Find Out How to Learn: 6 Books on the Most Effective Educational Methods

Learning throughout life is becoming the norm in a world of artificial intelligence, robotization, and remote education. We constantly need to learn new things and change our qualifications to keep up with technologies. So, it’s time to educate ourselves and learn how to remember things better, what myths prevent learning, why traditional schools are bad, and why you shouldn’t rely on your talent. This article has compiled a selection of materials on modern learning practices. Enjoy reading and studying!

“Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning” by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, Mark A. McDaniel

This book is an excellent introduction to the science of learning. Here the authors clearly explain the results of the latest studies: it turns out that the traditional methods of remembering (rereading and highlighting) are practically useless. Instead, the authors advise the method of active repetition: you should not peek into a book but try to recall the material yourself.

Simple methods may seem reasonable, but their usefulness disappears the next day.

Sustainable results come from methods that require our effort: interval repetition, active repetition, alternating practice, etc.

The authors also used some of their techniques in this book, such as interval repetition (returning to ideas already stated to help you remember them) or alternating practice (looking at several theories usually studied sequentially at once).

“Why Don’t Students Like School” by Daniel Willingham

Daniel Willingham shows how to make school and university learning more beneficial by applying for scientific advances. He identifies two types of knowledge: shallow and deep.

A student with shallow knowledge will understand an idea only in the context where they first encounter it. But their knowledge becomes deep if they observe the same idea in a different context (e.g., another work or situation).

One must learn to see the structure – the general principle that connects several phenomena. For example, medical students had to decide how to treat a gastric tumor with radiation therapy. If you irradiate the tumor area, the healthy cells will also die. So, they had to come up with another way.

The students were told the story of a military general who faced a similar problem. The rebel army wanted to overthrow the dictator who had taken over the fortress. Several roads led to the fortress. Each was mined, and the mines only exploded when many people walked along the road. Only a small group could pass without fear. And the general evenly distributed his army between roads to reduce the risk of a mine explosion.

This example helped the medics find the solution: you must distribute the radiation evenly over the whole body. That way, it would kill the tumor but not affect healthy cells.

You can combine disparate knowledge into a single story to memorize more from what you read. This way, the separate facts are connected with emotions and become meaningful to us – and thus fixed in our memory.

“Free to Learn” by Peter Gray

Willingham’s approach was criticized by Peter Gray, an American psychology professor. He argues that the scientific approach to learning does not solve the current problems of education.

The main problem is that students are losing the freedom our ancestors had. Lessons and homework leave no time for exploring the world by playing, a vital tool for learning skills among ancient people.

Drawing on anthropologists’ research, Gray shows that life before the invention of agriculture was not so bad. Children played with each other, watched adults, copied their behavior and skills, and learned to work as a team. These days, homework has drastically reduced the time children spend with their peers or parents for no apparent purpose. Meanwhile, it is “useless” games that develop necessary social skills.

The lack of freedom of choice is considered by Gray to be one of the significant disadvantages of modern education. Children cannot choose themselves and are forced to sit in boring classes obediently. At the same time, the ability to choose is a skill that does not develop without the necessary practice!

“Seven Myths About Education” by Daisy Christodolou

Daisy Christodolou taught English to schoolchildren, but devoting all her energy to teaching, she did not get visible results. So she decided to find out where she was wrong and wrote a book about education myths. Now Christodolou is helping schools improve their approach to teacher evaluation.

The book describes 7 myths the author often encountered when she worked as a teacher.

It is believed that memorizing disparate pieces of information only hinders deep understanding. However, this is not true: you cannot understand an abstract idea without knowing the facts.

You need to see the relationship between the individual facts – which requires the student to know them already.

Another myth concerns the role of the teacher. A “talking head” is believed to be worse than a discussion between students: the more time students talk in class, the more valuable the lesson becomes to them. But this is also not true because students will only say what they already know. The teacher is the one who gives them new knowledge, and if the teacher doesn’t say anything, the students won’t learn anything.

“Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else” by Geoff Colvin

We all know the famous “10,000-hour rule”. Malcolm Gladwell formulated it in his book “Outliers: The Story of Success.” This rule has gone viral, but in practice, it’s not the same. Jeff Colvin expands and elaborates on this theory.

First, the “10,000-hour rule” applies only to those who want to be the best in the world. It’s possible to reach the average expert level much more quickly.

Second, experts don’t just practice and repeat-they find their weaknesses and fix them. No matter how many hours a loader works, he won’t become the world’s best weight-bearer because he’s not training, he’s working.

Third, 10,000 is an average figure; the actual number of hours depends on the industry. For example, it takes 20,000 hours for cellists to perform at the most prestigious philharmonic halls and win competitions. Conversely, mnemonic players can make it to world competitions even after 1,000 hours of training.

Colvin argues that we overestimate the role of talent and underestimate the importance of hard work. Yes, genetics contribute to overall success, but without the development of innate ability, talent cannot become genius. For example, Mozart played for over 10,000 hours before composing his famous masterpieces.

“E-learning and the Science of Instruction” by Richard Mayer

Richard Mayer is the most famous researcher in the field of online design. His book will benefit those who create online courses. The author talks about what affects online learning performance, how it differs from offline education, and how to structure it better. Additionally, Mayer warns about the pitfalls you may encounter when designing an online learning course:

• too much helpful information – students’ attention will be dispersed, preventing them from absorbing core ideas;
• too little useful information – students will quickly get bored;
• loss of the end goal – students get too involved in the process and may not achieve the desired result;
• learning by a discovery – scientific research shows that the instructional method works better than students’ independent exploration.