Learning Books

The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance

Josh Waitzkin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 61 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Josh Waitzkin knows what it means to be at the top of his game. A public figure since winning his first National Chess Championship at the age of nine, Waitzkin was catapulted into a media whirlwind as a teenager when his father's book Searching for Bobby Fischer was made into a major motion picture. After dominating the scholastic chess world for ten years, Waitzkin expanded his horizons, taking on the martial art Tai Chi Chuan and ultimately earning the title of World Champion. How was he able to reach the pinnacle of two disciplines that on the surface seem so different? "I've come to realize that what I am best at is not Tai Chi, and it is not chess," he says. "What I am best at is the art of learning."

In his riveting new book, The Art of Learning, Waitzkin tells his remarkable story of personal achievement and shares the principles of learning and performance that have propelled him to the top -- twice.

With a narrative that combines heart-stopping martial arts wars and tense chess face-offs with life lessons that speak to all of us, The Art of Learning takes readers through Waitzkin's unique journey to excellence. He explains in clear detail how a well-thought-out, principled approach to learning is what separates success from failure. Waitzkin believes that achievement, even at the championship level, is a function of a lifestyle that fuels a creative, resilient growth process. Rather than focusing on climactic wins, Waitzkin reveals the inner workings of his everyday method, from systematically triggering intuitive breakthroughs, to honing techniques into states of remarkable potency, to mastering the art of performance psychology.

Through his own example, Waitzkin explains how to embrace defeat and make mistakes work for you. Does your opponent make you angry? Waitzkin describes how to channel emotions into creative fuel. As he explains it, obstacles are not obstacles but challenges to overcome, to spur the growth process by turning weaknesses into strengths. He illustrates the exact routines that he has used in all of his competitions, whether mental or physical, so that you too can achieve your peak performance zone in any competitive or professional circumstance.

In stories ranging from his early years taking on chess hustlers as a seven year old in New York City's Washington Square Park, to dealing with the pressures of having a film made about his life, to International Chess Championships in India, Hungary, and Brazil, to gripping battles against powerhouse fighters in Taiwan in the Push Hands World Championships, The Art of Learning encapsulates an extraordinary competitor's life lessons in a page-turning narrative.

How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition

Committee on Developments in the Science of Learning with additional material from the Committee on Learning Research and Educational Practice, National Research Council

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 20 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

How People Learn 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

My academic advisor at the University of Washington's iSchool suggested I read this along with "Team-Based Learning". I never thought I could get so excited about a book on learning from the National Research Council! Highly recommended to anyone with an interest in research regarding neural processes, teaching /learning, psychology, and the natural desire to learn.

Thank you to the authors and contributors for this book! I can hardly wait to see what they find out next!

How people learn 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

If you are going to be a teacher, this is a great book to read. Detailed and easy to read, it helps prepare you for what to expect and what will be expected of you as a teacher. It makes it easy to understand how children learn and what are the best teaching strategies to use to teach them as individuals.

Editorial Review:

(National Research Council) Text is a result of work of two committees of the Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education of the National Research Council. Original volume, c1999, was a product of a 2-year study conducted by the Committee on Developments in the Science of Learning. Expands on the findings, conclusion, and research agenda of the original volume. Softcover.

Telling Ain't Training

Harold Stolovitch

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A good book for beginning as well as experienced trainers 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This is an excellenet resource for both beginning Trainers as well as those who have many years experience. It is not only a "how-to" book, but a "why" book; explaining the adult learning process and how training adults has to be more performance and job-centered. The book is well written, engaging and gives the reader opportunities to practive the techniques discussed in the book as you are reading. It provides an excellent Training Session Planning Sheet and Training Session Scripting Sheet. It discusses how adults learn, how to get them motivated, how to reinforce the remembering process, how to develop training activities and then evaluate the students ability to perform the task.

