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    How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why It Happens
    Unavailable
    How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why It Happens
    Unavailable
    How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why It Happens
    Audiobook7 hours

    How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why It Happens

    Written by Benedict Carey

    Narrated by Steve Kramer

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    In the tradition of The Power of Habit and Thinking, Fast and Slow comes a practical, playful, and endlessly fascinating guide to what we really know about learning and memory today-and how we can apply it to our own lives.

    From an early age, it is drilled into our heads: Restlessness, distraction, and ignorance are the enemies of success. We're told that learning is all self-discipline, that we must confine ourselves to designated study areas, turn off the music, and maintain a strict ritual if we want to ace that test, memorize that presentation, or nail that piano recital.

    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?

    In How We Learn, award-winning science reporter Benedict Carey sifts through decades of education research and landmark studies to uncover the truth about how our brains absorb and retain information. What he discovers is that, from the moment we are born, we are all learning 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.

    By road testing many of the counterintuitive techniques described in this book, Carey shows how we can flex the neural muscles that make deep learning possible. Along the way he reveals why teachers should give final exams on the first day of class, why it's wise to interleave subjects and concepts when learning any new skill, and when it's smarter to stay up late prepping for that presentation than to rise early for one last cram session. And if this requires some suspension of disbelief, that's because the research defies what we've been told, throughout our lives, about how best to learn.

    The brain is not like a muscle, at least not in any straightforward sense. It is something else altogether, sensitive to mood, to timing, to circadian rhythms, as well as to location and environment. It doesn't take orders well, to put it mildly. If the brain is a learning machine, then it is an eccentric one. In How We Learn, Benedict Carey shows us how to exploit its quirks to our advantage.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateSep 9, 2014
    ISBN9780449807781
    Unavailable
    How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why It Happens
    Author

    Benedict Carey

    Benedict Carey has been an award-winning science reporter at the New York Times since 2004 and previously worked at the Los Angeles Times. His 2010 article on study habits was the most emailed New York Times piece ever in a single day. He is the author of How We Learn: Throw out the rule book and unlock your brain's potential.

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    Reviews for How We Learn

    4/5

    163 ratings36 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Interesting examination of psychological research into how people learn.
    • 5/5
      I find this book very interesting. As often happens in my home, family members will abscond with my Early Reviewers book to read for themselves before I've finished it. Mr Kelsey is currently reading HOW WE LEARN by Benedict Carey... "One of the best books I've ever read," he says. [Mr. Kelsey is very much a bibliophile, which gives his opinion credibility. ] "If only I had this book when I was twelve years old," he laments. The instinctive ways we used to learn often were discouraged and frowned upon in our formative years. HOW WE LEARN suggests it might not have been the better way. Effective ways could very well be what you felt like doing in the first place. Many natural ways have shown to hold a lot of merit. Learning is likely a more natural process than we thought. For example: It turns out it doesn't have to be mandatory that you study at the same place at the same time everyday, as Mr. Kelsey insisted with our children so often. And it MIGHT BE OKAY to study with loud music in the background. I remember my children arguing with me that they actually did better with background noise. Of course, I had been taught not to believe such nonsense. Mr K. wants to buy another copy of the book for himself, one he can mark up properly. He is also manifesting a growing desire to learn and study and teach and read..... a compliment and high recommendation for Mr. Cary's book and it's influence I'd say. Five stars for sure.
    • 3/5
      This is a good book on learning and it is sure to cause the reader to question much of what is often considered iron-clad truth about memory, study, how we spend our time, etc.

      Carey introduces many concepts that are, at least to me, pretty novel. The positive role of forgetting, the need for context variation in forming memories, the benefit of distributed learning and pretesting, incubation and distraction is not necessarily detrimental, and more. There is quite a bit of intriquing concepts and lots of data to process.

      One negative would be a bit of the writing. For example, when recording a quote utilizing a formula of "so and so told me" never sounds good. This work utilized that formula 39 times. That is definitely something an editor should have caught and worked to rephrase if for nothing other than the sheer repetitiveness of it.

      That small issue(and in fairness I might just be addressing a pet peeve of my own) aside, this is a interesting work that, though tedious at parts, is a fun and informative read.

