Terrence J. Sejnowski

Read this and gave it to Olivia-Grace to read. There is a lot of valuable information in this, that I think is perfect for teenagers, specifically high school and middle school age students. And Olivia-Grace starts Middle School next Monday, so I think its perfect timing for her to read it.

It is a bit juvenile in some places and some of the things seem obvious and overly 'dumbed' down (for lack of better terminology; but that is to be considered who the audience is and its not horrible and its not the entire book either.

A lot of this is things I've known before, but I think this book did a wonderful job of condensing that, and putting it all together and into a package for teenagers/youth, and done well enough to make it interesting, fun, and educational. Definitely a well read book and one I think many kids could use to learn a lot from. A lot of handy resources at the back too, from games, websites, to books, etc.

Highly recommend.… (more)

What an excellent book. I read it during a flight from Sydney to Tokyo and it was both easy to read and (because of the various tricks with constant revision), it was also easy to recall). I must say, Barbara captured me very early on with her personal anecdote about how she felt she couldn’t do maths or science but now is a scientist. Actually, they use such personal anecdotes very cleverly throughout.
The book appears to be very well grounded in the current neurology of learning. Yet it comes with really practical suggestions.... such as ...”leave your iPhone in the next room”. And use the Pomodoro technique. I’m actually thinking of buying an actual physical Pomodoro timer because I can see that it’s a great idea. (Actually the pomodoro technique is not new to me.... nor are most of the other techniques but they really introduce them in such an interesting way as to make them very memorable.
One exception: I found the description of interleaving confusing. It needs cleaning up. I eventually got the point that instead of just doing all the examples of, say, isosceles triangles.... it’s smart to throw in some examples from the other stuff you have done..... say... linear equations. The point being that it jolts the brain and stimulates the memory and makes both types of examples more memorable.
I also loved the story by one of the authors about how he had avoided Chemistry but then enrolled in the high school chemistry class .... basically proving the point that you can learn new stuff. But also providing a lot of pointers about how to do it.
I would highly recommend this book and have already given it to my son ... with some pressure to actually read it. Five stars from me… (more)

Although I only got about two-thirds of the way through this book, I am very glad that I read to the point that I did wear the idea of changeable and moving intelligence is discussed. sewing notion of Intelligence being fixed which never did sound very reasonable in fact is not reasonable. This is good to know for a variety of reasons. I think this is a good book to read for those who worry about the impact of Intelligence on our society and what we can do about it in terms of making a place with dignity for everyone.… (more)

Although I only got about two-thirds of the way through this book, I am very glad that I read to the point that I did wear the idea of changeable and moving intelligence is discussed. sewing notion of Intelligence being fixed which never did sound very reasonable in fact is not reasonable. This is good to know for a variety of reasons. I think this is a good book to read for those who worry about the impact of Intelligence on our society and what we can do about it in terms of making a place with dignity for everyone.… (more)