Dr Guy Emerson (a.k.a Guy Karavengleman) is a computational linguist working at the Cambridge University Computer Laboratory. In this episode, we discuss issues surrounding LLMs such as ChatGPT, GPT-3, GPT-4, and Google Bard. Guy is concerned about misinterpretations of what the technology does and is capable of. As a computational linguist, he works on language models with a focus on semantics and human language acquisition, and thus questions of linguistic meaning and understanding are particularly relevant to his work. While LLMs are an impressive technology with startling capabilities, we need to be aware of when we may be fooling ourselves about their potential. In this episode, we discuss what LLMs are; ways in which they have been misrepresented and misinterpreted; ethical questions about the companies developing this technology; and what they might be used for.  Enjoy the episode. *** SUPPORT You can support the podcast and join the community forum by visiting https://www.buymeacoffee.com/edubookcast .

Dr Guy Emerson (a.k.a Guy Karavengleman) is a computational linguist working at the Cambridge University Computer Laboratory. In this episode, we discuss issues surrounding LLMs such as ChatGPT, GPT-3, GPT-4, and Google Bard. Guy is concerned about misinterpretations of what the technology does and is capable of. As a computational linguist, he works on language models with a focus on semantics and human language acquisition, and thus questions of linguistic meaning and understanding are particularly relevant to his work. While LLMs are an impressive technology with startling capabilities, we need to be aware of when we may be fooling ourselves about their potential. In this episode, we discuss what LLMs are; ways in which they have been misrepresented and misinterpreted; ethical questions about the companies developing this technology; and what they might be used for.  Enjoy the episode. *** SUPPORT You can support the podcast and join the community forum by visiting <a href="https://www.buymeacoffee.com/edubookcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.buymeacoffee.com/edubookcast</a> .

147. Large language models (LLMs) - interview with Dr Guy Emerson

In the second part of this two-part episode about lessons learned from my time working in the education technology sector, I wanted to share a very significant quantitative finding to improve learning: what I call the "90% rule". Desirable difficulties is a concept that many know about and try to apply to teaching situations, but there is a question of how difficult one should make things. Surely there is a level at which things are too difficult? In which case, what is the perfect level of difficulty that we should aim for? The secret is this 90% number. Enjoy the episode. *** REFERENCES Eglington, L.G., Pavlik Jr, P.I. Optimizing practice scheduling requires quantitative tracking of individual item performance. npj Sci. Learn. 5, 15 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-020-00074-4 See also the SuperMemo Guru wiki: https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Optimum_interval. SUPPORT If you would like to support Education Bookcast and join the community forum, you can do so at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/edubookcast.

In the second part of this two-part episode about lessons learned from my time working in the education technology sector, I wanted to share a very significant quantitative finding to improve learning: what I call the "90% rule". Desirable difficulties is a concept that many know about and try to apply to teaching situations, but there is a question of how difficult one should make things. Surely there is a level at which things are too difficult? In which case, what is the perfect level of difficulty that we should aim for? The secret is this 90% number. Enjoy the episode. *** REFERENCES Eglington, L.G., Pavlik Jr, P.I. Optimizing practice scheduling requires quantitative tracking of individual item performance. npj Sci. Learn. 5, 15 (2020). <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-020-00074-4" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-020-00074-4</a> See also the SuperMemo Guru wiki: <a href="https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Optimum_interval" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Optimum_interval</a>. SUPPORT If you would like to support Education Bookcast and join the community forum, you can do so at <a href="https://www.buymeacoffee.com/edubookcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.buymeacoffee.com/edubookcast</a>.

146b. Lessons from EdTech - The 90% Rule

I've now been working as a data scientist in educational technology for over four years. In that time I've thought a lot about various educational concepts within edtech, and I want to share some of what I've learnt. In the first part of this two-part episode, I want to talk about what I call the Fundamental Duality of Educational Materials. The Fundamental Duality is that we use our content to measure our students / users (e.g. what they know), but we also use our users to measure our content (e.g. how difficult it is). This leads to a sort of chicken-and-egg problem, where all we see is the interaction of the users with the content, but from that single fact we have to somehow extract information about the two different interacting entities. For example, suppose that a user gets a question wrong. This could mean one of a number of things:  Is the question difficult? Does the user not know this area very well?  There is also a third possibility: Is this question faulty? i.e. did the user actually answer the question correctly, but it was marked as incorrect due to a bug in the system, or in the way the content was created? Answering these questions is difficult because they are apparently all possible in this situation. This is an illustration of the Fundamental Duality. In the episode, I make some mention of Item Response Theory (IRT), which is a method used in computerised adaptive testing (CAT) to handle this very issue. But IRT is quite difficult to explain to a lay audience, especially without the use of images, so I will focus on Elo and Glicko rating systems as examples of handling this duality. Enjoy the episode. *** You can support Education Bookcast and join the community forum by visiting https://www.buymeacoffee.com/edubookcast.

I've now been working as a data scientist in educational technology for over four years. In that time I've thought a lot about various educational concepts within edtech, and I want to share some of what I've learnt. In the first part of this two-part episode, I want to talk about what I call the Fundamental Duality of Educational Materials. The Fundamental Duality is that we use our content to measure our students / users (e.g. what they know), but we also use our users to measure our content (e.g. how difficult it is). This leads to a sort of chicken-and-egg problem, where all we see is the interaction of the users with the content, but from that single fact we have to somehow extract information about the two different interacting entities. For example, suppose that a user gets a question wrong. This could mean one of a number of things: <ol> <li>Is the question difficult?</li> <li>Does the user not know this area very well?</li> </ol> There is also a third possibility: Is this question faulty? i.e. did the user actually answer the question correctly, but it was marked as incorrect due to a bug in the system, or in the way the content was created? Answering these questions is difficult because they are apparently all possible in this situation. This is an illustration of the Fundamental Duality. In the episode, I make some mention of Item Response Theory (IRT), which is a method used in computerised adaptive testing (CAT) to handle this very issue. But IRT is quite difficult to explain to a lay audience, especially without the use of images, so I will focus on Elo and Glicko rating systems as examples of handling this duality. Enjoy the episode. *** You can support Education Bookcast and join the community forum by visiting <a href="https://www.buymeacoffee.com/edubookcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.buymeacoffee.com/edubookcast</a>.

146a. Lessons from EdTech - the Fundamental Duality of Educational Materials

This is the second part of the message for my friend Guy about becoming a better lecturer. In this part, I go over 27 practical techniques and tips for improving lecturing (as well as improving the way homework exercises are designed), referring to the principles and theory outlined in the previous part to explain how and why these work. To be completely honest some of the suggestions are more general pedagogical suggestions rather than being specific to lecturing, but I decided to throw them in as well for completeness. Enjoy the episode. *** You can support Education Bookcast and join the community forum by visiting https://www.buymeacoffee.com/edubookcast.

This is the second part of the message for my friend Guy about becoming a better lecturer. In this part, I go over 27 practical techniques and tips for improving lecturing (as well as improving the way homework exercises are designed), referring to the principles and theory outlined in the previous part to explain how and why these work. To be completely honest some of the suggestions are more general pedagogical suggestions rather than being specific to lecturing, but I decided to throw them in as well for completeness. Enjoy the episode. *** You can support Education Bookcast and join the community forum by visiting <a href="https://www.buymeacoffee.com/edubookcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.buymeacoffee.com/edubookcast</a>.

145b. How to be a better lecturer (practice) - a message for Guy

Another in the series of "really long voice notes from Staś". My friend Guy is a lecturer in natural language processing. He asked me if I could give him some tips about how to lecture better, so I told him I would record a podcast episode about it. I've divided the episode into two parts. In this first part, before we speak about practical things to do, I will discuss what the basic aims are, and some important preliminary framing questions - what are we trying to achieve? How does learning work? And when can I stop punching the ground with my fist? There is some extra pressure when talking about how to be a good lecturer, as in effect I might ironically give a bad lecture about how to lecture well. I think I did ok. Enjoy the episode. *** You can support Education Bookcast and join the community forum by going to https://www.buymeacoffee.com/edubookcast.

Another in the series of "really long voice notes from Staś". My friend Guy is a lecturer in natural language processing. He asked me if I could give him some tips about how to lecture better, so I told him I would record a podcast episode about it. I've divided the episode into two parts. In this first part, before we speak about practical things to do, I will discuss what the basic aims are, and some important preliminary framing questions - what are we trying to achieve? How does learning work? And when can I stop punching the ground with my fist? There is some extra pressure when talking about how to be a good lecturer, as in effect I might ironically give a bad lecture about how to lecture well. I think I did ok. Enjoy the episode. *** You can support Education Bookcast and join the community forum by going to <a href="https://www.buymeacoffee.com/edubookcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.buymeacoffee.com/edubookcast</a>.

