, active learning, and small-group discussions helps transition information from working memory to long-term memory, avoiding prolonged passivity.
3. Procedural Learning:
- Procedural learning functions as an unconscious, goal-oriented system.
- This type of learning is acquired through repetitive practice. Without explicit rules, it can be slower to learn new information but faster to apply because it relies on intuition.
- This system for learning is often employed in immersive or complex contexts where holding rules in working memory is impractical. E.g., Chief of Staff training.
- When declarative learning is combined with rapid feedback, procedural learning kicks in and attempts to predict subsequent responses.
- Concept attainment involves presenting examples and non-examples, allowing students to deduce common attributes, generate their own definitions, and refine their understanding through further examples from the instructor. (In this way, students develop their own understanding of the concept.)
4. Principles Used in Both Declarative and Procedural Learning:
- Interleaving: mixing the sub-topics so that blocks of similar topics are interspersed among non-similar blocks. Interleaving helps students to recognize the subtle differences and intuitive patterns between concepts through their procedural system. There is a balancing act of similarity between concepts. If they're too different or too similar, interleaving will not initiate the procedural system. The pacing of the concepts embedded within the narrative matters and must be organic in its flow.
- Desirable difficulties: Making the mental effort to apply association and visualization can make declarative and procedural learning more effective and efficient by forming stronger neural links. Narrative-inspired role-plays and hypothetical discussions can add mental effort to the narrative form.
- Schemas: the neural structures that represent the intuited patterns and contexts in which knowledge is applied. Applying knowledge to novel contexts requires enlarging schemas by demonstrating different use cases and increasing retrieval practice. Telling the same narrative with multiple perspectives (perhaps within a value chain) may enlarge relevant schemas.
- Spaced Repetition: take a break and return to a concept. This allows for the working memory to offload ideas and to begin consolidation, and for procedural learning to form stronger connections by reconfiguring into more efficient and stronger linkages. This fits with both the "unfinished cliffhanger" method and concept re-application within different contexts and new narratives.
- Brainwriting: reduce the inhibiting effects of groupthink by ensuring all students have 1-2 minutes to brainstorm their own ideas prior to entering groups. Keep groups small (2-3) to maximize productivity.
For (classroom) teachers who need to understand why something works before they "get it."
Review
Loved it! I highly recommend it to seasoned teachers looking to refine their teaching process. It doesn't cover EVERYTHING you'd ever want to know about classroom teaching strategies, but what it does, it does well. The book certainly delivers on its title.
Recommendation
If you come to this book with student-learning-related problems, you will discover practical solutions you can implement the next day. Chapter 9 is dedicated to online instruction. This book isn't just for teachers; it could easily be the required textbook for a high school or college class on "How to Learn."
4 Main Cognitive Processes and Learning Strategies
1. Remembering 101:
- Acing drill and kill practice lulls us into the false confidence of having mastered the content. In reality, those mental connections never get linked to long-term memory, leading us to conclude we must be poor test takers when we fail to recall info during exams.
- Hebbian learning emphasizes the importance of retrieval practice and strengthening neural connections in order to transfer knowledge from working memory to long-term memory. "Learn it, and Link it."
- Cognitive load theory highlights the limited capacity of working memory (3-6 "chunks") and the need to periodically offload information to long-term memory to prevent overload. (The reason why spacing out instruction is important.) The size of chunks in working memory can increase based on relevance to existing long-term memory, impacted by familiarity with the topic.
- Working memory capacity affects classroom performance. Learners with a smaller working memory need a slower pace, and more breaks and scaffolding.
- Scaffolding minimizes the gap between current knowledge and the end goal, aiding learning progression. You “lose” fewer learners along the way.
- Declarative memory recalls facts or events using the hippocampus and neocortex, while procedural memory learns procedures and habits using the basal ganglia and neocortex.
- Both memory types develop through active practice and can be combined for enhanced learning.
2. Declarative Learning:
- How declarative learning works: To employ an antiquated analogy, the hippocampus is like the brain's library card catalog. It serves as a indexing system by forming temporary links with the neocortex (long-term memory storage), which over time, allows direct access from the pre-frontal cortex (primarily responsible for working memory) without relying on the hippocampus. Your mental librarian is like, “Oh, I know right where that book is.”
- The direct instruction continuum: Begin with teacher-directed instruction to assist in the "learn it" phase. In this phase, students require instruction, demonstration, and guided practice. Student-directed construction should be increasingly phased in for the "link it" phase, emphasizing independent, exploratory or experiential problem-based inquiry.
- To convert lectures into effective direct instruction, key ideas should be chunked to match working memory capacity. Incorporating retrieval practice, active learning, and small-group discussions helps transition information from working memory to long-term memory, avoiding prolonged passivity.
3. Procedural Learning:
- Procedural learning functions as an unconscious, goal-oriented system.
- This type of learning is acquired through repetitive practice. Without explicit rules, it can be slower to learn new information but faster to apply because it relies on intuition.
- This system for learning is often employed in immersive or complex contexts where holding rules in working memory is impractical. E.g., Chief of Staff training.
- When declarative learning is combined with rapid feedback, procedural learning kicks in and attempts to predict subsequent responses.
- Concept attainment involves presenting examples and non-examples, allowing students to deduce common attributes, generate their own definitions, and refine their understanding through further examples from the instructor. (In this way, students develop their own understanding of the concept.)
4. Principles Used in Both Declarative and Procedural Learning:
- Interleaving: mixing the sub-topics so that blocks of similar topics are interspersed among non-similar blocks. Interleaving helps students to recognize the subtle differences and intuitive patterns between concepts through their procedural system. There is a balancing act of similarity between concepts. If they're too different or too similar, interleaving will not initiate the procedural system. The pacing of the concepts embedded within the narrative matters and must be organic in its flow.
- Desirable difficulties: Making the mental effort to apply association and visualization can make declarative and procedural learning more effective and efficient by forming stronger neural links. Narrative-inspired role-plays and hypothetical discussions can add mental effort to the narrative form.
- Schemas: the neural structures that represent the intuited patterns and contexts in which knowledge is applied. Applying knowledge to novel contexts requires enlarging schemas by demonstrating different use cases and increasing retrieval practice. Telling the same narrative with multiple perspectives (perhaps within a value chain) may enlarge relevant schemas.
- Spaced Repetition: take a break and return to a concept. This allows for the working memory to offload ideas and to begin consolidation, and for procedural learning to form stronger connections by reconfiguring into more efficient and stronger linkages. This fits with both the "unfinished cliffhanger" method and concept re-application within different contexts and new narratives.
