Deep and Durable Learning

Send us Fan Mail I summarize my 10 principles of learning. These principles respect the way God designed the brain to learn. That framework moves from questions that pique our curiosity and motivate exploration of the concrete. This exploration is a search for patterns which the brain constructs as a web of interconnected concepts (which are abstractions). Through this conceptual web we process new experiences and modify the web as we learn more.

Send us Fan Mail The myth of learning styles is a hindrance to deep and durable learning. It plays right into the myth of learning as mere retrieval. While we have individual preferences about the sensory channels we like information to be delivered over, the nature of the thing to be learned determines how it is best learned.

Send us Fan Mail The cognitive power tools of the well-taught beginner create increasingly useful knowledge as the learner's skill level increases through practice that challenges plateaus. This episode makes the case that learning should always be embedded in a way of thinking; thinking like a biologist, a historian, an economist, a mathematician, etc. Learners should engage with authentic problems in a scaled-down junior version of every subject. Pedagogy in the early years of learning that...

Send us Fan Mail "Drill and kill," the mindless and seemingly endless repetition of facts, kills motivation to learn. "Repetition aids learning" is only true with carefully crafted variety in the repetition. "Extended practice" is a better way to approach the need for the brain to wrestle with ideas in an intriguing journey to understanding. This episode will help parents operationalize effective homework that embeds their kids in a stimulating exploration of ideas and their consequences. And...

Send us Fan Mail How can you help your child move from being absorbed with taking in information in the classroom to a fixation on understanding ideas? This is key to durable learning that is extensible; learning that you can build on and apply to solving real world problems. This episode operationalizes the creation of robust networks of powerful ideas.