145a. How to be a better lecturer (theory) - a message for Guy

Benjamin Bloom is best known for Bloom's Taxonomy, a scheme for categorising ways of thinking about or interacting with learning content on a scale from less to more sophisticated. However, the project he led investigating the lifelong development of expertise should be much more famous. The book's full title makes it feel as though it was published in 1685 rather than 1985: The dramatic findings of a ground-breaking study of 120 immensely talented individuals reveal astonishing new information on Developing Talent in Young People. Bloom's team looked at extraordinary achievers in six domains: pianists, sculptors, swimmers, tennis players, mathematicians, and neurologists, so that he had two each from artistic, athletic, and academic pursuits. He was trying to understand the life circumstances during childhood and adolescense - particularly the practice routines and social milieu - which led to the development of the subjects' expertise. Their research methods were unusual. Rather than using a large sample and taking quantitative data (which would have been difficult anyway due to the lack of a large number of exceptional people, by definition) or presenting qualitative interviews of individual case studies, Bloom's team interviewed around 20-30 people from each domain and then summarised the findings of these interviews. It leaves us with a sense of the qualitative experience of going through their learning processes, while also reducing the chances of over-generalising from a single case. Pianists were the main focus of discussion where Bloom and his colleauges tried to generalised the findings, although all six categories had a full exposition as to the findings for their domain in particular. The pianists followed an especially clear pattern which is worth starting from, and subsequently comparing with the others. In the context of an abundance of information about how people think and learn on shorter timescales (from seconds to weeks), having information about how people develop over the lifespan is invaluable. I will definitely be referring to this book a lot in future. Enjoy the episode. *** RELATED EPISODES This book is related to the development of expertise, which I talk about on a lot of episodes, but the one specific one I mentioned in the recording was: 22. The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle SUPPORT You can support Education Bookcast and join the community forum via Buy Me a Coffee using the following link: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/edubookcast.

Benjamin Bloom is best known for Bloom's Taxonomy, a scheme for categorising ways of thinking about or interacting with learning content on a scale from less to more sophisticated. However, the project he led investigating the lifelong development of expertise should be much more famous. The book's full title makes it feel as though it was published in 1685 rather than 1985: The dramatic findings of a ground-breaking study of 120 immensely talented individuals reveal astonishing new information on Developing Talent in Young People. Bloom's team looked at extraordinary achievers in six domains: pianists, sculptors, swimmers, tennis players, mathematicians, and neurologists, so that he had two each from artistic, athletic, and academic pursuits. He was trying to understand the life circumstances during childhood and adolescense - particularly the practice routines and social milieu - which led to the development of the subjects' expertise. Their research methods were unusual. Rather than using a large sample and taking quantitative data (which would have been difficult anyway due to the lack of a large number of exceptional people, by definition) or presenting qualitative interviews of individual case studies, Bloom's team interviewed around 20-30 people from each domain and then summarised the findings of these interviews. It leaves us with a sense of the qualitative experience of going through their learning processes, while also reducing the chances of over-generalising from a single case. Pianists were the main focus of discussion where Bloom and his colleauges tried to generalised the findings, although all six categories had a full exposition as to the findings for their domain in particular. The pianists followed an especially clear pattern which is worth starting from, and subsequently comparing with the others. In the context of an abundance of information about how people think and learn on shorter timescales (from seconds to weeks), having information about how people develop over the lifespan is invaluable. I will definitely be referring to this book a lot in future. Enjoy the episode. *** RELATED EPISODES This book is related to the development of expertise, which I talk about on a lot of episodes, but the one specific one I mentioned in the recording was: 22. The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle SUPPORT You can support Education Bookcast and join the community forum via Buy Me a Coffee using the following link: <a href="https://www.buymeacoffee.com/edubookcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.buymeacoffee.com/edubookcast</a>.

144. Developing Talent in Young People by Benjamin Bloom

Cover image: horse and rider by Nadia, age 5. The nature of talent is something that I dealt with near the beginning of the existence of Education Bookcast, reviewing books like Genius Explained, Outliers, The Talent Code, and Bounce. The general consensus was that talent is an illusion - people simply get better at things through exposure and practice. My confidence in this assertion was shaken when reading the IQ literature, but now, in the book The Road to Excellence edited by K. Anders Ericsson, the article The Rage to Master: the Decisive Role of Talent in the Visual Arts by Ellen Winner. She points out how some exceptional children are obsessed with drawing, and draw in a way that is qualitatively different to ordinary children. She argues that the aforementioned orthodoxy of talent apparently not really existing is in fact incorrect, in light of these prodigies and their extraordinary output. In the recording, I discuss these findings and try to find a way to put it all together. Benjamin Bloom's book Developing Talent in Young People also comes in handy, as not only does Ellen Winner cite it (incorrectly, in my view), but he also provides a valuable insight into his forty years of research into learning in schools which helps us make sense of the conundrum of talent's apparent non-existence while we have well-documented examples of extraordinarily talented individuals, in the visual arts at least. Enjoy the episode. *** RELATED EPISODES 18. Bounce by Matthew Syed 20. Genius Explained by Michael Howe 22. The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle 24. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell SUPPORT You can support the podcast and join the community forum by visiting https://buymeacoffee.com/edubookcast.

Cover image: horse and rider by Nadia, age 5. The nature of talent is something that I dealt with near the beginning of the existence of Education Bookcast, reviewing books like Genius Explained, Outliers, The Talent Code, and Bounce. The general consensus was that talent is an illusion - people simply get better at things through exposure and practice. My confidence in this assertion was shaken when reading the IQ literature, but now, in the book The Road to Excellence edited by K. Anders Ericsson, the article The Rage to Master: the Decisive Role of Talent in the Visual Arts by Ellen Winner. She points out how some exceptional children are obsessed with drawing, and draw in a way that is qualitatively different to ordinary children. She argues that the aforementioned orthodoxy of talent apparently not really existing is in fact incorrect, in light of these prodigies and their extraordinary output. In the recording, I discuss these findings and try to find a way to put it all together. Benjamin Bloom's book Developing Talent in Young People also comes in handy, as not only does Ellen Winner cite it (incorrectly, in my view), but he also provides a valuable insight into his forty years of research into learning in schools which helps us make sense of the conundrum of talent's apparent non-existence while we have well-documented examples of extraordinarily talented individuals, in the visual arts at least. Enjoy the episode. *** RELATED EPISODES 18. Bounce by Matthew Syed 20. Genius Explained by Michael Howe 22. The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle 24. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell SUPPORT You can support the podcast and join the community forum by visiting <a href="https://buymeacoffee.com/edubookcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://buymeacoffee.com/edubookcast</a>.

143. Talent, revisited

Season 2 of the Pedagogue-Cast is here! The Pedagogue-Cast is a separate podcast project I share with Justin Matthys, founder of Maths Pathway. We discuss the kinds of questions that teachers might have about good practice which touch on cognitive science, making sure both to make the most of the research findings while also making it practical for use in the classroom. In this new season, Justin and I are going to discuss music, flow, focus, student choice, social &amp; emotional learning interventions, and how motivation develops over time. Some places where you can find the Pedagogue-Cast:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-pedagogue-cast/id1637019084 - Apple podcasts https://open.spotify.com/show/437GYDF4jkkFxfkGR4cknc - Spotify  https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xOTg0NDY3LnJzcw?hl=en - Google podcasts You can also try searching for the Pedagogue-Cast in your favourite podcast app. Enjoy!

Season 2 of the Pedagogue-Cast is here! The Pedagogue-Cast is a separate podcast project I share with Justin Matthys, founder of Maths Pathway. We discuss the kinds of questions that teachers might have about good practice which touch on cognitive science, making sure both to make the most of the research findings while also making it practical for use in the classroom. In this new season, Justin and I are going to discuss music, flow, focus, student choice, social &amp; emotional learning interventions, and how motivation develops over time. Some places where you can find the Pedagogue-Cast: <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-pedagogue-cast/id1637019084" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-pedagogue-cast/id1637019084</a> - Apple podcasts <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/437GYDF4jkkFxfkGR4cknc" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://open.spotify.com/show/437GYDF4jkkFxfkGR4cknc</a> - Spotify <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xOTg0NDY3LnJzcw?hl=en" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xOTg0NDY3LnJzcw?hl=en</a> - Google podcasts You can also try searching for the Pedagogue-Cast in your favourite podcast app. Enjoy!

142. Season 2 of the Pedagogue-Cast is out now! Taster: Music and Learning

After my last episode on behaviourism, cognitivism, and constructivism ("A Message for Zoë"), I heard back from Zoë herself, and also heard from Malin Tväråna, an education researcher in Sweden. I decided that it was worth recording an episode relating what I heard from them, and my thoughts about it. Enjoy the episode. ### REFERENCES Miłosz, Czesław (1953): The Captive Mind. Radford, Luis (2016): The Theory of Objectification and its Place among Sociocultural Research in Mathematics Education. Radford, Luis (2018): Teaching and learning (algebra or something else): Working together to make sense of similarities and differences between theories (and understanding oneself).