- Brainwriting: reduce the inhibiting effects of groupthink by ensuring all students have 1-2 minutes to brainstorm their own ideas prior to entering groups. Keep groups small (2-3) to maximize productivity.
March 5, 2023
Väga tore et eesti keeles on nüüd võimalik lugeda õppimisest ja õpetamisest neurobioloogilisest vaatepunktist. Täitis nii mõnegi lünga minu õpetamisstrateegias.
Roedigeri "Make it Stick" raamatu kõrval on see teine haridust ja õppimist puudutav raamat, mida soovitaks lugeda igal õpetajal.
Roedigeri "Make it Stick" raamatu kõrval on see teine haridust ja õppimist puudutav raamat, mida soovitaks lugeda igal õpetajal.
August 28, 2024
Note: I'm giving this book 5 stars because I benefitted from it despite not being the book's intended audience. I find it unfair to critique it otherwise, having skipped some chapters that were not benefitting me directly. But also, its well written and I see no issue with any of its content.
----
I learnt about Barbara Oakley when I was looking for books on how to learn better in general, and her books were almost always recommended. I borrowed this book despite knowing that I was probably not the main target audience of the book, but I decided that since its Oakley and team's newest text (published 2021), the references and research would probably be the most updated and accurate as well.
While that is true,-- and that this book gives great information backed by neuroscience on how the brain works, and how we learn in general,-- I would say that the other 65 percent of the book is still rightly geared towards teachers, and the information is often presented simply, and with a lot of techniques relating to pedagogy, particularly with students in the primary to secondary levels.
I've already recommended this book to a teacher friend, and I think most educators would benefit from this! From a general reader, I learnt quite a bit abit about learning pathways, namely the declarative and procedural pathways, as well as other technical terms that I find will help me articulate better how the learning brain works. The analogies, examples, and accompanying illustrations were pretty cute and fun. From this book, I found out that Barbara and her team have a free Coursera course that might be more my speed, and I'm interested in seeing what else I can pick up from it.
I think the biggest and best takeaway from this book is that the brain needs rest to sharpen and prune knowledge! I think most people on Goodreads are avid readers and learners, and if we aren't reading, we are being constantly barraged by social media and many other little things on our mobile devices. This book taught me that the mind at rest is actually consolidating, compressing and shelving knowledge, and that we need to be at rest for our minds to make the random connections that often lead to our strokes of genius!
Keeping that in mind, I'm trying to cut down on doom scrolling and filling up my brain with junk, and just let my skulljelly and her little butler hippocampus do their gardening in peace. It's a simple reminder that can really benefit us in the long run.
----
I learnt about Barbara Oakley when I was looking for books on how to learn better in general, and her books were almost always recommended. I borrowed this book despite knowing that I was probably not the main target audience of the book, but I decided that since its Oakley and team's newest text (published 2021), the references and research would probably be the most updated and accurate as well.
While that is true,-- and that this book gives great information backed by neuroscience on how the brain works, and how we learn in general,-- I would say that the other 65 percent of the book is still rightly geared towards teachers, and the information is often presented simply, and with a lot of techniques relating to pedagogy, particularly with students in the primary to secondary levels.
I've already recommended this book to a teacher friend, and I think most educators would benefit from this! From a general reader, I learnt quite a bit abit about learning pathways, namely the declarative and procedural pathways, as well as other technical terms that I find will help me articulate better how the learning brain works. The analogies, examples, and accompanying illustrations were pretty cute and fun. From this book, I found out that Barbara and her team have a free Coursera course that might be more my speed, and I'm interested in seeing what else I can pick up from it.
I think the biggest and best takeaway from this book is that the brain needs rest to sharpen and prune knowledge! I think most people on Goodreads are avid readers and learners, and if we aren't reading, we are being constantly barraged by social media and many other little things on our mobile devices. This book taught me that the mind at rest is actually consolidating, compressing and shelving knowledge, and that we need to be at rest for our minds to make the random connections that often lead to our strokes of genius!
Keeping that in mind, I'm trying to cut down on doom scrolling and filling up my brain with junk, and just let my skulljelly and her little butler hippocampus do their gardening in peace. It's a simple reminder that can really benefit us in the long run.
March 16, 2023
Had a lot of good insight.
December 19, 2021
This book is written by 3 authors; Barbara Oakley (who is also the author of "A Mind for Numbers"), Terrence Sejnowski, and Beth Rogowsky. Oakley and Sejnowski are creators of the popular online course “Learning how to Learn”. Just as the subtitle says, this book offers a practical guide to teaching and learning based on insights from neuroscience.
Early on, the authors introduce one of the main themes of the book, a process they call "learn it, link it", which explains how neural links form and how the brain changes while learning. In the context of this process, the authors cover several neuroscience-based topics and their implications for teaching and learning. These include: long term vs working memory, declarative vs procedural learning pathways, the relation between working memory, the hippocampus and the cortex in declarative learning, the role of the basal ganglia in procedural learning, consolidation, retrieval practice, desirable difficulties, habits and procrastination, the role of stress in learning, collaborative learning, teacher-directed vs student-directed instruction, online teaching, and many practical strategies informed by cognitive and behavioural science.
Tِhe book contains a lot of useful graphics and illustrations, and just like in "A Mind for Numbers", there are several breakout boxes such as "Now You Try" and "Analyze Your Teaching". Chapters end with "Key Ideas" that highlight the most important concepts. There's also a thorough list of references at the end of the book.
Whereas I felt "A Mind for Numbers" lacked organisation, this one was easier to follow and had a more organised flow. Although the title suggests the book is aimed at teachers, I think it would be useful for parents and anyone interested in education and in implementing actionable learning and teaching strategies. To echo other reviewers: this book describes the "Whys" and "Hows" with regards to learning and bridges the gap between teaching and neuroscience.
Early on, the authors introduce one of the main themes of the book, a process they call "learn it, link it", which explains how neural links form and how the brain changes while learning. In the context of this process, the authors cover several neuroscience-based topics and their implications for teaching and learning. These include: long term vs working memory, declarative vs procedural learning pathways, the relation between working memory, the hippocampus and the cortex in declarative learning, the role of the basal ganglia in procedural learning, consolidation, retrieval practice, desirable difficulties, habits and procrastination, the role of stress in learning, collaborative learning, teacher-directed vs student-directed instruction, online teaching, and many practical strategies informed by cognitive and behavioural science.
