Books (etc.) about Learning

[Pen]

There seems to be a lot of science now making it into books, MOOC courses, etc.  If you have read any of these books, or your children have, or you are taking or have taken one of the courses, could you tell me about it?

 

I have read How the Brain Learns Mathematics and How the Brain Learns, and think they were both helpful to my understanding, but not so helpful or accessible to my son.  Also, it sounds like there is more, new, different information now.

 

I am wondering about things like A Mind for Numbers and Fluent Forever and Make it Stick, the science of learning, for example, which came up when I was doing a search for How We Learn which in turn was something I heard about on a radio interview.

 

If you/your children used one or more of these (or others), which?  And did it seem helpful? 

 

What do you/your children now do differently and does it seem to make a difference?

[kitten18]

I've been thinking about starting a similar thread.

 

I recently read (listened to) Making It Stick and I thought it was excellent.  I've been trying to implement some ideas from the book, I need to go back and listen to it again and take some notes.

 

I'm reading Teach Like Socrates http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Like-Socrates-Dialogues-Discussions/dp/1618211439/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410144650&sr=8-1&keywords=teach+like+socrates and Socratic Circles http://www.amazon.com/Socratic-Circles-Fostering-Critical-Creative/dp/1571103945/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_y they were recommended in another thread.

 

I really liked How Children Succeed.  

[....]

I'm not sure if this is helpful, but I'm interested in reading Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything.  The memory palace idea is really interesting.  Here's a couple of links:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci   

 

http://www.wikihow.com/Build-a-Memory-Palace

 

 

[Chrysalis Academy]

We did the Coursera class Learning How to Learn (it just ended, but there will be a new session in October) and read A Mind for Numbers.  Well, we both finished the course, and Shannon has finished the book, I'm still working on it!  They are both excellent - both were accessible to my 7th grader, and we started discussing and putting things we learned to use immediately.  For example, we came up with the idea for math of setting a timer and working for 30 min, then taking a break, then setting the timer and working for 30 more min.  She gets a lot more done this way than by drifting in and out of concentration for an hour and a half!  And she's making more choices about how to schedule her work best on freshness/energy level, including asking to do some things on the weekend when she is burnt.  All in all, it has helped her to be more conscious and proactive about her learning process, and it has given us a shared language/examples to talk about when things come up.  Highly recommended.

[Tress]

We did the Coursera class Learning How to Learn (it just ended, but there will be a new session in October) and read A Mind for Numbers.  Well, we both finished the course, and Shannon has finished the book, I'm still working on it!  They are both excellent - both were accessible to my 7th grader, and we started discussing and putting things we learned to use immediately.  For example, we came up with the idea for math of setting a timer and working for 30 min, then taking a break, then setting the timer and working for 30 more min.  She gets a lot more done this way than by drifting in and out of concentration for an hour and a half!  And she's making more choices about how to schedule her work best on freshness/energy level, including asking to do some things on the weekend when she is burnt.  All in all, it has helped her to be more conscious and proactive about her learning process, and it has given us a shared language/examples to talk about when things come up.  Highly recommended.

 

Rose, how much time did the course take? Were all video's equally interesting or some more/less?

 

I'm contemplating taking the course with my dd10, I downloaded everything, because I really want what you are describing (bold). But, because English is a foreign language, I don't want to overload my dd.

[Chrysalis Academy]

I didn't time it out exactly, but I'd say she spent about an hour a day between reading and watching the videos?  I just took the number of videos for a week and divided it  by 4 or 5 and then she watched those probably 4 or 5 a day - the videos are really short - and she read one chapter of Mind For Numbers each day.  MFN has 17 chapters - so it worked out to about an hour a day, 4 days a week, for 4 weeks?  More or less.

 

There were core videos and then there were interviews each week.  We enjoyed them all, though you could skip the interviews I guess and still get the main point of the course.

 

You know your own child best, of course, but I will say that Iwith a 10 year old, I would definitely watch the videos together and talk about them, and I would do the book as a read aloud.  This is the first time I have turned Shannon loose with the videos and a book like this.  And I pre-watched them, so I was able to discuss them with her.