I love to teach and to do research on teaching and learning. Little compares to seeing how students’ faces light up when they get it. I want more students to experience the experience of getting it. After teaching for 25 years, and taking a deep dive into the scientific literature on learning, I have accumulated some important insights that I share in my work as Executive Director of a teaching and learning center, with my students, and with faculty across the nation. Teaching is not an impromptu act. It is an art and a science and I revel in it. These books will light a fire in you.
I wrote...
Study Like a Champ: The Psychology-Based Guide to "Grade A" Study Habits
Have you ever wished you had an expert on hand to help you do your best? This book is the next best thing. We have collectively taught over 20,000 students and done 40-plus years of research on how learning works. We stripped out the jargon and the tedium and present what scientific research suggests as the best ways to learn. This book knocks down myths about learning, shocks you with how commonly used methods are flawed, and points you to the best ways to use your time to effectively and efficiently study. We share some classroom and lab-tested strategies to better studying, guiding you in how best to use them. Studying will never be the same again.
I love books with specific, pragmatic ways to change what I do in the classroom.
Every chapter of this book was packed with something I wanted to try. There are a lot of general suggestions floating around (e.g., more active learning), but what exactly does a teacher do?
This book is a great compliment to my book. The former gives students pragmatic tips, and this one is packed with examples for teachers.
Unleash powerful teaching and the science of learning in your classroom
Powerful Teaching: Unleash the Science of Learning empowers educators to harness rigorous research on how students learn and unleash it in their classrooms. In this book, cognitive scientist Pooja K. Agarwal, Ph.D., and veteran K-12 teacher Patrice M. Bain, Ed.S., decipher cognitive science research and illustrate ways to successfully apply the science of learning in classrooms settings. This practical resource is filled with evidence-based strategies that are easily implemented in less than a minute-without additional prepping, grading, or funding!
Research demonstrates that these powerful strategies raise student achievement by…
I am a nerd that loves evidence. Teachers often share the wisdom of experience but that only goes so far.
This book hits all the big-ticket items teachers struggle with. Class participation, assessment, getting students to talk, active engagement, and course design. It also covers how to give students more control.
I liked how this book made me question some long-held beliefs. I first disagreed and then was won over by the evidence and examples. That’s a treat.
Professors know a lot, but they are rarely taught how to teach. The author of the Chronicle of Higher Education's popular "Pedagogy Unbound" column explains everything you need to know to be a successful college instructor.
College is changing, but the way we train academics is not. Most professors are still trained to be researchers first and teachers a distant second, even as scholars are increasingly expected to excel in the classroom.
There has been a revolution in teaching and learning over the past generation, and we now have a whole new understanding of how the brain works and how…
Excited, happy students, will learn better. Too often teachers focus on content coverage and neglect the affective environment learning take place in.
Dr. Cavanaugh is a skilled writer who weaves research and pragmatics into seamless stories to help us do better. I found myself marveling at how much was packed in here and how well she pulled back the curtain on an important element of learning – emotion.
Historically we have constructed our classrooms with the assumption that learning is a dry, staid affair best conducted in quiet tones and ruled by an unemotional consideration of the facts. The field of education, however, is beginning to awaken to the potential power of emotions to fuel learning, informed by contributions from psychology and neuroscience. In friendly, readable prose, Sarah Rose Cavanagh argues that if you as an educator want to capture your students' attention, harness their working memory, bolster their long-term retention, and enhance their motivation, you should consider the emotional impact of your teaching style and course design.…
Just because most teachers love to read, their students may not feel the same way.
Teachers struggle with getting students to read and the rise in screen time and social media seems to make the challenge even tougher. Furthermore, is reading on a screen the same as reading on paper?
This book addresses reading on screens head on and provides a rich history of reading, and lays the groundwork for ways to get students to be more effective readers. I loved the facts relating to what catches student eyeballs.
Students are reading on screens more than ever-how can we teach them to be better digital readers?
Smartphones, laptops, tablets: college students are reading on-screen all the time, and digital devices shape students' understanding of and experiences with reading. In higher education, however, teachers rarely consider how digital reading experiences may have an impact on learning abilities, unless they're lamenting students' attention spans or the distractions available to students when they're learning online.
Skim, Dive, Surface offers a corrective to these conversations-an invitation to focus not on losses to student learning but on the spectrum of affordances available within digital…
Sure the brain is at the heart of all we do but how do we bridge the chasm between technical neuroscience and cognitive psychology, and what we do day to day in the classroom?
The book was packed with aha moments connecting specific practices such as why it is important to pause often in class to the science (it helps move information from working memory to long-term memory). With vivid examples, the authors make neuroscience palatable and pragmatic.
Top 10 Pick for Learning Ladders’ Best Books for Educators Summer 2021
A groundbreaking guide to improve teaching based on the latest research in neuroscience, from the bestselling author of A Mind for Numbers.
Neuroscientists and cognitive scientists 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:
• keeping students motivated and engaged, especially with online learning • helping students remember information long-term, so…
As a trauma therapist and dedicated researcher, I love uncovering valuable insights within lesser-known books. There are hidden gems, free from the pressure of commercial success, crafted by authors deeply committed to research, understanding, and the art of writing itself. Their dedication resonates with me, as I believe in the profound value of information and the power of critical thinking. Through my own book, Traumatization and Its Aftermath, I aim to emphasize that psychological concepts often lose their depth in translation and my mission is spreading awareness and fostering a deeper understanding of trauma and its intricate facets. With that idea in mind, I chose these five titles.
A fresh take on the difference between trauma and hardship in order to help accurately spot the difference and avoid over-generalizations.
The book integrates the latest findings in brain science, child development, psycho-social context, theory, and clinical experiences to make the case that trauma is much more than a cluster of symptoms to be tamed, but instead best understood as development gone off course, away from growth and towards (only) survival.
This book prompts a profound shift in perception, inviting to view trauma as an intricate and diverse experience, a point of view that ultimately leads to sharper treatment and, hopefully, more healing. It encourages a transition from asking, "What happened to you?" to the deeper question, "What is your relationship with what happened to you?"
Traumatization and Its Aftermath: A Systemic Approach to Understanding and Treating Trauma Disorders
The book is comprehensive, bold, and practical-a much-needed resource for the assessment and treatment of trauma. Instead of the traditional focus on the overall importance of healing, Traumatization and its Aftermath decodes why some people don't heal as easily as others, analyzes the various failures of diagnosis, and explains how to make therapeutic interventions truly effective.
This book offers a systemic deep dive into traumatization that clarifies myths and misinformation about the entire spectrum of trauma and provides both clinicians and non-clinicians with the right level of validation, preventive measures, conceptualization methodology, assessment tools, and healing facts that have not…
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