After my last episode on behaviourism, cognitivism, and constructivism ("A Message for Zoë"), I heard back from Zoë herself, and also heard from Malin Tväråna, an education researcher in Sweden. I decided that it was worth recording an episode relating what I heard from them, and my thoughts about it. Enjoy the episode. ### REFERENCES Miłosz, Czesław (1953): The Captive Mind. Radford, Luis (2016): The Theory of Objectification and its Place among Sociocultural Research in Mathematics Education. Radford, Luis (2018): Teaching and learning (algebra or something else): Working together to make sense of similarities and differences between theories (and understanding oneself).

141+. Feedback on constructivism

My friend Zoë (hi Zoë!) is taking a course on learning design. In it, she heard about Behaviourism, Cognitivism, and Constructivism, and while she said that she found it confusing, her main takeaway is that "you need a bit of each". I recorded this episode to help her have a clearer sense of what these three words really mean, and that "a bit of each" is emphatically not the right message. I thought that others might benefit from the same summary. This is a frequent topic in education courses, and I think it generally gets a pretty poor treatment. Hopefully this will clear things up for a lot of people. Enjoy the episode. *** RELATED EPISODES Note how the distribution of episodes reflects the importance of topics. Behaviourism is important to know about but it really isn't current as a way of thinking about learning, it's more of a historical relic with some lasting applicability to animal training. Constructivism is a mistaken and misleading theory that keeps negatively affecting educational practice and never seems to go away, so I keep having to talk about it. Cognitivism is a really effective approach which deserves to be known more widely - it took me a long time to find out about it, hence why the episodes about it tend to be more recent. Behaviourism: 3. Don't Shoot the Dog! The New Art of Teaching and Training by Karen Pryor Constructivism: 42. Do Schools Kill Creativity? by Ken Robinson; 65. Beyond the Hole in the Wall by Sugata Mitra; 87. Experiential Learning by Colin Beard and John Wilson; 88. The Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-based, Experiential, and Inquiry-based Teaching; 90. Discovery learning: the idea that won't die; 124. The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences Cognitivism: 79. What learning is; 80. The Chimp Paradox by Prof Steve Peters; 82. Memorable Teaching by Pepps McCrea; 85. Why Don't Students Like School? by Daniel Willingham; 95. The Reading Mind by Dan Willingham; 132a. Direct Instruction and Project Follow Through; 132b. Direct Instruction: the evidence; 135. Professional writing expertise; 136. Congitive architecture and ACT-R; 136+. Interview with Prof. Christian Lebiere on ACT-R and Cognitive Architecture REFERENCES I mention the following article as one where the authors (eminent figures in cognitive architecture, one of whom is a Nobel Prize winner) ask Constructivists to stop misrepresenting their work and saying things in direct contradiction to the evidence. Anderson, Reder, &amp; Simon (1999). Applications and Misapplacations of Cognitive Psychology to Mathematics Education. SUPPORT You can support the podcast and join the community forum by visiting https://www.buymeacoffee.com/edubookcast.

My friend Zoë (hi Zoë!) is taking a course on learning design. In it, she heard about Behaviourism, Cognitivism, and Constructivism, and while she said that she found it confusing, her main takeaway is that "you need a bit of each". I recorded this episode to help her have a clearer sense of what these three words really mean, and that "a bit of each" is emphatically not the right message. I thought that others might benefit from the same summary. This is a frequent topic in education courses, and I think it generally gets a pretty poor treatment. Hopefully this will clear things up for a lot of people. Enjoy the episode. *** RELATED EPISODES Note how the distribution of episodes reflects the importance of topics. Behaviourism is important to know about but it really isn't current as a way of thinking about learning, it's more of a historical relic with some lasting applicability to animal training. Constructivism is a mistaken and misleading theory that keeps negatively affecting educational practice and never seems to go away, so I keep having to talk about it. Cognitivism is a really effective approach which deserves to be known more widely - it took me a long time to find out about it, hence why the episodes about it tend to be more recent. Behaviourism: 3. Don't Shoot the Dog! The New Art of Teaching and Training by Karen Pryor Constructivism: 42. Do Schools Kill Creativity? by Ken Robinson; 65. Beyond the Hole in the Wall by Sugata Mitra; 87. Experiential Learning by Colin Beard and John Wilson; 88. The Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-based, Experiential, and Inquiry-based Teaching; 90. Discovery learning: the idea that won't die; 124. The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences Cognitivism: 79. What learning is; 80. The Chimp Paradox by Prof Steve Peters; 82. Memorable Teaching by Pepps McCrea; 85. Why Don't Students Like School? by Daniel Willingham; 95. The Reading Mind by Dan Willingham; 132a. Direct Instruction and Project Follow Through; 132b. Direct Instruction: the evidence; 135. Professional writing expertise; 136. Congitive architecture and ACT-R; 136+. Interview with Prof. Christian Lebiere on ACT-R and Cognitive Architecture REFERENCES I mention the following article as one where the authors (eminent figures in cognitive architecture, one of whom is a Nobel Prize winner) ask Constructivists to stop misrepresenting their work and saying things in direct contradiction to the evidence. Anderson, Reder, &amp; Simon (1999). Applications and Misapplacations of Cognitive Psychology to Mathematics Education. SUPPORT You can support the podcast and join the community forum by visiting <a href="https://www.buymeacoffee.com/edubookcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.buymeacoffee.com/edubookcast.</a>

141. Behaviourism, Cognitivism, Constructivism - a message for Zoë

Education Bookcast is a podcast principally for teachers and parents who would like to know more about education. We cover one education-related book or article each episode, going over the key points, placing it in context, and making connections with other ideas, topics, and authors. Topics include psychology, philosophy, history, and economics of education; pedagogy and teaching methods; neurology and cognitive science; and schools and school systems in historical and international perspective.

This is very interesting podcast with a lot of valuable information. Have listened 4 of them and they were really great. Keep up good work, greetings from Armenia.

Great work

I listen to this podcast three times a week and anyone interested into learning more about education, teaching, coaching or any other pedagogical driven professions will learn a lot.

Extremely insightful podcast

Education Bookcast is a podcast principally for teachers and parents who would like to know more about education. We cover one education-related book or article each episode, going over the key points, placing it in context, and making connections with other ideas, topics, and authors. Topics include psychology, philosophy, history, and economics of education; pedagogy and teaching methods; neurology and cognitive science; and schools and school systems in historical and international perspective.

Education Bookcast

Kelly McGonigal

Stress is broadly understood to be a serious health risk and a destructive factor in many people's lives. It has been advertised as such for several decades. In The Upside of Stress, Kelly McGonigal explains how new research shows that stress may actually be something positive and life-enhancing rather than ruinous. The most central concept is that of "stress mindsets". Similar to fixed vs. growth mindset as described in Carol Dweck's book (covered in the first episode of this podcast), stress mindsets concern one's beliefs about the effects of stress. People with a "positive stress mindset" believe that there can be benefits to stress, whereas those with a "negative stress mindset" - encouraged by ideas promulgated in the past few decades - believe that stress is uniformly bad for you. It turns out that merely believing something different about stress is enough to change its effects radically for the better. The evidence on the so-called "upside of stress" takes many forms, but perhaps the most convincing evidence is endocrinological. McGonigal cites studies showing that people who have higher stress hormone concentrations following a car accident are *less* likely to develop post-traumatic stress disorder; that the stress hormone dehydroepiandrosterone, or DHEA, is a brain *steroid* (as in, it literally makes your brain grow); and that the ratio of DHEA to cortisol (another stress hormone, but not a steroid) is dependent on your *beliefs* about stress. (My overuse of asterisks hints at how excited I am.) On of the most surprising findings is that stress and happiness are internationally positively correlated. (In case you're interested, the most stressed out country in the world is the Philippines. It's also one of the happiest.) How could this be? McGonigal explains that this relates to what stress is, psychologically speaking. Stress is a state we experience when something we value is at stake. In other words, a meaningful life cannot help being stressful, since in order to be meaningful, one must be working towards or fighting for something that one cares for. Low levels of stress are actually correlated with increased depression risk, and the explanation for this is likely to be similar. Overall, then, a big change in the way we see stress is possible, and it carries great benefits. Enjoy the episode. Music by podcastthemes.com.