Any Instructor or Training of Adults will benefit from this book, whether you are just starting out as a Trainer or have many years experience. I am now able to understand why some of my students seem to "get it" while others never seem to grasp the concepts. I have learned some valuable new skills and will now make my training sessions more learner-focused.

Editorial Review:

This book is an entertaining and practical guide for every trainer and performance improvement professional as it tackles the three universal and persistent questions of the profession--how do learners learn, why do learners learn, and how do you ensure that learning sticks. This interactive book with it fun and breezy style illustrate the authors' point of view that learning should be active and enjoyable. Playful illustrations demonstrate the solid research that back up the authors' contentions and help readers separate learning myth from fact to dispel beliefs and practices that often harm the instructional process.

A Mind at a Time

Mel Levine

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 70 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Recognizing each child's intellectual, emotional, and physical strengths--and teaching directly to these strengths--is key to sculpting "a mind at a time," according to Dr. Mel Levine. While this flashing yellow light will not surprise many skilled educators, limited resources often prevent them from shifting their instructional gears. But to teachers and parents whose children face daily humiliation at school, the author bellows, "Try harder!" A professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina Medical School, Levine eloquently substantiates his claim that developmental growth deserves the same monitoring as a child's physical growth.

Tales of creative, clumsy, impulsive, nerdy, intuitive, loud-mouthed, and painfully shy kids help Levine define eight specific mind systems (attention, memory, language, spatial ordering, sequential ordering, motor, higher thinking, and social thinking). Levine also incorporates scientific research to show readers how the eight neurodevelopmental systems evolve, interact, and contribute to a child's success in school. Detailed steps describe how mental processes (like problem solving) work for capable kids, and how they can be finessed to serve those who struggle. Clear, practical suggestions for fostering self-monitoring skills and building self-esteem add the most important elements to this essential--yet challenging--program for "raisin' brain." --Liane Thomas

How the Brain Learns Mathematics

David A. Sousa

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"I am so impressed with this book that I believe it should be required reading for all teachers who teach math at any level."
-Mary Thoreen, Mathematics Teacher
Wilson Middle School, Tampa, FL

"An excellent, well-organized, well-written book-practical advice grounded in solid research and presented in compelling language."
-Robert Sylwester, Emeritus Professor of Education
University of Oregon

Learn how the brain processes mathematical concepts and why some students develop math anxiety!

Highly respected author and researcher David A. Sousa explains the latest neuroscientific findings in practical, understandable terms and discusses the impact this information has for teaching mathematics at all grade levels. How the Brain Learns Mathematics covers the cognitive mechanisms for learning mathematics, the environmental and developmental factors that contribute to mathematics difficulties, and ways to differentiate mathematics instruction.

The text offers a unique and simplified four-step model for teaching mathematics to PreK–12 students that helps teachers consistently relate what learners experience in the classroom to concrete, real-world applications. Based on primary research, this award-winning text also examines:

• Children’s innate number sense and how the brain develops an understanding of number relationships
• Rationales for modifying lessons to meet the developmental learning stages of young children, preadolescents, and adolescents
• How to plan lessons in PreK–12 mathematics
• Implications of current research for planning mathematics lessons, including discoveries about memory systems and lesson timing
• Methods to help elementary and secondary school teachers detect mathematics difficulties
• Clear connections to the NCTM standards and curriculum focal points

Teachers of mathematics at all levels will find this book invaluable for making informed decisions about which instructional strategies and activities to use in creating a mathematics-friendly classroom.

