Stephen M. Kosslyn has been immersed in the world of learning for decades. He is the founder of Active Learning Sciences, Inc., and is Chief Academic Officer of Foundry College. Kosslyn's research has focused on the nature of visual cognition, visual communication, and the science of learning; he has published 14 books and over 350 papers on these topics. He has received numerous honors, including the National Academy of Sciences Initiatives in Research Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, three honorary Doctorates, and election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
I wrote...
Active Learning Online: Five Principles that Make Online Courses Come Alive
By
Stephen M. Kosslyn
What is my book about?
Inspired by the surge of online courses during the COVID 19 pandemic, researcher and educational innovator Stephen M. Kosslyn offers a treasure trove of active learning principles and activities to bring online courses alive. Whether your course is synchronous (e.g., live with Zoom) or asynchronous (e.g., using video content on Canvas), Active Learning Online will inject your new or existing course with all the benefits of active learning: your course will be more interesting and effective, student engagement will increase, learning outcomes will be reached, and general teaching and learning experiences will be enriched.
At the heart of this book are five key principles from the science of learning that will help to ensure that the taught materials stick in students’ minds: (1) deep processing, (2) chunking, (3) building associations, (4) dual coding, and (5) deliberate practice. Based on these learning principles, Active Learning Online provides a wealth of specific active learning exercises that you can implement in your classes immediately.
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The Books I Picked & Why
Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career
By
Scott Young
Why this book?
This book is a creative and accurate description of how to use scientifically developed principles to help yourself learn effectively. The author vividly shows that he "eats his own dogfood" and reports his compelling personal experiences that buttress the science. Moreover, the book is well written and tightly organized. If you want to help yourself to learn more effectively, this is the first book I would consult.
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Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning
By
Peter Brown,
Henry L. Roediger III,
Mark A. McDaniel
Why this book?
If you want a review of the most fundamental scientific discoveries on how people learn, this is a great place to start. It not only provides clear summaries of the science, but also provides a host of detailed real-world illustrations of how the science can be rooted in a wide-range of applications.
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Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything
By
Joshua Foer
Why this book?
The author immersed himself in the world of memory experts and describes how he went from (metaphorical) memory rags to memory riches – eventually winning a prestigious memory contest. This book takes the mystery out of how to learn vast bodies of information; Foer describes learning devices that anyone can use to put their memory on steroids.
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Thinking, Fast and Slow
By
Daniel Kahneman
Why this book?
Technically speaking, this book doesn’t really belong on this list because it doesn’t focus on learning per se. Rather, it mostly addresses fundamental principles that underlie how people reason and make decisions. However, many of these principles draw on the results of learning (for example, of representative or easily recalled events), and the book nicely lays out ways that learning is important in a wide range of mental functions. Plus it is flat-out brilliant and very well written.
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Stikky Night Skies: Learn 6 Constellations, 4 Stars, A Planet, A Galaxy, And How To Navigate At Night
By
Laurence Holt
Why this book?
I've bought this book at least a half-dozen times, giving it as a gift to friends who have kids in middle school or who are interested in how principles of learning can be applied in clever ways. This book is elegant in concept and design, and is one of a series of books Holt wrote that use similar applications of the science of learning to teach readers a set of interesting facts in a way that is almost effortless and a lot of fun.