Tِhe book contains a lot of useful graphics and illustrations, and just like in "A Mind for Numbers", there are several breakout boxes such as "Now You Try" and "Analyze Your Teaching". Chapters end with "Key Ideas" that highlight the most important concepts. There's also a thorough list of references at the end of the book.
Whereas I felt "A Mind for Numbers" lacked organisation, this one was easier to follow and had a more organised flow. Although the title suggests the book is aimed at teachers, I think it would be useful for parents and anyone interested in education and in implementing actionable learning and teaching strategies. To echo other reviewers: this book describes the "Whys" and "Hows" with regards to learning and bridges the gap between teaching and neuroscience.
December 29, 2023
I guess the info in this would be uncommon sense teaching to a new teacher, but if you have been a teacher for a while and do professional development, much of it is common sense. The first few chapters were the most beneficial as far as new information, but if the author is defining things like formative assessment or summarizing Harry Wong: teaching the first days of school, that's just not new information to an experienced teacher.
August 5, 2024
I was assigned to read this as professional development at work - which I was resistant to because I’m not really into reading non-fiction, and as someone with an education background, I wasn’t sure if I’d get much out of it because I know all about differentiated instruction and inclusion.
But… I will eat my words. I learned lots about the human brain and how it stores information. This wasn’t only useful in learning how learners receive and process information, but also how my own brain works.
I learned I have a race-car brain and I’m married to a someone with a hiker brain.
I also learned about working-memory storage and how it differs from long-term memory. I’m always saying how my brain is full, and I learned that in a sense, it is! My working-memory storage is full and struggling to receive more information because I haven’t had enough repetition to convert that information into long-term memories (nor have I had a chance to delete the browser history of my brain)
Overall, it was an interesting read - even though (unlike 85% of the books I read) there wasn’t a murderer on the loose.
But… I will eat my words. I learned lots about the human brain and how it stores information. This wasn’t only useful in learning how learners receive and process information, but also how my own brain works.
I learned I have a race-car brain and I’m married to a someone with a hiker brain.
I also learned about working-memory storage and how it differs from long-term memory. I’m always saying how my brain is full, and I learned that in a sense, it is! My working-memory storage is full and struggling to receive more information because I haven’t had enough repetition to convert that information into long-term memories (nor have I had a chance to delete the browser history of my brain)
Overall, it was an interesting read - even though (unlike 85% of the books I read) there wasn’t a murderer on the loose.
December 27, 2022
Uncommon Sense Teaching takes the insights from the book A Mind for Numbers and turns out a guide for teaching for the way(s) the brain learns. The book is especially aimed at K-12 teachers but I found it quite helpful for reflecting on teaching first level university students. (The authors also have a short course in Coursera that works through much of the information with applications.)
The authors present some different kinds of students with how their brains are functioning as well as how brains function when they are learning. With this information in hand, the authors connect with teaching methods. As I read much of the book, I could identify many of the students I have had in class and see how changing some of my teaching would help many of them. There is a lot to chew on. I highly recommend the book for all teachers.
The contents include an opening Note followed by 10 meaty chapters, a closing Farewell, two appendixes, a section for Credits, a Bibliography, a Notes section, and an Inedx.
The authors present some different kinds of students with how their brains are functioning as well as how brains function when they are learning. With this information in hand, the authors connect with teaching methods. As I read much of the book, I could identify many of the students I have had in class and see how changing some of my teaching would help many of them. There is a lot to chew on. I highly recommend the book for all teachers.
The contents include an opening Note followed by 10 meaty chapters, a closing Farewell, two appendixes, a section for Credits, a Bibliography, a Notes section, and an Inedx.
March 29, 2024
The part of the book about brain-friendly learning and teaching is a great summary of neuroscience research applied to education. There’s practical advice as well as examples of best practices.
The second part of the book would be most beneficial to school teachers, especially in the US. It includes a lot of information of how collaborative learning can effectively be used at schools.
The chapter on online teaching contains a lot of practical information, but is a bit outdated considering AI wasn’t a thing at the moment of writing the book.
The second part of the book would be most beneficial to school teachers, especially in the US. It includes a lot of information of how collaborative learning can effectively be used at schools.
The chapter on online teaching contains a lot of practical information, but is a bit outdated considering AI wasn’t a thing at the moment of writing the book.
April 8, 2024
I loved this book. I have so many notes as well as practical ideas and strategies to implement within my own education practice and with my elementary son. This book focuses mainly on K-12 but has many practical applications for adult learners as well.
3 Important Things I Learned:
1. Retrieval practice is one of the most effective strategies to move new knowledge from working memory to long term memory.
2. Direct instruction is a highly effective method of teaching especially with the I do, we do, you do strategy.
3. Brain breaks 🧠 are neurologically needed to help learners link 🔗 information and move it from working to long term memory.
3 Important Things I Learned:
1. Retrieval practice is one of the most effective strategies to move new knowledge from working memory to long term memory.
2. Direct instruction is a highly effective method of teaching especially with the I do, we do, you do strategy.
3. Brain breaks 🧠 are neurologically needed to help learners link 🔗 information and move it from working to long term memory.
May 24, 2024
I'm an art instructor rather than a teacher, but I found the information fascinating and enjoyed the opportunity for immersive experience: the authors of this book and a lot of their cited authors have audiobooks, interviews, even podcast appearances to listen to. I do wish they'd not listed specific apps, that info will be dated soon. The functions would have been more helpful.
October 9, 2024
For a book about teaching I don’t actually feel like I learned much. A lot of the teaching tips that were suggested did not help me learn in high school but that could just be me 🤷🏼♀️ I would maybe recommend reading a physical copy and not an audio book
April 26, 2025
This book is full of all the skills and knowledge one gains as a teacher AFTER you have entered the field. I wish it were possible to grasp this information during an undergraduate degree, but unfortunately I think a new teacher has to be thrown into the world and experience the overwhelming environment of education. However, every teacher should read this and implement the techniques.
It would also make for a great text for studying in a masters program.
It would also make for a great text for studying in a masters program.
February 2, 2023
Revolutionary and interesting. It fundamentally changed by teaching practice.
October 8, 2024
3.5 ⭐️
This was another book for my education classes! I liked the second half better than the first. Had great information, ideas, and practical strategies to implement into our classrooms!
This was another book for my education classes! I liked the second half better than the first. Had great information, ideas, and practical strategies to implement into our classrooms!
April 14, 2025
This book was designed for teachers (closer to elementary through high school ages) but the chapters on neuroscience and learning are insanely good. You can build quite a foundation about solidifying and accelerating any learning that's desired by adults. I was recommended this book from a YouTube channel that had refocused on learning and I'm very thankful I kept with it.
