How we learn
From an early age, we are told that restlessness, distraction, and ignorance are the enemies of success. Learning is all self-discipline, so we must confine ourselves to designated study areas, turn off the music, and maintain a strict ritual. But what if almost everything we were told about learning is wrong? And what if there was a way to achieve more with less effort? Here, award-winning science reporter Benedict Carey sifts through decades of education research to uncover the truth about how our brains absorb and retain information. What he discovers is that, from the moment we are born, we all learn quickly, efficiently, and automatically; but in our zeal to systematize the process we have ignored valuable, naturally enjoyable learning tools like forgetting, sleeping, and daydreaming. Is a dedicated desk in a quiet room really the best way to study? Can altering your routine improve your recall? Are there times when distraction is good? Is repetition necessary? Carey's search for answers to these questions yields a wealth of strategies that make learning more a part of our everyday lives--and less of a chore.--From publisher description.
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What Hacker News says
- Any books or other resources you recommend to learn these things? On learning to learn I have enjoyed A Mind for Numbers[1] by Barbra Oakley with Coursera course[2], Make it Stick[3] by Peter C. Brown, and How We Learn[4] by Benedict Carey.
1. https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Numbers-Science-Flunked-Algebra/...
2. https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn/
3. https://www.amazon.com/Make-Stick-Science-Successful-Learnin...
4. https://www.amazon.com/How-We-Learn-Surprising-Happens-ebook...
- "How We Learn" by Benedict Carey is the one I've read on the similar topic, and liked. It's a compendium of scientific research about learning aggregated in a readable format by NYTimes science journalist.
- I read this (similar) book recently and using the techniques in it I passed the AWS exams in a short space of time: https://www.amazon.com/How-We-Learn-Surprising-Happens/dp/08...
- Thank you debanjan16 for constructing a well-formulated question that delivered lots of high-quality additions to my "to read" list!
Strangely enough nothing is coming to mind for my field, technical writing. Docs for Developers is great at covering the end-to-end basics of a high-quality documentation process. But I feel like there is some book out there that has inspired me to think more deeply about how to effectively communicate ideas and instructions to other people, which is the true heart and soul of technical writing as an art and science. How We Learn by Benedict Carey is the right direction but I don't remember thinking of it as a masterpiece.
- 1. La peste (Albert Camus) - entertaining if you're into French existentialism
2. Linked (Barabasi) - insightful and useful to understand that most phenomenon we see in real life follow a power law and what that means
3. Leonardo da Vinci (Walter Isaacson) - surprising how little of da Vinci's real personality is reflected in his modern image
4. Matrix computations – third edition (Gene Golub, Charles van Loan) - good read if you're into linear algebra
5. Giving effective feedback (Harvard business review) - useful for getting an understanding on how to handle human interaction
6. The old man and the sea (Ernest Hemingway) - enjoyed it a lot, a reflection of Hemingway's romantic spirit. Also, a quick read.
7. Screwjack (Hunter S. Thompson) - didn't resonate with me although I am a fan of existentialism
8. Sun and steel (Yukio Mishima) - raw and intimate. before reading this book I'd recommend reading up on Mishima's life
9. Stranger than fiction (Chuck Palahniuck) - somewhat entertaining, more so because it served as a glimpse into Palahniuck's creative process
10. Thinking in Systems: A Primer (Dana Meadows) - useful for understanding that in modern life we have complex systems at work with emergent behavior that we didn't expect. Trying to isolate / model a single component of one of these systems is a flawed approach.
11. Chaos monkeys (Antonio Garcia Martinez) - entertaining, but quite long
12. Weapons of math destruction (Cathy O'Neil) - in a way, similar to Thinking in systems, but at an applied level. Shows how rules in modern society can have unintended negative consequences when hidden negative feedback loops emerge from the complex system they are embedded in.
13. Lolita (Nabokov) - a brilliant novel from many points of view. Although the topic is controversial, it is a book that had to be written.
14. The prince (Machiavelli) - an interesting read. It was intended as a guide to the young price Cesare Borgia from his teacher Machiavelli. The secret to enjoying it is not to judge it by modern morality.
15. Give and take (Adam Grant) - psychology research about giving / taking / matching personality types presented in a book for the masses. I would not read it again; watching a presentation online should be enough to get the point across.
16. Mécanique (Landau, Lifchitz) - refresh of mechanics
17. Do androids dream of electric sheep (Philip K. Dick) - enjoyable and entertaining! I'm surprised how different the feel of the book is compared to the Blade runner films. In the book androids are purely rational beings, whereas the film wraps them in an aura of romanticism.
18. How we learn (Benedict Carey) - decades of learning research condensed in a book
19. Advanced Calculus: A Differential Forms Approach (Harold M. Edwards) - the best math book I've read so far! For me it was eye-opening in a fundamental way. Edwards is truly a gifted teacher.
20. Three men in a boat (Jerome K. Jerome) - enjoyable and amusing
21. Getting to yes (Roger Fisher, William Ury) - negotiation book, nicely written and structured
22. Without a word (Zhang Jie) - historical novel by one of China's most acclaimed modern writers. I don't have a good reference to compare against since this was my first Chinese novel, but overall I did enjoy it. It felt real and raw.
