Book

Outsmart Your Brain

Why Learning Is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy

Daniel Willingham

Gallery Books, 2023

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Psychology Professor Daniel Willingham offers tips for learners and trainers in his research-backed guide to improving how you acquire and retain knowledge. Willingham’s recommendations, based on insights from cognitive psychology, frequently upend common wisdom about studying, test-prep and teaching. The brain, he says, doesn’t know the best ways to learn; hence, intuitive methods often don’t produce the best results. Instead, Willingham offers counterintuitive – but brain science–based – tools for learning and training, as well as a revised understanding of the important role played by motivation and confidence.

Summary

Common teaching practices don’t align with how the brain learns. The field of cognitive psychology offers guidance on how to learn better.

Most people never get explicit training in how to learn. They figure it out for themselves through trial and error or by accepting common wisdom – which is often wrong. Research in brain science instead offers tools and tricks to help you get better results. Often, these hacks go against what people intuitively think should work, so when you apply them, they can feel unproductive or strange. But if you implement them anyway, you’ll gain benefits in understanding and retention. These tools work in any learning context: college courses, lifelong learning, workplace training and elsewhere.

Teachers and trainers can apply lessons from cognitive science to present material in ways that align with brain functioning, and by supporting learners in studying, test preparation and developing self-confidence.

Seek context and structure, practice active listening and make connections during lectures.

The human brain developed to comprehend typical conversational speech, which people speak linearly – a sentence...

About the Author

Daniel T. Willingham teaches psychology at the University of Virginia. His research focuses on applying findings from cognitive psychology and neuroscience to K–12 education. His books include Why Don’t Students Like School? and When Can You Trust the Experts? Willingham also writes the “Ask the Cognitive Scientist” column for American Educator magazine.

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