(20070508)

Enriching the Brain: How to Maximize Every Learner's Potential

Eric Jensen

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Eric Jensen—a leading expert in the translation of brain research into education, argues in Enriching the Brain that we greatly underestimate students’ achievement capacity. Drawing from a wide range of neuroscience research as well as related studies, Jensen reveals that the human brain is far more dynamic and malleable than we earlier believed. He offers us a powerful new understanding of how the brain can be “enriched,” across the board to maximize learning, memory, behavior and overall function. The bottom line is we have far more to do with how our children’s brains turn out than we previously thought. Enriching the Brain shows that lasting brain enrichment doesn’t occur randomly through routine or ordinary learning. It requires a specific, and persistent experiences that amount to a “formula” for maximizing brain potential. Parents, teachers and policy-makers would do well to memorize this formula. In fact, the lifelong potential of all school age kids depends on whether or not we use it. Offering an inspiring and innovative set of practices for promoting enrichment in the home, the school, and the classroom, this book is a clarion call. All of us, from teachers to parents to policymakers must take their role as ‘brain shapers’ much more seriously and this book gives the tools with which to do it.

Brain-Based Learning: The New Paradigm of Teaching

Eric P. Jensen

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

"This book is filled with classroom implications and instructional suggestions based on research. Classroom teachers, school administrators, professional development trainers, college/university faculty, and parents would all benefit from this information."
-Andrea Rosenblatt, Associate Professor
Barry University

"I have used the information from this book in many of my trainings. The 'What This Means to You' sections translate technical information into everyday language for the reader. This is truly a book that makes, has made, and will continue to make a contribution to the field."
-Steve Hutton, Area Coordinator
Kentucky Center for Instructional Discipline

Adopt a teaching approach aligned with the brain's natural way of learning!

Borrowing research from the disciplines of neuroscience, biology, and psychology, brain expert Eric Jensen offers an easy-to-understand explanation of the relationship between learning and the brain, helping educators increase student motivation and achievement. The author shares empirical data and provides in-depth information about the impact of physiological effects, sensory stimuli, and emotions on learning. Updated and streamlined, this second edition offers:

• A set of brain-based principles for informed decision making
• Low-cost teaching strategies that teachers can implement immediately
• Reader-friendly language accessible for both novice and veteran educators
• Easy-to-follow chapter outlines and helpful text boxes to emphasize key points

Written for teachers, teacher leaders, and administrators, this comprehensive text demonstrates how brain-compatible learning environments can work to optimize learning in the classroom, reduce discipline problems, overcome learning difficulties, and increase graduation rates.

(20071213)

125 Brain Games for Babies

Jackie Silberg

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• Classroom supplies
• Satisfaction Ensured.
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Overpriced, but pretty good 3 out of 5 stars.
35 of 36 people found this review helpful.

Considering the content of this book, it is really not worth the fifteen dollars listed on the cover. It consists of games and activities that are basically traditional; the sorts of things that most mothers do with their babies. Five to ten dollars at most would have been a much more reasonable price.

However, it is not a bad book at all. Contrary to what the previous reviewers said, parents will not automatically know all of these games. Granted, I would definitely have done some of the things mentioned in the book with my child anyway (for example, holding the baby and making faces), but many of the other games may expand the parent's "bag of tricks" or inspire new ideas in them, and there's nothing wrong with that!

The best thing about the book is that it emphasizes the importance of human affection and interaction in promoting brain development, rather than expensive toys or gadgets. So go ahead and purchase it if you find it on sale, or take it out of the library. Just getting a few good games or tips will make it worth your time.

Editorial Review:

125 Brain Games for Babies is filled with enjoyable ways to lay the groundwork for your baby's future. It is packed with everyday opportunities to contribute to the brain development of children from birth through twelve months. The games all use simple t

The Book of Learning and Forgetting

Frank Smith

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Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Educational Utopia 3 out of 5 stars.
10 of 14 people found this review helpful.

As a high school teacher for 15 years and now an educational consultant, I came to Dr. Smith's book with a lot of interest. There can be little doubt that there are some powerful ideas here. His belief that we only learn by joining "clubs" (e.g. the spoken-language club, the literacy club, etc.) is a great metaphor for the apprentice/journeyman/master mode of learner that has deep roots in our society. One can even argue, as Dr. Smith does, that this is the best way to learn things so we never forget. (In fact, Dr. Smith believes this is really the only way to learn things.) And yet, in many ways his ideas are utopian, despite the fact that he claims not to believe in "ideal schools."