Stress is broadly understood to be a serious health risk and a destructive factor in many people's lives. It has been advertised as such for several decades. In The Upside of Stress, Kelly McGonigal explains how new research shows that stress may actually be something positive and life-enhancing rather than ruinous. The most central concept is that of "stress mindsets". Similar to fixed vs. growth mindset as described in Carol Dweck's book (covered in the first episode of this podcast), stress mindsets concern one's beliefs about the effects of stress. People with a "positive stress mindset" believe that there can be benefits to stress, whereas those with a "negative stress mindset" - encouraged by ideas promulgated in the past few decades - believe that stress is uniformly bad for you. It turns out that merely believing something different about stress is enough to change its effects radically for the better. The evidence on the so-called "upside of stress" takes many forms, but perhaps the most convincing evidence is endocrinological. McGonigal cites studies showing that people who have higher stress hormone concentrations following a car accident are *less* likely to develop post-traumatic stress disorder; that the stress hormone dehydroepiandrosterone, or DHEA, is a brain *steroid* (as in, it literally makes your brain grow); and that the ratio of DHEA to cortisol (another stress hormone, but not a steroid) is dependent on your *beliefs* about stress. (My overuse of asterisks hints at how excited I am.) On of the most surprising findings is that stress and happiness are internationally positively correlated. (In case you're interested, the most stressed out country in the world is the Philippines. It's also one of the happiest.) How could this be? McGonigal explains that this relates to what stress is, psychologically speaking. Stress is a state we experience when something we value is at stake. In other words, a meaningful life cannot help being stressful, since in order to be meaningful, one must be working towards or fighting for something that one cares for. Low levels of stress are actually correlated with increased depression risk, and the explanation for this is likely to be similar. Overall, then, a big change in the way we see stress is possible, and it carries great benefits. Enjoy the episode. Music by <a href="http://podcastthemes.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">podcastthemes.com</a>.

68. The Upside of Stress by Kelly McGonigal

Timothy Gallwey

Writing in the 1970s, Timothy Gallwey comes eerily close in The Inner Game of Tennis to what modern cognitive scientists have discovered about the nature of the mind. He reminds me of medieval Buddhists whose descriptions of certain mental processes, particularly those to do with meditation, have been confirmed to be highly accurate by modern neuroscience*. Forty years isn't a thousand years, but it's still a long time in cognitive and brain sciences. Gallwey's basic point is that, when we reflect on our "selves", we are actually made up of (at least) two parts. "Self 1" is the voice in your head that actively decides to do things - call it "I". "Self 2" is that part of you that does things without you thinking about it - call it "myself". An example of the actions of Self 2 is when you are holding a pen and a sandwich, and try to eat the pen and write with the sandwich; or (if you're English) when you say sorry for something automatically even though it wasn't your fault; or when you drive all the way to work even though you were engrossed in thought about something completely different, and so, in a sense, weren't concentrating on the road. The relevance of this observation to tennis is that Self 2 should be doing all the work, and Self 1 should shut up. In reality, your bossy, self-obsessed Self 1 tends to try to dominate Self 2 and tell it what to do, which only leads to stress, wasted energy, and worsening outcomes. In other words, people both tend to overthink tennis and to try to "tell themselves" how to correct their problems, which mostly just stresses them out and doesn't produce improved results. What they should really do is just shut up and trust their body (i.e. their Self 2) to do what it needs to do. It might be uncomfortable to not feel "in control" at first, but ultimately greater improvements and a better experience await those who can manage this. Easier said than done, mind you. Of course, The Inner Game of Tennis has application far beyond tennis alone. The book has been popular and influential enough to spawn a veritable tribe of Inner Game books, including that of golf, music, work, and even stress.  The book serves as an experiential, non-technical look at things that we will have to look at the types of issues that we will have to look at in a more evidence-based, nuanced way in future. As well as having more than its fair share of applicable wisdom, it also introduces us to the important idea of our minds being modular, which is very important in looking at learning in general, and is a theme that we will return to. Enjoy the episode.   *Take a look at Daniel Goleman's Destructive Emotions for a more detailed discussion.

Writing in the 1970s, Timothy Gallwey comes eerily close in The Inner Game of Tennis to what modern cognitive scientists have discovered about the nature of the mind. He reminds me of medieval Buddhists whose descriptions of certain mental processes, particularly those to do with meditation, have been confirmed to be highly accurate by modern neuroscience*. Forty years isn't a thousand years, but it's still a long time in cognitive and brain sciences. Gallwey's basic point is that, when we reflect on our "selves", we are actually made up of (at least) two parts. "Self 1" is the voice in your head that actively decides to do things - call it "I". "Self 2" is that part of you that does things without you thinking about it - call it "myself". An example of the actions of Self 2 is when you are holding a pen and a sandwich, and try to eat the pen and write with the sandwich; or (if you're English) when you say sorry for something automatically even though it wasn't your fault; or when you drive all the way to work even though you were engrossed in thought about something completely different, and so, in a sense, weren't concentrating on the road. The relevance of this observation to tennis is that Self 2 should be doing all the work, and Self 1 should shut up. In reality, your bossy, self-obsessed Self 1 tends to try to dominate Self 2 and tell it what to do, which only leads to stress, wasted energy, and worsening outcomes. In other words, people both tend to overthink tennis and to try to "tell themselves" how to correct their problems, which mostly just stresses them out and doesn't produce improved results. What they should really do is just shut up and trust their body (i.e. their Self 2) to do what it needs to do. It might be uncomfortable to not feel "in control" at first, but ultimately greater improvements and a better experience await those who can manage this. Easier said than done, mind you. Of course, The Inner Game of Tennis has application far beyond tennis alone. The book has been popular and influential enough to spawn a veritable tribe of Inner Game books, including that of golf, music, work, and even stress.  The book serves as an experiential, non-technical look at things that we will have to look at the types of issues that we will have to look at in a more evidence-based, nuanced way in future. As well as having more than its fair share of applicable wisdom, it also introduces us to the important idea of our minds being modular, which is very important in looking at learning in general, and is a theme that we will return to. Enjoy the episode. *Take a look at Daniel Goleman's Destructive Emotions for a more detailed discussion.

9. The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey

Edward De Bono

Edward de Bono is an expert on creativity, author of over 40 books on the subject. He invented the term "lateral thinking" in the 1960s, which is now a part of common parlance. Over his long career, he has worked with numerous large corporations such as Microsoft, Apple, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Siemens, Bose, HP, LinkedIn, and Texas Instruments, as well as schools, charities, and governments. His basic premise is that creativity can be taught by direct teaching of thinking skills and techniques, and that this kind of thinking is not a normal part of culture, but that it should be. Controversially, although highly scientifically and mathematically trained, he does not work on scientifically validating his own ideas, only on trying to develop them and promote them, and on making them accessible to a general audience. However, his ideas are nothing if not interesting and original, and I am persuaded enough by much of what he writes that I find it sensible to share it on this podcast. He is also rather topical because of recent interest in the idea of direct teaching of thinking, which is often combined with the idea of imparting so-called "21st century skills" to schoolchildren. Cognitive scientists often insist that general thinking skills cannot be improved, and that we may only improve at thinking within some particular domain (though some skills are important within many domains, such as reading). For some reason, Edward de Bono never seems to be mentioned during these discussions - neither by those who are in favour of teaching thinking (who, you would think, would be fans of his), nor by those who claim that teaching general thinking directly is a fool's errand. This strange silence, as I perceive it, is something I would like to go some way to fixing. In this episode, I want to introduce Edward de Bono himself, as well as talk about one of his most famous and commonly applied ideas, the Six Thinking Hats, popularised by a book of the same name. In future episodes we will have a chance to dig more deeply into his work on lateral thinking, creativity, the nature of the mind, and direct teaching of thinking skills, among other things. Enjoy the episode. Music by podcastthemes.com.

Edward de Bono is an expert on creativity, author of over 40 books on the subject. He invented the term "lateral thinking" in the 1960s, which is now a part of common parlance. Over his long career, he has worked with numerous large corporations such as Microsoft, Apple, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Siemens, Bose, HP, LinkedIn, and Texas Instruments, as well as schools, charities, and governments. His basic premise is that creativity can be taught by direct teaching of thinking skills and techniques, and that this kind of thinking is not a normal part of culture, but that it should be. Controversially, although highly scientifically and mathematically trained, he does not work on scientifically validating his own ideas, only on trying to develop them and promote them, and on making them accessible to a general audience. However, his ideas are nothing if not interesting and original, and I am persuaded enough by much of what he writes that I find it sensible to share it on this podcast. He is also rather topical because of recent interest in the idea of direct teaching of thinking, which is often combined with the idea of imparting so-called "21st century skills" to schoolchildren. Cognitive scientists often insist that general thinking skills cannot be improved, and that we may only improve at thinking within some particular domain (though some skills are important within many domains, such as reading). For some reason, Edward de Bono never seems to be mentioned during these discussions - neither by those who are in favour of teaching thinking (who, you would think, would be fans of his), nor by those who claim that teaching general thinking directly is a fool's errand. This strange silence, as I perceive it, is something I would like to go some way to fixing. In this episode, I want to introduce Edward de Bono himself, as well as talk about one of his most famous and commonly applied ideas, the Six Thinking Hats, popularised by a book of the same name. In future episodes we will have a chance to dig more deeply into his work on lateral thinking, creativity, the nature of the mind, and direct teaching of thinking skills, among other things. Enjoy the episode. Music by <a href="http://podcastthemes.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">podcastthemes.com</a>.

54. Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono

Mihály Csíkszentmihályi

What's the best kind of experience you have? When do you feel happiest? Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (pronounced me-HIGH CHEEK-sent-me-HIGH) shows us that the conditions for optimal experience are also those of when we have our greatest learning. Flow, a psychology term coined by the author, refers to the feeling of utter concentration and complete absorption in what one is doing, when it feels as though the world has melted away and all that there is is this moment. Rock climbers often experience flow - they are completely in the present, and the only thing that they can think of is what to do next on the rock face, their time horizon of thought narrowing to less than five minutes from now. Experienced chess players also get the feeling that the chess board is its own universe, and that nothing else exists during a game, claiming things like "the ceiling could have caved in while we were playing, and if it didn't hit us, we wouldn't have even noticed". Csíkszentmihályi developed his own psychological research method known as experience sampling in order to study the topic of optimal experience. With the help of a pager, participants were asked to record what they were doing and how they felt at random times in the day. This is how he discovered that many leisure activities, such as watching TV and "chilling out", actually made people feel worse, and that people felt best when they were concentrating on doing something challenging.  What kind of activities can produce flow? It seems that, in principle, any activity can do, but the author refers us to some that seem to do so more than others. Cooking, farming, surgery, yoga, and reading are some of the examples given, but a large class of activities seem designed specifically to create flow, and those are sports and games. An important reason why we enjoy these is that they demand our concentration on a clear goal. The author also considers what kinds of people are more likely to experience flow. Although, by the time of the publication of this book, not much research had been done on this question, it seems that there are certain factors in upbringing that can affect a person's propensity to experience flow, and a related tendency to seek out activities that require effort can feel like hard work. The most important factors appear to be (1) the stability and consistency of the home environment, and (2) the level of intellectual stimulation at home (those who have more of this are more likely to become inclined to intellectual pursuits throughout their life, in work and in leisure). As mentioned above, an interesting feature of the conditions that create flow is that they are also very good conditions for learning. A clear goal, with quality feedback, in a challenging situation that puts you at the edge of your capabilities, are likely to produce both high levels of flow and of learning. As a result, we can look to Flow for ideas both on how to live happier, and on how to learn better. Enjoy the episode.

What's the best kind of experience you have? When do you feel happiest? Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (pronounced me-HIGH CHEEK-sent-me-HIGH) shows us that the conditions for optimal experience are also those of when we have our greatest learning. Flow, a psychology term coined by the author, refers to the feeling of utter concentration and complete absorption in what one is doing, when it feels as though the world has melted away and all that there is is this moment. Rock climbers often experience flow - they are completely in the present, and the only thing that they can think of is what to do next on the rock face, their time horizon of thought narrowing to less than five minutes from now. Experienced chess players also get the feeling that the chess board is its own universe, and that nothing else exists during a game, claiming things like "the ceiling could have caved in while we were playing, and if it didn't hit us, we wouldn't have even noticed". Csíkszentmihályi developed his own psychological research method known as experience sampling in order to study the topic of optimal experience. With the help of a pager, participants were asked to record what they were doing and how they felt at random times in the day. This is how he discovered that many leisure activities, such as watching TV and "chilling out", actually made people feel worse, and that people felt best when they were concentrating on doing something challenging.  What kind of activities can produce flow? It seems that, in principle, any activity can do, but the author refers us to some that seem to do so more than others. Cooking, farming, surgery, yoga, and reading are some of the examples given, but a large class of activities seem designed specifically to create flow, and those are sports and games. An important reason why we enjoy these is that they demand our concentration on a clear goal. The author also considers what kinds of people are more likely to experience flow. Although, by the time of the publication of this book, not much research had been done on this question, it seems that there are certain factors in upbringing that can affect a person's propensity to experience flow, and a related tendency to seek out activities that require effort can feel like hard work. The most important factors appear to be (1) the stability and consistency of the home environment, and (2) the level of intellectual stimulation at home (those who have more of this are more likely to become inclined to intellectual pursuits throughout their life, in work and in leisure). As mentioned above, an interesting feature of the conditions that create flow is that they are also very good conditions for learning. A clear goal, with quality feedback, in a challenging situation that puts you at the edge of your capabilities, are likely to produce both high levels of flow and of learning. As a result, we can look to Flow for ideas both on how to live happier, and on how to learn better. Enjoy the episode.

10. Flow by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi

Why should somebody who is interested in education be interested in behaviourism?  Because it's had a huge impact on educational theory and practice over the past more than 100 years. When I started reading books on education, the I was astounded at the frequency with which behaviourist arguments were put forward to support ideas. I felt like I could hardly budge without bumping into another reference to it. And it's no surprise - behaviourist educationalists include figures such as Edward Thorndike, sometimes referred to as "the father of educational psychology". The first book I read about educational psychology said that there were three chief paradigms of teaching, one of which was "behavioural". Understanding behaviourism helped me to better understand what these books were talking about, and to know when they didn't know what they were talking about. Because it says some pretty crazy stuff, which is nonetheless hard to refute. Burrhus Frederic Skinner, the behaviourist who made the greatest contribution to the field, had some pretty scary ideas. He denied the existence of choice, will, or freedom. He considered dignity to be an empty and worthless idea. (Hence the title of one of his books, Beyond Freedom and Dignity.) He thought that people could be perfectly controlled with the right external conditioning, and he even hoped that the future would be this way, as expounded in his apparently utopian novel Walden Two. The non-existence or at least unimportance of internal states (thoughts, emotions) is at the very core of the philosophy of behaviourism. Outraged yet? And yet the theory has a lot of evidence going for it. Because, a lot of the time, it works. Behaviourist principles have proven very effective in a range of situations and applications. Their greatest successes have been in animal training, but they've also been effective in various human domains, including making games and gambling machines more addictive. (Hooray?) There have also been some applications in sports coaching (more on this in another of Karen Pryor's books, Reaching the Animal Mind).  Don't Shoot the Dog! serves as an introduction to behaviourism. Karen Pryor takes us through both the basic theory and applications in behaviour modification. She uses a combination of examples from both animal and human subjects in everyday situations. Want your dog to stop barking all night? Need your roommate to start doing the laundry for once? Can't wait to teach your cat to give you a high-five? Karen Pryor tackles all these tricky situations and more. Behaviourism claims to be a complete model of learning and behaviour - a very ambitious claim indeed. How does it do on this score? Without giving the game away too much, let's just say that the results are mixed. In some situations, behaviourist approaches and ideas work incredibly well. In certain cases, however, particularly to do with motivation, it is clear that it hasn't got all the answers. The fact that it's partially true and partially false makes it all the more intriguing - why does it sometimes work, but sometimes not? This is a question that will take a lot longer than one episode to answer, but it is worth thinking on. Even if you're not behaviourism's biggest fan, or you don't think you'll be using it much, it is an important thing to have a grasp of to provide context for other theories and ideas. It's like Newtonian physics, which does a good job prior to the arrival of other theories (relativity theory and quantum mechanics), and we can then ask why Newtonian physics works so well in most situations even though it's "wrong" as it has been superseded by other theories. Enjoy the episode.