      I received a review copy through Netgalley to offer a review.
    • 4/5
      The culture of learning has attempted to ingrain a single, perfect way to learn. And if you haven't learned it's more than likely because you haven't adhered to "the way" correctly. Knowing why something happens is the first step towards controlling it. The research in this book shows the way our brain/body learns is antipodes to what society has been told. Ultimately, everyone will learn differently, at different paces. However, I find this book extremely interesting in that it provides learning alternatives that feel more natural to the way we live.
    • 4/5
      Listened for Review (Random House Audio)Overall Rating: 4.00Information Rating: 4.00Audio Rating: 4.00 (not part of the overall rating)Read It File It (Short Review): How We Learn by Benedict Carey was rather interesting to me. I have always been a person who couldn't study in quiet (no matter how much it was suggested) and always has to have something "noisy" while learning. It was interesting to read how that is a way people learn and the science behind it.Audio Thoughts: Narrated by: Steve Kramer /Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins Steve did a good job with the narration but there are parts of the book that are better suited for reading (or maybe a handout/pdf/cd extra). Overall though (keeping with the theme) listening to the book probably made me get more from it!
    • 4/5
      This was a very easy read for the lay person on how we actually learn. The greatest insights presented were how we creatively problem solve and practical techniques on how to study more effectively. Carey supports his information with corresponding scientific research. I would recommend this book as a quick read for parents who want to try different studying ideas and any student who wants to better utilize their time in preparation for a class or test.
    • 3/5
      I really enjoyed this book. It is interesting and gives a lot of practical typical tips that you can pick up and read quickly. The author is a journalist and very well written. I particularly enjoyed the parts where brain science was explained in easy to understand terms. Originally I was interested in this book because I lead a lot of adult training classes. Understanding how people learn will make me a better trainer and improve the way I lead trainings and help learning stick better.
    • 3/5
      We are starting home schooling our 5 and 2 1/2 year olds. This book gives a good overview of the learning process, reviews some current thoughts on education. Probably too large a scope for what i needed it for but nonetheless well written and organized.
    • 4/5
      Overall, I enjoyed the book immensely. The only downside was that it took me awhile to get into the first chapter or two, but once I did I read most of it pretty quickly. As a educator, I was very interested in learning more about how we learn and how our brain works. It was also a great balance of sharing the science while also having it accessible to the general population.My two favorite chapters were about learning context and study time.
    • 3/5
      A thorough and engaging survey of recent (and not-so-recent) scientific studies of the brain, learning, memory, and forgetting. Addressing the general reader, Carey wants to show us how learning can be accomplished without painful cramming, obsessive discipline, and all the drudgery we think we must use. Showing that research encourages study with breaks, in different settings, naps, and changing the subject--Carey says that such methods can actually improve learning, retention, and application of new ideas and information. The book is strongest on the kind of learning that can be counted--retention of names, facts, numerical equations, and the like; it also addresses less throughly the study of literature, arts, and ideas, along with the mastery of physical skills (juggling, basketball, pool, etc.). Good book for the general reader.
    • 4/5
      Science writer, Benedict Carey, takes us from thinking we know about learning to peeling back the layers to get us to see what research tells us about leaning in How We Learn. Carey has collected a lot of data, summarized it and shared the results in ways that may challenge many of us to rethink what we know about learning. Presenting a balanced approach of personalized thinking and experiences with the concepts and comments that cause us to think, Carey presents findings that may be new and cause some cognitive dissonance for the reader. Such as the piece we've all heard about needing a quiet place and the same place to learn, which Carey points out research has shown may not be so. Research shows that different locations and music (or other sounds) in the background may actually enhance the learning (build our stored memory) for many of us.Yes, some of this research is not new. Yes, others have written about these topics. However, I haven't read anything where all of this science is put together in this manner. One of the style pieces that got my attention was the use of a strong "leading" sentence at the end of each section, which serves as a thought stimulator before moving to the next section. For me, I was left pondering how PLMs might be applied to helping teachers make split-second changes during instruction and what are the differences between incubation and percolation for me and my work.(I do have to admit that I was thrilled to get an advance copy and LOL with the typo of "thirty-sex serves at a time.")
    • 4/5
      It offers offers very good insights into the nature of how we learn, remember and recall things. It is organized into the limited biology that is known, how we learn, improving recall, and how to approach so that we remember longer. Overall the book was very illuminating and put on paper some of the techniques that I have been using by chance throughout my graduate school and earlier. However this does set a good basis that can show where some paths of study may take in the future.
    • 4/5
      This Advance Reader's Edition was provided by Random House through the Early Reviewers program on LibraryThing.As a professional in the field (graduate school in cognitive psychology back in the days when it was first being called that, and a life long interest in information processing and learning during 35 years of working as a school psychologist), I was very interested in seeing how this long-time science reporter conceptualized and documented this topic. And I was very pleasantly surprised. Without getting technical, Carey succeeds in taking a broad view of a diverse range of psychological research and presenting it in understandable and applicable language. I'll definitely be sharing this with some of my fellow educators.Two errors were noted in the ARC: an incorrect image was used on page 206 and "non-trategy" on page 219. Hopefully, both were corrected for the published edition.
    • 5/5
      One of the best books I came across on this topic!
    • 3/5
      Interesting and well illustrated book with thought provoking material. The first 2/3 was pretty slow for me, probably because I knew all that material already, but somewhere around chapter 50 (of 73) it became really enlightening, probably because he exposed some concepts I wasn’t familiar with yet. All in all an enjoyable read.
    • 4/5
      Good book that I highly enjoy. But it is not that you get groundbreaking new study methods out of it
    • 4/5
      Interesting book with several really good learning tips and information. Some passages feel dragged out though and at the end I was happy to be done with it.
    • 5/5
      Fantastic ideas to improve your learning in a more unstructured way possibly making it more fun. Much of the ideas are contrary to what we've been doing and what we were told in school. Specifically liked the interleaved practice and spacing effect ideas and can't wait to start using them in my day to day.
    • 5/5
      Pour améliorer mon leadership et ma connaissance. Aussi pour avoir des arguments pour défendre des idées.
    • 5/5
      good research but the writing could have been more concise
    • 3/5
      Science writer Benedict Carey draws upon cognitive psychology to challenge traditional learning strategies, to recommend evidence-based alternatives and reinforce others. The book is divided into four parts detailing theories of memory and learning, learning retention, problem-solving strategies, and the benefits of insightful learning and sleep. I would recommend this book to any teacher or professor recommending strategies for students or parent homeschooling their children.
    • 4/5
      In this book, Benedict Carey (no relation, as far as I know) takes a look at our surprisingly haphazard and incomplete understanding of how we learn.