The first half of the book has chapters more specific to my interests in meta-learning and neuroscience (declarative and procedural learning, basal ganglia, neuerons, the neocortex, etc). I consume a ton of content (in myriad domains and disciplines) and being able to learn it deeper than I already have is important. I see how parts of the book were successful for me in school and wish I understood this before some of my certification exams.
Some of the book includes teaching methods for teachers and children which aren't bad, but aren't what I'm currently using it for. I would recommend this book to any student, teacher, polymath or knowledge accumulator.
The first half of the book has chapters more specific to my interests in meta-learning and neuroscience (declarative and procedural learning, basal ganglia, neuerons, the neocortex, etc). I consume a ton of content (in myriad domains and disciplines) and being able to learn it deeper than I already have is important. I see how parts of the book were successful for me in school and wish I understood this before some of my certification exams.
Some of the book includes teaching methods for teachers and children which aren't bad, but aren't what I'm currently using it for. I would recommend this book to any student, teacher, polymath or knowledge accumulator.
November 15, 2024
Understanding that there is science to back up the strategies that we use in the classroom is so validating!
August 14, 2025
Since this book, along with the other book I just finished, Do I Have Your Attention? Understanding Memory Constraints and Maximizing Learning, both commend the retrieval practice technique for getting information into long-term memory, I am going to try to remember as much salient detail from each chapter as I can to help me learn this excellent information.
Chapter 1
Humans two memory systems--working memory and long-term memory--operate very differently: Working memory is like a four-armed octopus juggling four balls, four bits of information, which is about the maximum amount of info each person can hold in their working memory at one time. Long-term memory is like a series of links in a chain, formed by neurons connecting and firing in sequence, one neuron's dendrite spine sending a signal across the synaptic gap to another axon (arm) on another neuron. The more neurons involved in the chain, formed by novel ways of learning this material, the better this information is stored the long-term memory. Even though these two memory processes are so different, students routinely get them confused. They believe that since they can work the math problem while the math book is open in front of them, they have "learned" it, when in fact this information is only in their working memory and will not be in their long-term memory on test day. Students who complain of "test anxiety" really are talking about the panic that happens when they realize on test day that the information they thought was in their long-term memories in fact is not.
Humans have no upper limit to how much information they can store in their long-term memories. The number of synapses a human has is roughly a quadrillion, or a million billion, which is more than the number of grains of sand on the entire earth! The authors came up with another novel way of putting this: Humans have 10^14 neurons and the average human lifespan is 10^9 seconds long. That means humans have 10^5 neurons PER SECOND available to them to store new information as they explore the world!
Retrieval practice, which the authors often simply term recall, is the very best way to get information into long-term memory. This fact, and methods for using recall, should be explicitly taught to students. For example, students can cover the page in their math book and see how much they remember without looking at it. They can also try to teach their classmate information without looking at notes and see how much they can remember. The chapter ended with ideas of "jotting down" information as a way of recalling information learned. Students can jot down what they remember from the day's lecture or activity, for example, or from the reading material that day; students can also sketch what they remember.
The more students attempt to retrieve information, the better it will be stored in their long-term memories. The authors also mentioned the importance of spaced practice--there emphasis on that is another aspect they share in common with Do I Have Your Attention? Understanding Memory Constraints and Maximizing Learning. The authors say why not ask students what they remember from last week's lesson or last month's.
Chapter 2
This chapter begins by comparing race car brains with hiker brains. Although race car brains—brains that process information quickly—seem to be superior, they have downsides: going so fast leads to overconfidence and blindness to errors that hiker brains are better able to see. Oakley gives the example of neuroscientist and Nobel Prize winner Dr. (I can't remember his name. Ramos?) as one who had a "hiker brain," which led him to great breakthroughs.
A teacher tip the authors give on how to recognize which students have high capacity working memories quickly is to see which students can understand the lecture and take notes at the same time. The more students struggle with this, the lower the capacity of their working memory.
The good news about students with low-capacity working memories is that working memories can be greatly augmented by building their long-term memories for that content area. The authors liken the long-term memory to a group of conga dancers who are sitting and watching the "working memory" line dancers dancing to a catchy tune. The long-term memories can't help but stand up and join the conga line.
The authors talk a lot about inclusion and differentiation in this chapter. Techniques they recommend for differentiation are separate "agendas" (task lists of assignments) for students depending on their abilities, teacher-led mall group re-teaching for struggling students, and more time on assignments. The bottom line is that struggling students need more scaffolds, such as paragraph skeleton templates, to take the steps up to the same high learning goals as the rest of the class.
The authors mentioned an example of correcting poorly constructed sentences on the board. I don't remember this part, so I need to look back at the book. This means I haven't yet committed this part to long-term memory, so just because I type it here, I should not fool myself into thinking I have learned it.. The authors said that teaching a lesson with no breaks and no chance for students to practice is a recipe for disaster. The race-car brains will surely raise their hands and give the impression that the class in learning, while the hiker brains and timid students take this opportunity to check out. So for the example of sentence-correcting, the teacher can model ONE sentence for the students and then let the students individually practice on other sentences. Then, when students have finished, they can compare their answers with each other; also, the teacher is diligently walking around the classroom checking on student progress in real-time to see who's getting it and who needs further help. After this, homework can be assigned so long as the students have gained a solid foundation in class--if not, the authors warn that homework becomes frustrating for students and parents alike.
While I was looking this information up, I also noticed that the authors gave tips for race car brain "gifted" students who are outpacing the rest of the class. Among their suggestions are meaningful "sponge activities" that soak up extra time. Not just extra work, the authors warn, which students can perceive as a punishment, but deeper questions. The authors recommend giving these students authentic texts (versus "inauthentic texts" such as textbooks, which is not how text is formatted in the real world of articles, editorials, etc.)
Finally, the authors bolded this sentence, so it must be important! "And this is why instruction that includes multiple opportunities for practice to break up the lesson can be so valuable" (33).
Chapter 3
This chapter emphasizes the importance of retrieval practice and incorporating brief pauses during lessons to allow students time to mentally process the content. Specifically, the authors recommend pausing lessons with Think-(Write-)Pair-Share and Whip It, the latter of which is a protocol where the teacher poses an open-ended question midlesson; when one student starts, the student whips around to the next student (in the rows or columns) until all the students have a chance to answer. If students answer incorrectly, the teacher is not to interrupt the flow of student answers but can give a thumbs down (or thumbs up for a good answer); fixing errors should wait until Whip It has made its way through the entire classroom. (I just looked it up: it's "Whip-Around," not "Whip It.")