Why should somebody who is interested in education be interested in behaviourism? <ol> <li>Because it's had a huge impact on educational theory and practice over the past more than 100 years. When I started reading books on education, the I was astounded at the frequency with which behaviourist arguments were put forward to support ideas. I felt like I could hardly budge without bumping into another reference to it. And it's no surprise - behaviourist educationalists include figures such as Edward Thorndike, sometimes referred to as "the father of educational psychology". The first book I read about educational psychology said that there were three chief paradigms of teaching, one of which was "behavioural". Understanding behaviourism helped me to better understand what these books were talking about, and to know when they didn't know what they were talking about.</li> <li>Because it says some pretty crazy stuff, which is nonetheless hard to refute. Burrhus Frederic Skinner, the behaviourist who made the greatest contribution to the field, had some pretty scary ideas. He denied the existence of choice, will, or freedom. He considered dignity to be an empty and worthless idea. (Hence the title of one of his books, Beyond Freedom and Dignity.) He thought that people could be perfectly controlled with the right external conditioning, and he even hoped that the future would be this way, as expounded in his apparently utopian novel Walden Two. The non-existence or at least unimportance of internal states (thoughts, emotions) is at the very core of the philosophy of behaviourism. Outraged yet? And yet the theory has a lot of evidence going for it.</li> <li>Because, a lot of the time, it works. Behaviourist principles have proven very effective in a range of situations and applications. Their greatest successes have been in animal training, but they've also been effective in various human domains, including making games and gambling machines more addictive. (Hooray?) There have also been some applications in sports coaching (more on this in another of Karen Pryor's books, Reaching the Animal Mind).</li> </ol> Don't Shoot the Dog! serves as an introduction to behaviourism. Karen Pryor takes us through both the basic theory and applications in behaviour modification. She uses a combination of examples from both animal and human subjects in everyday situations. Want your dog to stop barking all night? Need your roommate to start doing the laundry for once? Can't wait to teach your cat to give you a high-five? Karen Pryor tackles all these tricky situations and more. Behaviourism claims to be a complete model of learning and behaviour - a very ambitious claim indeed. How does it do on this score? Without giving the game away too much, let's just say that the results are mixed. In some situations, behaviourist approaches and ideas work incredibly well. In certain cases, however, particularly to do with motivation, it is clear that it hasn't got all the answers. The fact that it's partially true and partially false makes it all the more intriguing - why does it sometimes work, but sometimes not? This is a question that will take a lot longer than one episode to answer, but it is worth thinking on. Even if you're not behaviourism's biggest fan, or you don't think you'll be using it much, it is an important thing to have a grasp of to provide context for other theories and ideas. It's like Newtonian physics, which does a good job prior to the arrival of other theories (relativity theory and quantum mechanics), and we can then ask why Newtonian physics works so well in most situations even though it's "wrong" as it has been superseded by other theories. Enjoy the episode.

3. Don't Shoot the Dog! The New Art of Teaching and Training by Karen Pryor

In the past three episodes, we have looked at three great teachers: basketball coach John Wooden, mathematics teacher Jaime Escalante, and primary school teacher Marva Collins. Each has their own domain of expertise (basketball, mathematics, and literature) and age of students (university, high school, and primary school). Are there any ways in which we can generalise about them? A list of features that tend to make teachers likely to be nominated as "favourite" teachers are given in You Haven't Taught Until They've Learned (the book about John Wooden), and they are mostly true of the above three that we've looked at in detail. Here is the list:  They make learning engaging; They have a passion for the material; They have deep subject knowledge; They are extremely organised; They are intense; They know students need to be recognised for even small progress; They treat everyone with respect; They are fair; They believe that all students are natural learners; They make it implicitly known that they like being with their students; They place priority on individualised teaching.  There are also some notable absences from this list, such as giving students autonomy, focusing on learning styles, teaching generalisable skills rather than content knowledge, and having a student-centred approach. I also made my own list of features that they have in common, as follows:  They use drills; They focus on fundamentals; They are highly didactic (rather than using e.g. group work or problem-based learning); They hold power/authority, and lead the class; They show warmth/love to their students; They take responsibility for the students' learning; They are very dedicated; Unfortunately, they are poorly paid; They have long-term effects on their students.  Enjoy the episode.

In the past three episodes, we have looked at three great teachers: basketball coach John Wooden, mathematics teacher Jaime Escalante, and primary school teacher Marva Collins. Each has their own domain of expertise (basketball, mathematics, and literature) and age of students (university, high school, and primary school). Are there any ways in which we can generalise about them? A list of features that tend to make teachers likely to be nominated as "favourite" teachers are given in You Haven't Taught Until They've Learned (the book about John Wooden), and they are mostly true of the above three that we've looked at in detail. Here is the list: <ol> <li>They make learning engaging;</li> <li>They have a passion for the material;</li> <li>They have deep subject knowledge;</li> <li>They are extremely organised;</li> <li>They are intense;</li> <li>They know students need to be recognised for even small progress;</li> <li>They treat everyone with respect;</li> <li>They are fair;</li> <li>They believe that all students are natural learners;</li> <li>They make it implicitly known that they like being with their students;</li> <li>They place priority on individualised teaching.</li> </ol> There are also some notable absences from this list, such as giving students autonomy, focusing on learning styles, teaching generalisable skills rather than content knowledge, and having a student-centred approach. I also made my own list of features that they have in common, as follows: <ul> <li>They use drills;</li> <li>They focus on fundamentals;</li> <li>They are highly didactic (rather than using e.g. group work or problem-based learning);</li> <li>They hold power/authority, and lead the class;</li> <li>They show warmth/love to their students;</li> <li>They take responsibility for the students' learning;</li> <li>They are very dedicated;</li> <li>Unfortunately, they are poorly paid;</li> <li>They have long-term effects on their students.</li> </ul> Enjoy the episode.

75. What great teachers have in common

In this episode, we will look closely at Edward de Bono's idea of lateral thinking by considering two of his books, The Use of Lateral Thinking (1971) and Lateral Thinking: A Textbook of Creativity (1977). Lateral thinking is the central idea behind all of de Bono's work. It grows out of the models of mind that de Bono presented in his first book The Mechanism of Mind (1969), and was initially introduced in the second part of that book. De Bono coined the term himself, but now it is a commonly used word in the English language. De Bono argues that, although logical thinking is a powerful and important approach, it is not enough. Logical thinking cannot generate new ideas. Like a car with an accelerator but no steering wheel, pure logical thinking can only have us move down existing well-trodden paths, or keep moving forward in the direction we are already going. Lateral thinking, on the other hand, like a steering wheel, allows us to change direction. The very word "lateral" means "sideways", so lateral thinking is about moving "sideways" out of existing patterns to generate new perspectives. The author explains that lateral thinking is closely related to both insight and humour, something that was also explained in The Mechanism of Mind. It is all about perception and perspective. Although computers can do logical operations very well, computers cannot (at least for the forseeable future) laugh. This uniquely human trait is one facet of the human capability for change of perspective - the basic idea behind lateral thinking, and a latent human strength. Enjoy the episode. Music by podcastthemes.com.

In this episode, we will look closely at Edward de Bono's idea of lateral thinking by considering two of his books, The Use of Lateral Thinking (1971) and Lateral Thinking: A Textbook of Creativity (1977). Lateral thinking is the central idea behind all of de Bono's work. It grows out of the models of mind that de Bono presented in his first book The Mechanism of Mind (1969), and was initially introduced in the second part of that book. De Bono coined the term himself, but now it is a commonly used word in the English language. De Bono argues that, although logical thinking is a powerful and important approach, it is not enough. Logical thinking cannot generate new ideas. Like a car with an accelerator but no steering wheel, pure logical thinking can only have us move down existing well-trodden paths, or keep moving forward in the direction we are already going. Lateral thinking, on the other hand, like a steering wheel, allows us to change direction. The very word "lateral" means "sideways", so lateral thinking is about moving "sideways" out of existing patterns to generate new perspectives. The author explains that lateral thinking is closely related to both insight and humour, something that was also explained in The Mechanism of Mind. It is all about perception and perspective. Although computers can do logical operations very well, computers cannot (at least for the forseeable future) laugh. This uniquely human trait is one facet of the human capability for change of perspective - the basic idea behind lateral thinking, and a latent human strength. Enjoy the episode. Music by <a href="http://podcastthemes.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">podcastthemes.com</a>.