      We think we know how to learn. Be organized, be disciplined, focus, concentrate, keep plugging away. Do your reading and studying for academic subjects, and practice, practice, practice for physical skills, be it playing basketball or playing piano.

      Yet we all know people who barely seem to study at all, who hardly seem organized about it, yet who ace their courses, or pick up new skills, apparently without breaking a sweat. What's going on?

      Our brains are a good deal more complex and interesting than we usually assume, and didn't evolve to learn in organized, concentrated big chunks of time devoted to a single subject or skill. Carey, starting in part with his own stressful experience in high school with mediocre results, compared to his greater success with tougher subjects when he did what seemed like goofing off in college, explores our still-incomplete understanding of the science of how we learn. His interest isn't abstract; he wants to know what we can do to make learning easier, faster, more effective--and more fun.

      Carey takes us through the often slow and frequently misdirected progress in learning how our brains learn, interleaving practical suggestions for applying this growing understanding to help us absorb new knowledge faster, more permanently, more accessibly, and with less stress.

      Recommended.

      I received a free electronic galley from the publisher via NetGalley.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Some parts were a little hard to get through but overall very beneficial.
    • 2/5
      Memory and learning are not the same thing, but How We Learn tries to unite them. The first half of the book is about innumerable ways people try to memorize. And there as many studies as there are ways. Cramming will let you remember things the next day, but like a telephone number you learn in a bar, it vaporizes soon after. The best way to memorize is to take lots of breaks; change subjects, follow a distraction, even sleep. They are all proven to give better results than marathon memorizing. Studies show twice as much.Carey says the human brain has the capacity to store the equivalent of three million television shows, which translates into every moment of an entire lifetime. Retrieving all that data however, is problematic. We don’t do that very well. But it’s there. That’s why you might suddenly remember something that happened in childhood that you hadn’t thought of in years, but comes back clearly while thinking about something else entirely. There was an association there. That’s why your brain called it up, but you probably missed it.Learning is more than memorizing. Learning means you internalize facts, methods and images, and you manipulate them as needed to your advantage. So breaking up learning sessions by applying the knowledge allows you to take ownership of it; it’s all yours if you go farther than just memorizing. There is a disused saying that if you use a new word in three sentences, it’s yours forever. Turns out there’s truth in that.The learning portion of the book is also a constant emphasis on interleaving, varying activities so that learning one thing is not the only activity. Study after study after study after study shows that the more varied things test subjects do, the more they learn what researchers want them to. This includes having to think about applying what has been learned, diverting to some other subject, and even sleeping. But with all the studies he explores, Carey never examines the interleaving of mind-altering drugs. There is an entire school of thought that claims the mind-expanding properties of certain chemicals leads to far greater mental processing and creativity than say, cramming for an exam. Great scientists, authors and artists publicly claim they solved problems or had eureka insights or created masterpieces thanks to a session with some drug or other. It should be mentioned if only to dismiss it. But Carey ignores it.Another learning area Carey doesn’t explore is categorization compared to association. Our brains are pre-tech. They don’t know about number and letter combinations. They don’t file things alphabetically or by date. They file them by association. Just recently (May 2014), San Diego hosted a memorizing contest with acclaimed contestants from around the world. The winners all used the same method: they pictured a scene they liked while memorizing a list of numbers or letters or syllables or words. When they recalled the scene, there were the test letters, ready to be repeated. This turns out to be the standard practice of all the great memory experts. It leverages the brain’s own method of image association, because that’s how we work internally. So taking in the surroundings where you’re memorizing is a hugely important factor in how much you remember. Burying your head in a book or a screen – not so much.Categorization vs association is something Douglas Hofstader beat to death in Surfaces and Essences, but Carey doesn’t give him or it any ink. How We Learn has far too much padding for my tastes. Carey loves to give lists of examples, and he likes to get chatty with the reader. It diminishes the impact and slows you down. The studies go on ad infinitum.The bottom line is we can memorize, but we learn best if we use our brains to employ what we’ve memorized. Otherwise the memory disappears – the next day or the next week or the next month. This is no breakthrough.David Wineberg