New in this chapter was an analogy of the working memory Octopus (Quadropus) conducting Hip, a superficial tuxedo-clad singer, and Neo, a scatter-brained female opera singer. This analogy/story represents how the Hippocampus forms retrieval paths between the information being gathered in the working memory and the neocortex. Eventually, when information is rehearsed sufficiently, the hippocampus' paths are no longer needed, and the working memory can access the information stored in the neocortex directly. Until that happens, though—a process called "consolidation," which can take weeks if not months and requires sleep—Hip has to "sing" to Neo to help her remember the information. The practical insights of this are (1) students need mental breaks to give the Hippocampus time to lay down retrieval paths, although these mental breaks of course must alternate with periods of effortful retrieval for students to build long-term memories; and (2) students who cram are forming lots of retrieval paths with their Hippocampus that, especially if the student crams without much sleep, will disappear from their long-term memories.
Exercise is good for the brain. Not only does it generate BDNF (I'm sure that's not quite right), a brain-created nutrient that helps dendrite spines grow, which makes it easier to form connections to other neurons' axons, but also exercise helps neurons link together. The authors say this is a reason not to cut out recess in favor of more instructional time; students will actually learn and remember more if they have exercise as part of their school day. An analogy to this is when teachers try to cram in so much content into a high school course, thinking they cannot afford the time it takes to give students mental breaks, wrongly believing that the greater the teaching time means the more students are learning.
One last thing I just remembered is that teachers shouldn't check emails, etc, while students are doing the Think-(Write-)Pair-Share, for example, as it is a bad example for students and it also robs the teacher of a chance to walk around and formatively assess how students are grasping the material.
Chapter 4
The most interesting thing in this chapter was the fact that race car brains (those with large working memories) tend to become procrastinators more than hiker brains because it's easier for race car brains to do well by cramming. Teachers can help students defeat procrastination by (1) teaching them the Pomodoro Technique (the authors suggest not using the standard 25 minutes of focus and 5 minutes of rest, but rather the students' age + 1 for the focus time and 3-5 minutes for rest); (2) breaking up large projects like essays into steps with separate deadlines; and (3) teaching students the brain science behind cramming so they learn why procrastination is detrimental to their learning.
Chapter 5
Beth Rogowsky, EdD, who was once a classroom teacher and is now a professor of education for future teachers, writes, "The last thing that parents want to hear when they ask their child what they did at school today is 'We watched a movie.' They can do that at home" (100). This is likely true for many parents, but off-the-cuff stuff like this is not why I am reading this book. What I am looking for are results of the latest brain research, interpreted and applied to teaching. While this book does have a lot of the latter, I've noticed that—especially when Rogowsky is writing—there is a lot of this off-the-cuff fluff that I don't appreciate.
Rogowsky does talk elsewhere about the importance for students of interrupting straight lecture or straight movie-watching with active learning time. This active learning time, in which students can do a protocol such as
• Pause and recall
• Pairing and repairing
• One-minute summaries
• One-minute muddiest points
• The whip-around
• Think-pair-share
OR teachers can
• Tell a brief related>story
• Pose a question that sparks curiosity
• Add humor
• Play a bit of music
• Add movement (stand up and stretch, take learning outside; 103-4).
The reason for this, based on brain research, is that Hip, the hippocampus, needs time to recite and recite again the material to Neo for her to be able to add this information to long-term memory. A 45-minute straight lecture or movie doesn't give students' hippocampus enough time to do this, so the material will not be well retained.
This chapter speaks of the importance of direct teaching (the "I do" in I do-We do-You do). In an age of project-based learning and student-directed learning, this is a refreshing corrective. Some difficult tasks do need an expert (the teacher) to present the material to the learners; if learners are left to teach themselves via student-directed learning, they will be lost. The authors give the analogy of a smooth path vs. a dense jungle. The smooth path represents something the brain is able to do easily, such as learn to speak and understand one's native language. The jungle represents something the brain can only do with effort, such as learning to read one's native language. For "jungle" tasks, direct teaching is a non-negotiable. Only, teachers must be sensitive not to overload students with too much straight direct instruction, as I noted above. Also, it's best not to try to teach a "jungle" concept to students in one dense class period. It's better to divide the same amount of direct instruction and practice up into shorter segments across many days of teaching. As said before, the students need time to forget to give them a chance to expend effort to retrieve the half-forgotten information. This effortful retrieval practice is very effective at solidifying this info into the students' long-term memories. And once students have the information "saved" in their neocortex, students can now engage in student-directed learning, which "strengthens and extends their neural links" (113).
Chapter 6
I know I didn't absorb all of this 42-page chapter, but I got the main idea: the brain learns things in two different pathways, the declarative (routed through the hippocampus) and the procedural (routed through the basal ganglia). The authors suggest that good teachers help their students learn through both of these pathways, although research has shown that individuals with ADHD, dyslexia, and related disabilities tend to learn better through the declarative pathway. On the other hand, individuals with autism learn better through the procedural pathway.
The declarative pathway is conscious and learns step-by-step, explicitly. The procedural pathway is nonconscious and learns things through repeated practice. The declarative pathway is more flexible than the procedural pathway and learns things more quickly; and the declarative pathway executes learning more slowly, while the procedural pathway puts what it knows into practice with lightning rapidity. A good example of this is learning a 2nd language procedurally, through immersion, versus learning a 2nd language declaratively, in high school and college classrooms. The former student will be able to speak rapidly and without thinking, whereas the latter student will take a long time to formulate responses but will be able to explain the grammatical construction of their sentences. The authors concede at the end of the chapter that how these two distinct learning systems work together so seamlessly is a mystery; more research is required.
The authors talk about the "curse of specificity" in this chapter. That is, either learning system has a hard time transferring its knowledge to even closely related problems or situations. To combat this limitation of our brains, teachers can use interleaving, which means alternating "confusingly similar aspects of a topic" rather than presenting in a single block of time "nearly identical repetitions of the same topic" (157).
The authors mentioned again the importance of spaced learning. Give learners time to forget so that when they try to recall material, doing so is more of an effort for them. The greater the effort, the greater the learning.
Lots of practice taps into the procedural pathway, which eventually results in automaticity: students can solve problems or apply what they've learn without consciously thinking about it. But the declarative pathway can help students gain a conscious understanding.