58. The Use of Lateral Thinking by Edward de Bono

Cesar Millan

Last week's episode served as an introduction to behaviourism. This week, in the name of balance, we are looking at another theory of animal training, the so-called dominance approach. Cesar Millan is a Mexican dog trainer who emigrated to the US in his youth. He now has a TV show called The Dog Whisperer. Unlike Karen Pryor, he taught himself his approach to dogs through experience and exposure from an early age. He is said to have "a magical way with dogs", which is something that comes across, at least to the layman, in his show. Millan's approach to dogs concerns thinking about the dog's needs. Perhaps that should read the Dog's needs, as he believes that all dogs have the same psychology, "dog psychology", which is different to human psychology and necessary to understand in order to solve "dog problems". His famous motto, "I rehabilitate dogs, I train people", is a reflection of the philosophy that the reason that dogs have problems is that humans aren't meeting their needs. If it seems presumptuous to you that Millan claims to have a theory of psychology for all dogs, bear in mind what we heard last week: that behaviourists claim to have a theory of psychology for all animals. Everything! Dogs, cats, moles, crabs, bears, whales, elephants, prawns, beetles, fish ... and humans. Millan's theories are infinitely more modest in breadth than those of behaviourists. However, Millan is more ambitious in terms of depth. What I call "fundamentalist" behaviourists - those who adhere to the original philosophy of behaviourism, that internal states either don't exist or don't matter - score a 0 in terms of depth (unless you agree with their assumptions, in which case they score 100%). Cesar Millan making the kinds of claims about what a dog is, and what a dog is like, that fundamentalist behaviourists would never care - or dare - to talk about. This gives us a new dimension for looking at theories of psychology and elsewhere: depth. A "deep" theory is one that relies strongly on internal structures and systems; a "shallow" theory focuses on only those things that can be directly observed or measured. For example, the explanation "the bus came late because the 1pm bus always comes late" is a relatively shallow theory, whereas "the bus came late because promptness isn't very highly valued in our culture" is a relatively deep theory. A deep theory has the disadvantage that it is hard to test. How do you check whether your culture values promptness or not? And how do you check the connection between this and the tardiness of the bus? This is relatively hard to do. On the other hand, a shallow theory, although easier to test, may be missing something. Although it may be true that the 1pm bus is always late, and it is relatively easy to test this, it doesn't tell us very much about buses, and there may be more to the story than that. So this most recent pair of books also serves as a case study in epistemology, prompting us to ask that most important of scientific questions, "how do we know if something is true?". I studied chemical engineering at university, took up linguistics as a hobby, and now spend my time on education, and I can tell you that this question gets only more important the more "fuzzy" the subject matter is. And boy oh boy, education can be real fuzzy. From dogs to philosophy of science. Funny where The Dog Whisperer can take you. Enjoy the episode.   NOTES Links to some articles that I refer to in the episode which criticise Millan are here and here. You may also enjoy South Park episode 7 season 10 entitled Tsst, in which Cesar Millan "rehabilitates" Cartman. It's one of my favourite episodes. Apparently Millan himself thought that the episode was "fantastic".

Last week's episode served as an introduction to behaviourism. This week, in the name of balance, we are looking at another theory of animal training, the so-called dominance approach. Cesar Millan is a Mexican dog trainer who emigrated to the US in his youth. He now has a TV show called The Dog Whisperer. Unlike Karen Pryor, he taught himself his approach to dogs through experience and exposure from an early age. He is said to have "a magical way with dogs", which is something that comes across, at least to the layman, in his show. Millan's approach to dogs concerns thinking about the dog's needs. Perhaps that should read the Dog's needs, as he believes that all dogs have the same psychology, "dog psychology", which is different to human psychology and necessary to understand in order to solve "dog problems". His famous motto, "I rehabilitate dogs, I train people", is a reflection of the philosophy that the reason that dogs have problems is that humans aren't meeting their needs. If it seems presumptuous to you that Millan claims to have a theory of psychology for all dogs, bear in mind what we heard last week: that behaviourists claim to have a theory of psychology for all animals. Everything! Dogs, cats, moles, crabs, bears, whales, elephants, prawns, beetles, fish ... and humans. Millan's theories are infinitely more modest in breadth than those of behaviourists. However, Millan is more ambitious in terms of depth. What I call "fundamentalist" behaviourists - those who adhere to the original philosophy of behaviourism, that internal states either don't exist or don't matter - score a 0 in terms of depth (unless you agree with their assumptions, in which case they score 100%). Cesar Millan making the kinds of claims about what a dog is, and what a dog is like, that fundamentalist behaviourists would never care - or dare - to talk about. This gives us a new dimension for looking at theories of psychology and elsewhere: depth. A "deep" theory is one that relies strongly on internal structures and systems; a "shallow" theory focuses on only those things that can be directly observed or measured. For example, the explanation "the bus came late because the 1pm bus always comes late" is a relatively shallow theory, whereas "the bus came late because promptness isn't very highly valued in our culture" is a relatively deep theory. A deep theory has the disadvantage that it is hard to test. How do you check whether your culture values promptness or not? And how do you check the connection between this and the tardiness of the bus? This is relatively hard to do. On the other hand, a shallow theory, although easier to test, may be missing something. Although it may be true that the 1pm bus is always late, and it is relatively easy to test this, it doesn't tell us very much about buses, and there may be more to the story than that. So this most recent pair of books also serves as a case study in epistemology, prompting us to ask that most important of scientific questions, "how do we know if something is true?". I studied chemical engineering at university, took up linguistics as a hobby, and now spend my time on education, and I can tell you that this question gets only more important the more "fuzzy" the subject matter is. And boy oh boy, education can be real fuzzy. From dogs to philosophy of science. Funny where The Dog Whisperer can take you. Enjoy the episode. NOTES Links to some articles that I refer to in the episode which criticise Millan are <a href="http://drsophiayin.com/philosophy/dominance" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://www.urbandawgs.com/divided_profession.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a>. You may also enjoy South Park episode 7 season 10 entitled Tsst, in which Cesar Millan "rehabilitates" Cartman. It's one of my favourite episodes. Apparently Millan himself thought that the episode was "fantastic".

4. Cesar's Way by Cesar Millan

Sendhil Mullainathan

Eldar Shafir

Although ostensibly about economics, this book is in fact about the effect of poverty of various kinds on the mind. Poverty is a shortage of resources. It could be money, time (busy people are "time-poor"), or some other resource. When people experience scarcity, their minds automatically, subconsciously devote mental resources to the issue. The results of this are two. 1. They are more rational in their approach to the use of the resource, and use it more prudently. For example, usually supermarkets will have more than one size of packs of things, with the idea that if you buy a six-pack, it is cheaper per can than buying six individual cans of drink. However, sometimes supermarkets will play a trick, making the larger pack more expensive per item than the individual item. Poor people get caught out by this kind of trick much less often, as they are paying attention to prices, and reasoning about what is the best use of their money. 2. More importantly, the automatic assignment of mental resources to deal with the scarcity reduces the remaining free mental resources. This means that they have lower self-control, and - rather shockingly - have lower effective intelligence (i.e. they behave as if they were less intelligent than they "really" are, since some of their mental energy is constantly being consigned to worrying about money). This has important consequences for thinking about the way the mind operates, as well as, on a social level, the effect of poverty on people's mental abilities. I hope you can see how, despite appearances, this book is in fact very relevant to education. Enjoy the episode. Music by podcastthemes.com.

Although ostensibly about economics, this book is in fact about the effect of poverty of various kinds on the mind. Poverty is a shortage of resources. It could be money, time (busy people are "time-poor"), or some other resource. When people experience scarcity, their minds automatically, subconsciously devote mental resources to the issue. The results of this are two. 1. They are more rational in their approach to the use of the resource, and use it more prudently. For example, usually supermarkets will have more than one size of packs of things, with the idea that if you buy a six-pack, it is cheaper per can than buying six individual cans of drink. However, sometimes supermarkets will play a trick, making the larger pack more expensive per item than the individual item. Poor people get caught out by this kind of trick much less often, as they are paying attention to prices, and reasoning about what is the best use of their money. 2. More importantly, the automatic assignment of mental resources to deal with the scarcity reduces the remaining free mental resources. This means that they have lower self-control, and - rather shockingly - have lower effective intelligence (i.e. they behave as if they were less intelligent than they "really" are, since some of their mental energy is constantly being consigned to worrying about money). This has important consequences for thinking about the way the mind operates, as well as, on a social level, the effect of poverty on people's mental abilities. I hope you can see how, despite appearances, this book is in fact very relevant to education. Enjoy the episode. Music by <a href="http://podcastthemes.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">podcastthemes.com</a>.

57. Scarcity by Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir

John Wooden

I first read You Haven't Taught Until They Have Learned almost five years ago. In that time, I have learned much about how people learn. Re-reading the book now, I am struck by how much of what John Wooden did in his teaching is well supported by modern cognitive science. This is what I try to convey in this short addendum to the notes on John Wooden's pedagogy. Enjoy the episode.

I first read You Haven't Taught Until They Have Learned almost five years ago. In that time, I have learned much about how people learn. Re-reading the book now, I am struck by how much of what John Wooden did in his teaching is well supported by modern cognitive science. This is what I try to convey in this short addendum to the notes on John Wooden's pedagogy. Enjoy the episode.

72b. John Wooden and cognitive science

This may be the most important episode on the podcast so far. When I started out on this journey of coming to understand education, I had a lot of questions. As I started to interrogate my questions further, probing the more fundamental holes in my understanding that lay behind them, I realised that I was missing answers to the most basic questions you could think of: What is education? And what is learning? I now feel that I have an answer to at least one of these questions. It's a very simple answer. So simple, in fact, that when I first encountered it I felt a mixture of bemusement at its simplicity, and annoyance or even rage at its apparent reductiveness. The definition is as follows: Learning is additions to long-term memory. It felt as though all the other aspects of learning that I had been thinking about - skill development, change in self-perception, the change in who a person is and who they say they are, and the experience itself - had been completely washed over and ignored. This made me mad at the "heartless scientists" (my feelings at the time) who were proposing such a definition. Eventually I realised that this definition is reductive in a "good way". So much in discussions of education ends up bloated with wordiness - finally, this is something succinct. And rather than being reductive in the sense of denying the aspects I mentioned above, it actually incorporates them. It turns out that long-term memory is so much more important than I, or almost anyone else, had previously realised. In this episode I discuss this idea and some of its implications. In the episodes that follow, I will go into this idea in great depth. There is a lot to say about it, and as I said, it may be the most important idea in education overall. Enjoy the episode.