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      The book's promise is to help the reader understand how the mind learns, and share some practical tools and techniques, so that whether you are a student getting ready for the semester finals, or an adult trying to acquire a new skill, be it a physical or intellectual one, you can do it in a better way without beating yourself to death with not-very-efficient repetition and practice sessions.It achieves its goals: simple yet effective techniques that are the results of memory and learning research of the past hundred years are described in a very concrete manner. They are also contrasted with traditional approaches, often sprinkled with personal stories of the author during his school days. Any university or high school student can empathize with at least one of those personal stories, and this helps the book to have a strong connection with the reader.Its weakest parts are related to the very superficial introduction of brain structures, as well as lack of the detailed accounts of brain chemistry that jumps into action, but including that part of the memory and learning research would probably make the book at least three times longer. Its strongest part, on the other hand, is short and simple learning and memory experiments that you can try out yourself very easily. This way, you can test some of the techniques presented, not only on yourself but maybe with some of your friends and family, collecting a few personal data points that might reveal surprising results.Moreover, the Perceptual Learning Modules (PLMs) and their applications to very different areas such as pilot training and learning how to distinguish art styles were striking examples of research that I've read about for the first time. The most important findings of the cognitive psychology presented in this book is also probably of interest to teachers, as well as parents. Even though learning has many dimensions, and the book neglects critical ones such as motivation, emotional states, and many others, the simple learning techniques backed by scientific research will be an important addition to your toolbox if you, as a parent or teach, can really introduce them to your students and children.Memory and learning are two of the most beautiful aspects of the human mind, and this book, without claiming unrealistically good results, shows how you can do a little better without making radical and difficult changes to your daily routine. "Work smarter, not harder" is a cliché we learned to sneer at (and rightfully so), but there's no harm in saying that this book manages to provide an answer to what it really means to work or study "smarter".
    • 4/5
      Benedict Carey has written a readable, fascinating, and practical book about learning. In "How We Learn", Carey surveys over a century of learning research and extracts lessons anyone can apply to increase learning effectiveness. Carey cites research that disproves much of what we have been taught about how to learn. Distractions, varying study routines, forgetting can all increase learning effectiveness. Much of the study advice students receive is actually wrong. Educators, students, parents, athletes, anyone needing to learn—which is all of us—will benefit from reading this book. Carey summarizes many of the findings described in the book in an appendix composed in a question and answer format. It would have been more helpful if he had outlined the learning recommendations scattered throughout the book in a more direct format. This is the only disappointment of the book. Otherwise, "How We Learn" should prove a valuable guide to increased learning effectiveness.
    • 4/5
      Wouldn’t it make sense as you head back to school this fall to take an hour or two to read a book that shows what you might do to improve your chance of success? Especially if it requires only minor tweaks of study time, location and/or method? This book really does give you several research-backed hints for how to accomplish more with your study time. The book is thought provoking, readable and practical, and answers several questions about which way you might spend your time to achieve better results. Several short exercises are interleaved, giving you a chance to see for yourself how a technique impacts your learning. The section on testing is particularly interesting—what if tests were not (just) ways to measure achievement, but were also guides to what upcoming material is important or aids to remembering important materials and concepts long after testing is done? The book is written for learners, but teachers will find it helpful as well.
    • 4/5
