Learning isn’t always fun, writes Esther Cepeda, a teacher and Chicago Sun-Times columnist, who’s been talking to Learn Better author Ulrich Boser.
When it is fun, it’s often because of “cognitive struggle,” the joy of doing what’s hard, Boser believes.
As a teacher, Cepeda is tired of “education professionals, parents and, most of all, kids,” who believe “that learning should exclusively be an easy stream of fun, laughs and joy.”
Learn Better offers a host of frameworks, strategies and tips for acquiring new knowledge — whether it be collaborating on projects for school, learning a new skill at work, or improving your basketball game — faster, better and in such a way that you’ll retain what you’ve learned for longer. Most of these revolve around “metacognition” — the practice of thinking about how you think and understanding how you come to understand things. It basically boils down to planning your learning and then monitoring your progress.
“Deep learning” can’t “be powered by a quick Google search,” concludes Cepeda.
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