I love the authors analogy of "peg leg" soccer players, who are more skilled with their dominant leg. To truly excel at soccer, "peg leg" players must put a ton of practice into their weak leg, even though it is difficult. Students and soccer players alike like the feeling of succees, but this "desireable difficulty" in building up what is naturally harder for them will led to greater success over the long term. The authors suggest that teachers tell their students this.
Chapters 7-9
In this chapter Beth writes, "Set students up for success by making sure they have the correct answer before calling on the in front of their peers" (177). Compare this to Barb's comment in Chapter 9, "Doug Lemov [recommends] cold-calling students regardless of whether they have raised their hands. (If you worry that cold-calling makes your students uncomfortable, worry no more. Research shows that cold-calling actually increases students' comfort with participation and also heightens students' desires to answer voluntary questions when you do pose them.)" (211). Which is it? In fact, both perspectives are valid. This example reveals the patchwork nature of a book written in pieces by three separate authors.
Stress ("eustress") is good up to a point. Zero stress is actually bad for learning and results in boredom. Competitions, tests, presentations, and other ways of increasing student stress are, up to a certain point, good for students' learning.
Building class procedures taps into the procedural learning system of students. With enough practice, students will come into class and nonconsciously jump right into the activity you've established. I had to wrestle with my 4th hour all year due to not drilling the class entrance procedure.
Groups are actually less creative than individuals. Brainwriting, where students write ideas first on their own and then collaborate seems to be the best of both worlds. Give each students in groups a distinct role, make each student and the group produce something, teach social skills, have students reflect after.
Students need to exert will-power to give you attention; help them by providing them "bottom-up" attention grabbers like moving toward them quickly, cutting to a different angle, sound, humor, the unexpected, bits of praise or positivity. These give students dopamine which helps them learn.
Be present in an online course!
Multimedia theory: students see & hear, but avoid redundancy and noise.
Chapter 1
Humans two memory systems--working memory and long-term memory--operate very differently: Working memory is like a four-armed octopus juggling four balls, four bits of information, which is about the maximum amount of info each person can hold in their working memory at one time. Long-term memory is like a series of links in a chain, formed by neurons connecting and firing in sequence, one neuron's dendrite spine sending a signal across the synaptic gap to another axon (arm) on another neuron. The more neurons involved in the chain, formed by novel ways of learning this material, the better this information is stored the long-term memory. Even though these two memory processes are so different, students routinely get them confused. They believe that since they can work the math problem while the math book is open in front of them, they have "learned" it, when in fact this information is only in their working memory and will not be in their long-term memory on test day. Students who complain of "test anxiety" really are talking about the panic that happens when they realize on test day that the information they thought was in their long-term memories in fact is not.
Humans have no upper limit to how much information they can store in their long-term memories. The number of synapses a human has is roughly a quadrillion, or a million billion, which is more than the number of grains of sand on the entire earth! The authors came up with another novel way of putting this: Humans have 10^14 neurons and the average human lifespan is 10^9 seconds long. That means humans have 10^5 neurons PER SECOND available to them to store new information as they explore the world!
Retrieval practice, which the authors often simply term recall, is the very best way to get information into long-term memory. This fact, and methods for using recall, should be explicitly taught to students. For example, students can cover the page in their math book and see how much they remember without looking at it. They can also try to teach their classmate information without looking at notes and see how much they can remember. The chapter ended with ideas of "jotting down" information as a way of recalling information learned. Students can jot down what they remember from the day's lecture or activity, for example, or from the reading material that day; students can also sketch what they remember.
The more students attempt to retrieve information, the better it will be stored in their long-term memories. The authors also mentioned the importance of spaced practice--there emphasis on that is another aspect they share in common with Do I Have Your Attention? Understanding Memory Constraints and Maximizing Learning. The authors say why not ask students what they remember from last week's lesson or last month's.
Chapter 2
This chapter begins by comparing race car brains with hiker brains. Although race car brains—brains that process information quickly—seem to be superior, they have downsides: going so fast leads to overconfidence and blindness to errors that hiker brains are better able to see. Oakley gives the example of neuroscientist and Nobel Prize winner Dr. (I can't remember his name. Ramos?) as one who had a "hiker brain," which led him to great breakthroughs.
A teacher tip the authors give on how to recognize which students have high capacity working memories quickly is to see which students can understand the lecture and take notes at the same time. The more students struggle with this, the lower the capacity of their working memory.
The good news about students with low-capacity working memories is that working memories can be greatly augmented by building their long-term memories for that content area. The authors liken the long-term memory to a group of conga dancers who are sitting and watching the "working memory" line dancers dancing to a catchy tune. The long-term memories can't help but stand up and join the conga line.
The authors talk a lot about inclusion and differentiation in this chapter. Techniques they recommend for differentiation are separate "agendas" (task lists of assignments) for students depending on their abilities, teacher-led mall group re-teaching for struggling students, and more time on assignments. The bottom line is that struggling students need more scaffolds, such as paragraph skeleton templates, to take the steps up to the same high learning goals as the rest of the class.
The authors mentioned an example of correcting poorly constructed sentences on the board. I don't remember this part, so I need to look back at the book. This means I haven't yet committed this part to long-term memory, so just because I type it here, I should not fool myself into thinking I have learned it.. The authors said that teaching a lesson with no breaks and no chance for students to practice is a recipe for disaster. The race-car brains will surely raise their hands and give the impression that the class in learning, while the hiker brains and timid students take this opportunity to check out. So for the example of sentence-correcting, the teacher can model ONE sentence for the students and then let the students individually practice on other sentences. Then, when students have finished, they can compare their answers with each other; also, the teacher is diligently walking around the classroom checking on student progress in real-time to see who's getting it and who needs further help. After this, homework can be assigned so long as the students have gained a solid foundation in class--if not, the authors warn that homework becomes frustrating for students and parents alike.
While I was looking this information up, I also noticed that the authors gave tips for race car brain "gifted" students who are outpacing the rest of the class. Among their suggestions are meaningful "sponge activities" that soak up extra time. Not just extra work, the authors warn, which students can perceive as a punishment, but deeper questions. The authors recommend giving these students authentic texts (versus "inauthentic texts" such as textbooks, which is not how text is formatted in the real world of articles, editorials, etc.)
Finally, the authors bolded this sentence, so it must be important! "And this is why instruction that includes multiple opportunities for practice to break up the lesson can be so valuable" (33).
