Reviews

How We Learn: Throw out the rule book and unlock your brain's potential by Benedict Carey

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michalhaman's review against another edition

5.0

Great insight to what we know about learning. Few great thesis about learning extracted from many scientific studies. I recommend this to every student, but also to everyone, who is trying to learn - so that is probably to everyone.

qbyz's review against another edition

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informative medium-paced

4.25

taliacorkum's review against another edition

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1.75

Read this for school, was more pleasant than reading a textbook!

yates9's review against another edition

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4.0

Good overview of results in the world of psychology and neuroscience that make sense of what factors are important in learning. The author maps these back into potential practical application to your own learning with good success.

The book is written to be very accessible and at times this is annoying for a reader with prior knowledge in this field.

seclement's review against another edition

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4.0

This book provided some good insights on tactics and strategies for retaining information, but perhaps less so on how we "learn". Though I suppose that depends on how you define learning. Maybe 1/2 to 2/3 of the book focuses on strategies to improve memory, retention, recall, etc. Those were all strategies that I had sort of stumbled on in school, but I kept thinking that this book would be very valuable for people who struggle with these elements. As an adult whose learning tends to focus on ideas and concepts (and who rarely needs to take tests), it was the final third of the book that was most interesting to me. None of it defied my intuitions as someone who has just sort of settled into a life of learning, but it did articulate some of them and provide some evidence that I should follow those intuitions. Of course, this all could just be confirmation bias, as it made sense to me and he provided evidence in the form of studies, but I got the sense in some bits that he was a bit like Malcolm Gladwell - i.e. taking anecdote and marrying it with data to come to grand conclusions. However, I think he was quite reflective about what we do and do not know, and clear about where it was speculation versus pretty solid ground.

I do think that this book provided interesting insights that I will use with students, and I may even try to help students implement some of these strategies next semester.

skylarkochava's review against another edition

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5.0

I was lucky enough to win this book in a Goodreads giveaway. It was awesome, fascinating, and shockingly practical. I can't say enough good about it. Buy it!