Uncommon Sense Teaching!
13th May 2021
Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!
Exciting announcement!
We appreciate all your support of our work over the years! As a thank you, we are planning a very special event—where we could talk with you all about our new book Uncommon Sense Teaching, and hear some of your thoughts and questions once you get your copy and start reading. On Thursday, June 24th @1pm EST, Barb, Terry, and their co-author Beth Rogowsky, EdD, will host a live webinar for anyone who has preordered the book at any point. Our topic for the event (and one we’re so passionate about) is “Teaching Through Both Declarative and Procedural Pathways.” We can’t wait to do this with you all!
How to receive your webinar link:
- Purchase your copy of Uncommon Sense Teaching from any of the locations listed through the “order now” link here.
- Complete the brief form to enter your order number & register for the webinar here.
- Immediately receive your registration confirmation with your link to access the webinar on June 24th. (If you don’t receive your link or run into any trouble, please reach out to roanderson@prh.com.)
What we’re looking forward to sharing during the webinar:
We will drill down on two key ideas related to the declarative and procedural modes of thinking. Beth also has a remarkable personal story (not shared in the book), that offers a framework to discuss how important the consolidation of neural links is the learning process. At the end, we’ll take questions from the audience.
About the new book:
Most teachers, parents and people managers want to offer the best instruction they possibly can for their students or staff. Often, we rely on the way we were taught in our approach to teach others. But effective teaching requires understanding the complexities of the human brain. Neuroscientists have made enormous strides in understanding how we learn, but little of that insight has filtered down to the way we teach.
Drawing on these research findings as well as our combined decades of experience in the classroom, Uncommon Sense Teaching equips readers with the tools to enhance their teaching, whether they’re seasoned professionals or parents trying to offer extra support for their children’s education. We share insights to help break down the broad spectrum of how people learn including:
- How to teach inclusively in a diverse space where students have different working memory capabilities and strengths
- Strategies for keeping students motivated and engaged, especially with online learning
- Helping learners remember information long-term, so it isn’t immediately forgotten
- How interleaving and spaced repetition build procedural memory links—and why that’s important
- Remedies for procrastination
- And so much more!
What sets this book apart is that it is the first to put a solid neuroscientific grounding on foundational approaches used in the field of education. It is truly a book for all kinds of teachers!
About our co-author Beth: In addition to completing postdoctoral training in neuroscience, Beth Rogowsky, EdD has fourteen years of experience teaching English language arts to middle-schoolers in rural and urban public schools. Today, Beth is an education professor at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, where she frequently observes K-12 classrooms as part of her professorial duties. What’s striking is how often she sees some of the same ineffective practices she used in classrooms decades before—even though research has shown us new and better ways.
You Are the Expert: You’ll find a link to dozens of the illustrations and animations used in the book and related materials (more surprises to come!) This will make it easy for you to prepare simple, colorful presentations to share your new, practically useful insights with both your fellow teachers and your students!
New advanced praise for the book:
“For too long, teaching has been treated as an inscrutable craft, with each practitioner fashioning idiosyncratic practices from intuition and experience. But like all professions, pedagogy can be improved through technology, research, and science. This trio of experts show how to elevate this dark art to an effective and enjoyable practice.”
—Steven Pinker, PhD, Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and New York Times bestselling author of How the Mind Works and Enlightenment Now
“The authors bring to this highly practical, user-friendly book a deep understanding of teachers and classrooms, the implications of neuroscientific findings for successful teaching and learning, and the ability to write about complex ideas in an approachable way.”
—Carol Ann Tomlinson, EdD, author of How to Differentiate Instruction in Academically Diverse Classrooms
We can’t wait for you to join us for the webinar! That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!
Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team