Chapter 3
This chapter emphasizes the importance of retrieval practice and incorporating brief pauses during lessons to allow students time to mentally process the content. Specifically, the authors recommend pausing lessons with Think-(Write-)Pair-Share and Whip It, the latter of which is a protocol where the teacher poses an open-ended question midlesson; when one student starts, the student whips around to the next student (in the rows or columns) until all the students have a chance to answer. If students answer incorrectly, the teacher is not to interrupt the flow of student answers but can give a thumbs down (or thumbs up for a good answer); fixing errors should wait until Whip It has made its way through the entire classroom. (I just looked it up: it's "Whip-Around," not "Whip It.")
New in this chapter was an analogy of the working memory Octopus (Quadropus) conducting Hip, a superficial tuxedo-clad singer, and Neo, a scatter-brained female opera singer. This analogy/story represents how the Hippocampus forms retrieval paths between the information being gathered in the working memory and the neocortex. Eventually, when information is rehearsed sufficiently, the hippocampus' paths are no longer needed, and the working memory can access the information stored in the neocortex directly. Until that happens, though—a process called "consolidation," which can take weeks if not months and requires sleep—Hip has to "sing" to Neo to help her remember the information. The practical insights of this are (1) students need mental breaks to give the Hippocampus time to lay down retrieval paths, although these mental breaks of course must alternate with periods of effortful retrieval for students to build long-term memories; and (2) students who cram are forming lots of retrieval paths with their Hippocampus that, especially if the student crams without much sleep, will disappear from their long-term memories.
Exercise is good for the brain. Not only does it generate BDNF (I'm sure that's not quite right), a brain-created nutrient that helps dendrite spines grow, which makes it easier to form connections to other neurons' axons, but also exercise helps neurons link together. The authors say this is a reason not to cut out recess in favor of more instructional time; students will actually learn and remember more if they have exercise as part of their school day. An analogy to this is when teachers try to cram in so much content into a high school course, thinking they cannot afford the time it takes to give students mental breaks, wrongly believing that the greater the teaching time means the more students are learning.
One last thing I just remembered is that teachers shouldn't check emails, etc, while students are doing the Think-(Write-)Pair-Share, for example, as it is a bad example for students and it also robs the teacher of a chance to walk around and formatively assess how students are grasping the material.
Chapter 4
The most interesting thing in this chapter was the fact that race car brains (those with large working memories) tend to become procrastinators more than hiker brains because it's easier for race car brains to do well by cramming. Teachers can help students defeat procrastination by (1) teaching them the Pomodoro Technique (the authors suggest not using the standard 25 minutes of focus and 5 minutes of rest, but rather the students' age + 1 for the focus time and 3-5 minutes for rest); (2) breaking up large projects like essays into steps with separate deadlines; and (3) teaching students the brain science behind cramming so they learn why procrastination is detrimental to their learning.
Chapter 5
Beth Rogowsky, EdD, who was once a classroom teacher and is now a professor of education for future teachers, writes, "The last thing that parents want to hear when they ask their child what they did at school today is 'We watched a movie.' They can do that at home" (100). This is likely true for many parents, but off-the-cuff stuff like this is not why I am reading this book. What I am looking for are results of the latest brain research, interpreted and applied to teaching. While this book does have a lot of the latter, I've noticed that—especially when Rogowsky is writing—there is a lot of this off-the-cuff fluff that I don't appreciate.
Rogowsky does talk elsewhere about the importance for students of interrupting straight lecture or straight movie-watching with active learning time. This active learning time, in which students can do a protocol such as
• Pause and recall
• Pairing and repairing
• One-minute summaries
• One-minute muddiest points
• The whip-around
• Think-pair-share
OR teachers can
• Tell a brief related>story
• Pose a question that sparks curiosity
• Add humor
• Play a bit of music
• Add movement (stand up and stretch, take learning outside; 103-4).
The reason for this, based on brain research, is that Hip, the hippocampus, needs time to recite and recite again the material to Neo for her to be able to add this information to long-term memory. A 45-minute straight lecture or movie doesn't give students' hippocampus enough time to do this, so the material will not be well retained.
This chapter speaks of the importance of direct teaching (the "I do" in I do-We do-You do). In an age of project-based learning and student-directed learning, this is a refreshing corrective. Some difficult tasks do need an expert (the teacher) to present the material to the learners; if learners are left to teach themselves via student-directed learning, they will be lost. The authors give the analogy of a smooth path vs. a dense jungle. The smooth path represents something the brain is able to do easily, such as learn to speak and understand one's native language. The jungle represents something the brain can only do with effort, such as learning to read one's native language. For "jungle" tasks, direct teaching is a non-negotiable. Only, teachers must be sensitive not to overload students with too much straight direct instruction, as I noted above. Also, it's best not to try to teach a "jungle" concept to students in one dense class period. It's better to divide the same amount of direct instruction and practice up into shorter segments across many days of teaching. As said before, the students need time to forget to give them a chance to expend effort to retrieve the half-forgotten information. This effortful retrieval practice is very effective at solidifying this info into the students' long-term memories. And once students have the information "saved" in their neocortex, students can now engage in student-directed learning, which "strengthens and extends their neural links" (113).
Chapter 6
I know I didn't absorb all of this 42-page chapter, but I got the main idea: the brain learns things in two different pathways, the declarative (routed through the hippocampus) and the procedural (routed through the basal ganglia). The authors suggest that good teachers help their students learn through both of these pathways, although research has shown that individuals with ADHD, dyslexia, and related disabilities tend to learn better through the declarative pathway. On the other hand, individuals with autism learn better through the procedural pathway.
The declarative pathway is conscious and learns step-by-step, explicitly. The procedural pathway is nonconscious and learns things through repeated practice. The declarative pathway is more flexible than the procedural pathway and learns things more quickly; and the declarative pathway executes learning more slowly, while the procedural pathway puts what it knows into practice with lightning rapidity. A good example of this is learning a 2nd language procedurally, through immersion, versus learning a 2nd language declaratively, in high school and college classrooms. The former student will be able to speak rapidly and without thinking, whereas the latter student will take a long time to formulate responses but will be able to explain the grammatical construction of their sentences. The authors concede at the end of the chapter that how these two distinct learning systems work together so seamlessly is a mystery; more research is required.
The authors talk about the "curse of specificity" in this chapter. That is, either learning system has a hard time transferring its knowledge to even closely related problems or situations. To combat this limitation of our brains, teachers can use interleaving, which means alternating "confusingly similar aspects of a topic" rather than presenting in a single block of time "nearly identical repetitions of the same topic" (157).
The authors mentioned again the importance of spaced learning. Give learners time to forget so that when they try to recall material, doing so is more of an effort for them. The greater the effort, the greater the learning.