Admittedly, I am always suspicious of authors in the field of education who spell out big ideas that seem simple and obvious and yet provide no concrete examples of how these ideas can be implemented in our schools. In my experience, it leads to two things: repetition and unwarranted criticism. Both of these are obvious features of this book. He harps on his one point over and over without expanding or detailing its implications and devotes chapter after chapter to how things went wrong and are wrong in our educational system.

I also find his criticisms of our educational system to be disingenuous. I agree that our current educational system has it roots in the military-industrial complex and that this has affected everything from the bell system to its vocabulary; however, I disagree that this was necessarily a wrong approach. The one room schoolhouse served the needs of a nation that was 90% agricultural, the bulk whose students needed only the rudiments of math & literacy. The transition to a military-industrial school system was necessitated by the Industrial Revolution and world wars. The fact is, the educational system that Dr. Smith so criticizes did exactly what it was designed to do and made the United States the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth and the sometimes ridiculous "scientific" educational research that produced it led to some powerful advances in our understanding of people and how they learn. The people who made it work should be thanked even if they are now behind the times.

The key thing to understand is not Dr. Smith's bluster about the fact that our current educational structure is somehow inherently wrong or bad. Yes, it has its weakness which deserve to be pointed out but, more importantly, we need to understand that over the past twenty years or so our society has undergone another seismic shift away from an industrial base to a service/information base. The problem is that our educational system has yet to catch up with this. It may be that there is some value in looking back to the "classic view of learning" for inspiration to help us through the paradigm shift currently underway in education but it will take real innovation, not abstract criticism, to make a difference. The shift is already underway and, though our school system is still riddled with holdouts from a previous era, eventually our school system will look entirely new. Otherwise, Dr. Smith is right and our educational system will collapse. But I don't think so.

Editorial Review:

In this thought-provoking book, Frank Smith explains how schools and educational authorities systematically obstruct the powerful inherent learning abilities of children, creating handicaps that often persist through life. The author eloquently contrasts a false and fabricated "official theory" that learning is work (used to justify the external control of teachers and students through excessive regulation and massive testing) with a correct but officially suppressed "classic view" that learning is a social process that can occur naturally and continually through collaborative activities. This book will be crucial reading in a time when national authorities continue to blame teachers and students for alleged failures in education. It will help educators and parents to combat sterile attitudes toward teaching and learning and prevent current practices from doing further harm.

How Your Child Is Smart: A Life-Changing Approach to Learning

Dawna Markova, Anne Powell

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Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Opened my eyes to my child's mind! 5 out of 5 stars.
26 of 27 people found this review helpful.

I picked up this book from an LLL meeting's private library, just for something to read for the month. I never imagined that it was going to change the way I looked at my child! In learning my child's thought pattern (and mine and my husband's as well) I not only discovered how he learns, but reasons for the ways he behaves. When reading the description of a typical person with my child's thought pattern, it was as though the author was describing my child exactly! I now understand such behaviors in my child as never having an appetite, not enjoying coloring, although he can very nicely, being able to memorize things he hears with seemingly no effort at all, talking and asking questions from the moment he wakes up untill he is asleep, and being timid about defending himself physically even when necessary. This book also enlightened me to the fact that my thought pattern and my son's will fit perfectly while I endevor to school him at home, as I enjoy talking and enlightening people, and he learns easiest through hearing. Never before has a book influenced my life in such strong and beneficial way. I have recommended this book to every parent I know, and strongly to those that have chosen as I have to educate their children at home. It is true that every child is smart in their own way and it is important to understand this in order to help each child learn to lead a productive life.

Editorial Review:

Not all children learn in the same way. Written by two educators, How Your Child IS Smart identifies six patterns of learning and teaches parents how to help their child learn and communicate most effectively. Through simple questions, activities, and charts, parents can identify their child's pattern and learn how he or she can best be taught in school.