Lincoln in the Bardo

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Books of the Week

• Lincoln in the Bardo: A Novel, by George Saunders. While spending time in the Tibetan Tergar Monastery in Kathmandu, Barb heard a lot about Buddhist theories of reincarnation and the “bardo,”  an intermediate state between death and rebirth that might also be related to Western conceptions of poltergeist activities.  So, after reading In the Houses of their Dead, it was a good time to also explore how the ideas related to the bardo can be explored in fiction.  This was a spirited effort to explore the afterlife in a way that adds meaning to our current lives. Odd, yet oddly satisfying.
• In the Houses of their Dead: The Lincolns, the Booths, and the Spirits, by Terry Alford. This meandering book provides background about both Abraham Lincoln and his assassin, John Wilkes Booth, through a cast of lesser-known characters, often involved in spiritualism, who were acquainted with both men.  The book provides context on the US era of the 1850s through 1860s. Alford is a good writer, but the final portions of the book were a bit of a disappointment as Alford plodded on through the dispiriting lives of relatively minor, rather disappointing characters.

A Phenomenal Resource for Educators on ChatGPT

The hands down best resource we’ve found for learning about what ChatGPT can do, and how it will affect education, is Ethan Molluck’s Substack “One Useful Thing,” which is well worth the subscription.  We found these articles to be particularly insightful:

• How to Use AI to Do Stuff: An Opinionated Guide

• Superhuman: What can AI do in 30 minutes?

• Setting time on fire and the temptation of The Button  

But on the other hand, so many of Ethan Molluck’s articles are insightful, that you’re best off to simple use these as jumping off points!

Barb to Teach All-Day Workshop at the University of Waterloo

Barb will be teaching a rare, all-day workshop on teaching and learning at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada on August 16th.  Register here for this free workshop by August 11th.   The coverage is broad, and includes the following:

• Learning means linking neurons.
• Metaphors in learning.
• Retrieval practice.
• Sleep, spaced repetition & exercise.
• Focused and diffuse modes of thinking, meditation.
• Procrastination, Pomodoro technique, multi-tasking.
• Fast & slow learners.
• Stress, depression, and the positive effects of learning.
• Direct instruction (don’t be fooled that active learning is all you need!)
• Working memory, long-term memory, octopuses, and illusions of competence in learning .
• Differences in working memory capacity; Working memory test.
• Mental models and schemas (memory frameworks).
• Identity schemas and motivation.
• Teaching & learning means getting in neural “synchrony.” 
• Declarative (hippocampal) versus procedural (basal ganglia) learning pathways and their relation to direct instruction.
• Interleaving.
• Neurodiversity.
• Mirroring and motivation—how this relates to habit and to teaching well online.
• Dopamine, hooks, curiosity and social learning.
• A deeper understanding of retrieval practice – including the role of the hippocampus.
• Greater versus lesser capacity working memory in learning – scaffolding.
• Consolidation; Learning becomes easier as a schema expands; why prior knowledge is helpful.
• Biologically primary and biologically secondary knowledge.
• The challenge of intelligence; bias in education; 
• Reconciling constructivist and traditionalist approaches to teaching and learning.
• The vital importance of open perspectives to new learning.

The Power of Relentless Curiosity in Bangladesh

Barb’s interview with Bangladesh podcaster Md. Rashed Mamun was both fun and insightful. Enjoy!

That’s all for now. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

• Uncommon Sense Teaching—the book and Coursera Specialization!
• Mindshift—the book and MOOC
• Learn Like a Pro—the book and MOOC
• The LHTL recommended text, A Mind for Numbers
• For kids and parents: Learning How to Learn—the book and MOOC. Pro tip—watch the videos and read the book together with your child. Learning how to learn at an early age will change their life!