Uncommon Sense Teaching: Practical Insights in Brain Science to Help Students Learn

This book is a collaboration by three authors; Barb Oakley and Terry Sejnowski, creators of the popular course “Learning how to Learn,” and Beth Rogowsky, a lifelong educator and expert in behavioral neuroscience. The goal of the book is to give teachers new insights into how we learn, by using the latest neuroscience and cognition research.The book is written using basic language, and oversimplified examples, so that it should be fairly easy to understand even if you have no familiarity with the concepts at all. At first I was surprised by these elementary explanations; in fact many concepts are explained with pictures and analogies that I might use if I were explaining these ideas to children. Later I understood why the authors took this approach, because they actually recommend using some of the same images and analogies to explain certain ideas to your students. This seems like a good idea, because you can't teach children something if you don't really understand it yourself; and they have made this information easy to understand.Each chapter starts by introducing concepts, and giving the reader information about an aspect of how we learn and remember. Then there are specific activities and strategies suggested to use with your students. There are also general teaching tips listed, that have something to do with using the information on a daily basis. Each chapter ends with a review list of key ideas in the chapter, to highlight the most important concepts.There are ten main chapters, covering many different topics, including: simple anatomy of neurons, long term memory vs working memory, retrieval practice, active learning, declarative and procedural pathways, procrastination, habits, collaborative learning, online teaching, and lesson plans. Again, teachers should not be intimidated by the names of these concepts, even if they are unfamiliar, because everything is thoroughly explained in simple terms.Overall, I think that this book is a valuable resource for teachers, or anyone that deals with children. Using this information can help you come up with new ways to reach your students, and keep them engaged and learning. I appreciate the authors work in breaking down some advanced neuroscience into simple language and useful activities, so it is easy for teachers to use right away.

Good read.

So far this is the best book on learning and teaching that I have found. It goes into great detail on the hows and whys of teaching and learning. I am currently using this book to develop a learning workshop at the school that I teach at.

I’ve been teaching 17 years and have learned most of this either back in college, PDs, or figured it out myself over the years. The brain research aspect in the beginning was very interesting though. While reading, I was constantly thinking of how I could apply the information in new ways. There were some great application examples of techniques I used in the past, but had forgotten about.

Excelente libro, ya inicié a leeerlo en perfecto estado, muy bueno para profesores.

Ordered this for my daughter who wanted it and she said it was an excellent read!

Muy interesante para estudiantes y profesores. Fácil de leer y con aspectos prácticos

If you’re a teacher this’ll be more in the four stars bracket, especially if you’re new. If you’re just curious how to optimize your learning. It gives a few insights on how your brain works as it grasps a new concepts. The diagrams with how the neuron changes as you learn is pretty fascinating. The 50 or so pages of this book (2 chapters) are really for teachers. At the end of each chapter are also ideas and practices on what you could do as a teacher. Again really helpful if you are, extra page padding if you you’re not.