      Have you ever wondered why you get your best ideas in the shower, or why solutions to problems suddenly become clear after a good night’s sleep? These and other puzzles of the mind are answered in How We Learn. Written by a science journalist and based on research studies, this book will undoubtedly be useful for teachers, educational software developers, and high school and college students. But there's a wealth of information here for adult independent learners and productivity mavens, too, so it's likely to be popular with readers of "The Power of Habit," "The Willpower Instinct" and similar titles.Topics include how the brain acquires new information, strengthening memory, problem solving, and putting the subconscious mind to work. In an entertaining and conversational style, Carey describes strategies such as taking breaks, tweaking sleep habits, changing study locations and times, and using tests as learning tools, not just for evaluation. Depending on the type of material being learned or the project being worked on, different strategies can be used. In his words, "A good hunter tailors the trap to the prey." The emphasis is on working smarter, in alignment with how the brain works, rather than toughing it out.I received a free electronic advanced reading copy of this book from Netgalley, but received no other compensation.
    • 4/5
      I try to avoid saying that a book is a “must-read”, but if you’re interested in learning science, you’ll probably want to read this one. There’s been a lot of progress in the field in recent decades, and Carey brings together the findings from numerous studies into an accessible and practical book for the layperson.Each chapter is focused on a different aspect of learning and how it can be improved. The topics include spaced repetition (the ideal gaps between study sessions to maximize retention), the value of interruptions and deliberate breaks when working on a tricky problem, self-testing and how to avoid the illusion of fluency created by passive reviewing, the benefits of mixing up your study/practice sessions rather than focusing on the same skill for long chunks of time, and even the importance of sleep. All of these chapters include explanations of the studies that led to their conclusions.Carey’s writing is very clear and readable, as you’d expect from a journalist, but I still found that this book took me a while to get through because there was just so much helpful information to take in. The theme throughout is that there are lots of specific techniques that we can use to improve our learning efficiency and ultimately learn more without making a huge additional investment of time. It’s a very encouraging message, and I’m definitely planning to keep this book around so that I can refer back to the specific techniques that he discusses. The book will be of particular interest to teachers and students, but I think pretty much anyone can benefit from applying these approaches in their daily lives.
    • 4/5
      As soon as we shift focus from teaching to learning, understanding how our brains acquire information becomes paramount. The easy going, storytelling style of this book belies its depth and importance; this is a book about how brain cells form, hold onto, and retrieve new information.How we do learn often differs from how we may have been taught to learn. Schoolmarms would be very surprised to find out what actually works. Here are some of the unusual conclusions developed in the book:+ Forgetting is essential to learning.+ Recall is improved in an environment similar to where we originally learned the material.+ Breaking up study time into several sessions spaced out over time—distributed learning—works better than a single continuous study session.+ Testing is a powerful form of studying. Taking a test before studying the material improves the overall learning process.+ Problem solving often occurs in four distinct stages: preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification. Distraction—stepping away from the problem—is important to allow incubation to occur subconsciously.+ Interrupting an activity before it is completed helps in recalling the activity. + Interleaving tasks—practicing skills in a random sequence—deepens learning and better prepares us to transfer those skills to settings. + Perceptual learning methods tap our subconscious to discriminate or classify things that look similar to the untrained eye, but are critically different to the trained eye.+ Sleep aids memory.The book clearly presents convincing arguments for abandoning several traditional study rules and adopting new rules based on solid scientific research. The many studies supporting the conclusions are presented as fun-to-read stories. Although the author may extrapolate general conclusions from a few studies, and rarely presents opposing viewpoints, the arguments are convincing. The book is clearly written, accessible, fun to read, and provides important new guidance on how we actually do learn.