Lots of practice taps into the procedural pathway, which eventually results in automaticity: students can solve problems or apply what they've learn without consciously thinking about it. But the declarative pathway can help students gain a conscious understanding.
I love the authors analogy of "peg leg" soccer players, who are more skilled with their dominant leg. To truly excel at soccer, "peg leg" players must put a ton of practice into their weak leg, even though it is difficult. Students and soccer players alike like the feeling of succees, but this "desireable difficulty" in building up what is naturally harder for them will led to greater success over the long term. The authors suggest that teachers tell their students this.
Chapters 7-9
In this chapter Beth writes, "Set students up for success by making sure they have the correct answer before calling on the in front of their peers" (177). Compare this to Barb's comment in Chapter 9, "Doug Lemov [recommends] cold-calling students regardless of whether they have raised their hands. (If you worry that cold-calling makes your students uncomfortable, worry no more. Research shows that cold-calling actually increases students' comfort with participation and also heightens students' desires to answer voluntary questions when you do pose them.)" (211). Which is it? In fact, both perspectives are valid. This example reveals the patchwork nature of a book written in pieces by three separate authors.
Stress ("eustress") is good up to a point. Zero stress is actually bad for learning and results in boredom. Competitions, tests, presentations, and other ways of increasing student stress are, up to a certain point, good for students' learning.
Building class procedures taps into the procedural learning system of students. With enough practice, students will come into class and nonconsciously jump right into the activity you've established. I had to wrestle with my 4th hour all year due to not drilling the class entrance procedure.
Groups are actually less creative than individuals. Brainwriting, where students write ideas first on their own and then collaborate seems to be the best of both worlds. Give each students in groups a distinct role, make each student and the group produce something, teach social skills, have students reflect after.
Students need to exert will-power to give you attention; help them by providing them "bottom-up" attention grabbers like moving toward them quickly, cutting to a different angle, sound, humor, the unexpected, bits of praise or positivity. These give students dopamine which helps them learn.
Be present in an online course!
Multimedia theory: students see & hear, but avoid redundancy and noise.
October 27, 2021
Barbara Oakley’s books are full of excellent science-based advice for teachers and learners alike. They emphasize concepts like working memory, neural links, active recall, diffuse learning, and focused learning. Uncommon Sense Teaching seems to summarize material from the Learning How to Learn books and incorporates new material that is particularly useful for the classroom. Some of the concepts that stood out for me as particularly useful were:
-procedural learning vs declarative learning
-the basal ganglia’s role in learning
-directed learning vs self-directed learning
-nonconcious learning
-eustress
-learn it, link it as steps of learning
-I do, we do, you do as steps of learning
-think-pair-share as a classroom format
This book was also personally very enlightening because my son is a “racecar” learner (he understands concepts quickly but not necessarily deeply) and my daughter is a “hiker” learner (it takes her some time to understand concepts, but once she knows them, they won’t be forgotten), and I have to be conscious of the strengths and weaknesses that these two types of learners have. At a recent parent-teacher meeting, I was happy to hear that my son’s science teacher regularly gives students quizzes in class (thereby making them practice active recall). I also learned that his math teacher is encouraging the kids to regularly go through math concepts that have been covered before (thereby encouraging interleaving). As a result, I’m a content parent, as it sounds like the teachers at his school are using good teaching techniques. Oakley’s book also made me think well of the teaching methods that I’ve recently learned in my Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) course, as they are pretty consistent. It encourages pair work as a component of the learning process, and also encourages teachers to balance out teacher-led activities with student-led activities.
-procedural learning vs declarative learning
-the basal ganglia’s role in learning
-directed learning vs self-directed learning
-nonconcious learning
-eustress
-learn it, link it as steps of learning
-I do, we do, you do as steps of learning
-think-pair-share as a classroom format
This book was also personally very enlightening because my son is a “racecar” learner (he understands concepts quickly but not necessarily deeply) and my daughter is a “hiker” learner (it takes her some time to understand concepts, but once she knows them, they won’t be forgotten), and I have to be conscious of the strengths and weaknesses that these two types of learners have. At a recent parent-teacher meeting, I was happy to hear that my son’s science teacher regularly gives students quizzes in class (thereby making them practice active recall). I also learned that his math teacher is encouraging the kids to regularly go through math concepts that have been covered before (thereby encouraging interleaving). As a result, I’m a content parent, as it sounds like the teachers at his school are using good teaching techniques. Oakley’s book also made me think well of the teaching methods that I’ve recently learned in my Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) course, as they are pretty consistent. It encourages pair work as a component of the learning process, and also encourages teachers to balance out teacher-led activities with student-led activities.
April 14, 2024
Felt very rudimentary, but contained some good practical tips. Would be a good starting point for someone, but I prefer Make It Stick.
August 25, 2024
It's probably the best book I have read about the brain and education. I found the metaphors and analogies Oakley uses to explain the role of the brain and education to be memorable and enjoyable. I didn't read much that was new to me except the checklists for a good lesson plan.
July 24, 2021
I'm a HUGE fan of Barbara Oakley! I love this book. It gets into the nuts and bolts of how the brain works while it is learning. It's almost like programming reference manual for teaching. Not all the details are here, of course, but it is quite a learning adventure for someone who is not in the business of pedagogy. A must-read for teachers! It was a great read for me, I learned quite a bit.
November 25, 2021
Insightful and practical advice for engaging students or mentee. When it comes to brain science, many books often incorporate too many jargon that are hard to digest. Simple illustration with easy to grasp examples, followed by practical execution makes the teaching more fun and easier to adopt this approach. This approach not only applies to professional teaching, it can be used on any kind of informal teaching including your kids. Highly recommended for read!
August 6, 2022
There were so many great, research based ideas in this book that seem ready to implement in a classroom. I was hoping for more ideas for younger students, as my students are all 5 and younger, but if you teach middle school or higher, I think you'd take away many more usable ideas! I loved the breakdown of how the brain learns and will be able to implement some of those concepts with our preschool students.
August 17, 2021
Valuable knowledge!
My takeaways are.. a better understanding of how I learn and how to think and process new learning.
That together with some truly simple and good concepts made this book a wonderful and exciting listen.
Hope many teachers try these methods out, would probably create better learning environment.
Learn it - link it 🔗
My takeaways are.. a better understanding of how I learn and how to think and process new learning.
That together with some truly simple and good concepts made this book a wonderful and exciting listen.
Hope many teachers try these methods out, would probably create better learning environment.
Learn it - link it 🔗
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