Full Description
What makes some students thrive while others struggle? This exciting book reveals how teachers can help young people become expert learners—curious, resilient, and capable of thinking for themselves.
Drawing on educational and psychological research, this book explores three key themes—how we learn, the challenges of thinking, and habit formation—providing a clear practical framework to help students develop more effective, lasting learning habits. It explains how students absorb and forget information, the limits of working memory, the importance of self-control, and how cognitive biases affect decision-making alongside strategies to foster critical thinking. Providing actionable guidance for supporting learning in school and at home, this book includes:
Memorable stories of real experiences and case studies designed to create an emotional impact and help ideas about learning habits "stick" with readers
Student-friendly demonstrations of scientific experiments which can be downloaded from www.routledge.com/9781041096382, showing surprising and counterintuitive aspects of how we learn, think, and form habits
Chapter summaries, images, and a dedicated scenarios chapter to make the key messages easy to follow, revisit, and apply
With additional guidance on the role of AI in education and using technology effectively, this is essential reading for teachers and parents wanting to help children and young people develop effective, sustainable learning habits.
Contents
Contents
Preface
Introduction - What Does a Successful Independent Learner Look Like?
1. How Do We Learn?
a. The Role of Cognitive Science
b. Working Memory Is Limited
c. Why Do We Need to Remember?
d. Why Is Remembering So Hard?
e. Why Do Students Forget and What Can We Do About It?
f. The Importance of Schemas
g. Desirable Difficulties Dilemma
2. The Challenges with Thinking
a. The Role of Bias in Learning
b. Overcoming Bias
c. The Psychology Behind Our Statistical Blind Spots
d. Nudge Theory
e. Noise - Measuring Variability in Learning Habits
3. The Challenge of Change
a. The Curse of Self-Gratification
b. The Misunderstanding of Motivation
c. Counting What Counts: Motivation Through Measurement
d. How habits Are Born
4. Creating Learning Habits
a. Habit Loops
b. Making the Unconscious Contentious
c. Design for Success: Start Small, Shape the Space
d. The Power of Believe
e. Belonging the Missing Link in Habit Formation
f. Tipping Points
5. AI: Can We Outsource Effort Without Losing Learning?
a. The Hidden Cost of AI Convenience
b. Harnessing AI for Learning: Principles Grounded in Cognitive Science
c. Applying Cognitive Science Through Adaptive Flashcards
d. AI Tutors in Education: Promise with Precautions
e. Feedback: Why It's Not What AI Says, But What Students Do
6. The Path to Expertise: Accelerating Learning Habits
a. How Novices Think Different to Experts
b. The Case of Overconfidence
c. How Do We Make Decisions
d. Developing Better Mental Models
e. Using Scenarios to Accelerate Learning Habits
7. Conclusion
Glossary
Index
