How We Learn
The New Science of Education and the Brain
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
Humanity's greatest feat is our incredible ability to learn. Even in their first year, infants acquire language, visual and social knowledge at a rate that surpasses the best supercomputers. But how, exactly, do our brains learn?
In How We Learn, leading neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene delves into the psychological, neuronal, synaptic and molecular mechanisms of learning. Drawing on case studies of children who learned despite huge difficulty and trauma, he explains why youth is such a sensitive period, during which brain plasticity is maximal, but also assures us that our abilities continue into adulthood. We can all enhance our learning and memory at any age and 'learn to learn' by taking maximal advantage of the four pillars of the brain's learning algorithm: attention, active engagement, error feedback and consolidation.
The human brain is an extraordinary machine. Its ability to process information and adapt to circumstances by reprogramming itself is unparalleled, and it remains the best source of inspiration for recent developments in artificial intelligence. How We Learn finds the boundary of computer science, neurobiology, cognitive psychology and education to explain how learning really works and how to make the best use of the brain's learning algorithms - and even improve them - in our schools and universities as well as in everyday life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Dehaene (Consciousness in the Brain), a professor of experimental psychology at the Coll ge de France, devotes this detailed, sometimes hard-going, but stimulating study to the science of learning. The first half largely concerns brain physiology, touching on, among other subjects, how learning can physically change the brain, such as by thickening the cortex. Dehaene also refutes the idea of the "blank slate" infant brain, noting that "even a baby... encodes the external world using abstract and systematic rules an ability that eludes... conventional artificial neural networks." The book's second, less technical and more widely accessible half explores the "four pillars" of learning: attention, active engagement, error feedback, and consolidation of information (for which REM sleep is especially key) and discusses how enjoyment can assist learning Dehaene notes that laughter seems to enhance curiosity and memory. While calling for more research into the field, he issues his most potentially controversial pronouncement, at least for neurodiversity advocates: "We all face similar hurdles in learning and the same teaching methods can surmount them." At times not an easy book to comprehend, it will nonetheless be a richly instructive one for educators, parents, and others interested in how to most effectively foster the pursuit of knowledge.