This may be the most important episode on the podcast so far. When I started out on this journey of coming to understand education, I had a lot of questions. As I started to interrogate my questions further, probing the more fundamental holes in my understanding that lay behind them, I realised that I was missing answers to the most basic questions you could think of: What is education? And what is learning? I now feel that I have an answer to at least one of these questions. It's a very simple answer. So simple, in fact, that when I first encountered it I felt a mixture of bemusement at its simplicity, and annoyance or even rage at its apparent reductiveness. The definition is as follows: Learning is additions to long-term memory. It felt as though all the other aspects of learning that I had been thinking about - skill development, change in self-perception, the change in who a person is and who they say they are, and the experience itself - had been completely washed over and ignored. This made me mad at the "heartless scientists" (my feelings at the time) who were proposing such a definition. Eventually I realised that this definition is reductive in a "good way". So much in discussions of education ends up bloated with wordiness - finally, this is something succinct. And rather than being reductive in the sense of denying the aspects I mentioned above, it actually incorporates them. It turns out that long-term memory is so much more important than I, or almost anyone else, had previously realised. In this episode I discuss this idea and some of its implications. In the episodes that follow, I will go into this idea in great depth. There is a lot to say about it, and as I said, it may be the most important idea in education overall. Enjoy the episode.

79. What learning is

John Wooden was a basketball coach for UCLA and an English teacher. He is renowned as one of the greatest coaches of all time, winning 10 out of 12 NCAA championships, including seven in a row, and has been named Coach of the Century by ESPN among others. You Haven't Taught Until They've Learned is a book about his pedagogy, written by one of his former players (Swen Nater) and by an education researcher who had the rare privilege to observe his basketball practices and ask him detailed questions about his teaching (Ronald Gallimore). The dual authorship gives it a valuable two-pronged perspective, that of student as well as that of researcher. As one reads the book, one is struck by the sense that Coach Wooden was not only exceptional in terms of what he did - his approach to teaching - but also who he was - a man of such strong moral character that it is daunting even to use him as a role model. He taught by example as well as teaching explicitly, and his students remember him for that. In his retirement, barely a day went by without one of John Wooden's former students calling him to talk. He pushed his students hard, but he also cared for them deeply. It is surely valuable to examine some of his practices and principles from his exceptional career. Enjoy the episode.

John Wooden was a basketball coach for UCLA and an English teacher. He is renowned as one of the greatest coaches of all time, winning 10 out of 12 NCAA championships, including seven in a row, and has been named Coach of the Century by ESPN among others. You Haven't Taught Until They've Learned is a book about his pedagogy, written by one of his former players (Swen Nater) and by an education researcher who had the rare privilege to observe his basketball practices and ask him detailed questions about his teaching (Ronald Gallimore). The dual authorship gives it a valuable two-pronged perspective, that of student as well as that of researcher. As one reads the book, one is struck by the sense that Coach Wooden was not only exceptional in terms of what he did - his approach to teaching - but also who he was - a man of such strong moral character that it is daunting even to use him as a role model. He taught by example as well as teaching explicitly, and his students remember him for that. In his retirement, barely a day went by without one of John Wooden's former students calling him to talk. He pushed his students hard, but he also cared for them deeply. It is surely valuable to examine some of his practices and principles from his exceptional career. Enjoy the episode.

72a. Star coach John Wooden's pedagogy

In the previous episode, we looked at a range of articles concerning the effectiveness of so-called "brain training" in general, with a particular focus on Lumosity, one of the big players in the market. In this episode, we home in on perhaps the most promising type of "brain training": dual n-back. Dual n-back has more evidence than most other forms of "brain training" that it can increase working memory. This is a big deal, since working memory has otherwise not been found to change due to any intervention, but it is strongly implicated in higher reasoning and generally in intelligence. To paraphrase cognitive scientist Dan Willingham, if a genie were to suddenly appear and offer to increase your cognitive capacity in any way, your best choice would be to ask for more working memory. And dual n-back might just be the granting of that wish. One further advantage of dual n-back is that it is an unpatented technique, rather than software from one company in particular. You can find and use free dual N-back applications for the computer or mobile device. This also means that the waters are less muddied by the advertising / propaganda of people trying to make money from it. One thing we must keep in mind is that investing time and energy into any sort of "brain training" brings up an opportunity cost. Could that time and energy have been better used by learning something new - a new sport, craft, language, or field of study? Might not a change in diet, improved sleep, or increased exercise do more for the day-to-day working of one's brain than such specialised computer games? While none of the above are proven to permanently increase working memory, their effect on thinking is well-documented, and considerably less controversial than any brain-training, including dual n-back. If dual n-back works, we should probably have all pupils and students use it; if it doesn't, then we must not be distracted by it. Which will it be? Listen to the episode to find out more. Enjoy the episode.   Articles referred to in this episode: Jaeggi et al. (2008). Improving fluid intelligence with training on working memory. Jaeggi et al. (2010). The relationship between n-back performance and matrix reasoning - implications for training and transfer. Morrison and Chein (2011). Does working memory training work? The promise and challenges of enhancing cognition by training working memory. St Claire-Thompson et al. (2010). Improving children's working memory and classroom performance. Kroesbergen et al. (2014). Training working memory in kindergarten children: Effects on working memory and early numeracy. Shipstead et al. (2012). Is Working Memory Training Effective? Reddick et al. (2013). No Evidence of Intelligence Improvement after Working Memory Training: A Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Study. Lervag and Holme (2013). Is Working Memory Training Effective? A Meta-Analytic Review. Lilienthal et al. (2013). Dual n-back training increases the capacity of the focus of attention. Colom et al. (2013). Adaptive n-back training does not improve fluid intelligence at the construct level: Gains on individual tests suggest that training may enhance visuospatial processing. Lebedev et al. (2017). Working memory and reasoning tasks are associated with different modes of large-scale dynamics in healthy older adults.

In the previous episode, we looked at a range of articles concerning the effectiveness of so-called "brain training" in general, with a particular focus on Lumosity, one of the big players in the market. In this episode, we home in on perhaps the most promising type of "brain training": dual n-back. Dual n-back has more evidence than most other forms of "brain training" that it can increase working memory. This is a big deal, since working memory has otherwise not been found to change due to any intervention, but it is strongly implicated in higher reasoning and generally in intelligence. To paraphrase cognitive scientist Dan Willingham, if a genie were to suddenly appear and offer to increase your cognitive capacity in any way, your best choice would be to ask for more working memory. And dual n-back might just be the granting of that wish. One further advantage of dual n-back is that it is an unpatented technique, rather than software from one company in particular. You can find and use free dual N-back applications for the computer or mobile device. This also means that the waters are less muddied by the advertising / propaganda of people trying to make money from it. One thing we must keep in mind is that investing time and energy into any sort of "brain training" brings up an opportunity cost. Could that time and energy have been better used by learning something new - a new sport, craft, language, or field of study? Might not a change in diet, improved sleep, or increased exercise do more for the day-to-day working of one's brain than such specialised computer games? While none of the above are proven to permanently increase working memory, their effect on thinking is well-documented, and considerably less controversial than any brain-training, including dual n-back. If dual n-back works, we should probably have all pupils and students use it; if it doesn't, then we must not be distracted by it. Which will it be? Listen to the episode to find out more. Enjoy the episode. Articles referred to in this episode: Jaeggi et al. (2008). Improving fluid intelligence with training on working memory. Jaeggi et al. (2010). The relationship between n-back performance and matrix reasoning - implications for training and transfer. Morrison and Chein (2011). Does working memory training work? The promise and challenges of enhancing cognition by training working memory. St Claire-Thompson et al. (2010). Improving children's working memory and classroom performance. Kroesbergen et al. (2014). Training working memory in kindergarten children: Effects on working memory and early numeracy. Shipstead et al. (2012). Is Working Memory Training Effective? Reddick et al. (2013). No Evidence of Intelligence Improvement after Working Memory Training: A Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Study. Lervag and Holme (2013). Is Working Memory Training Effective? A Meta-Analytic Review. Lilienthal et al. (2013). Dual n-back training increases the capacity of the focus of attention. Colom et al. (2013). Adaptive n-back training does not improve fluid intelligence at the construct level: Gains on individual tests suggest that training may enhance visuospatial processing. Lebedev et al. (2017). Working memory and reasoning tasks are associated with different modes of large-scale dynamics in healthy older adults.

60. Dual N-Back: The best "brain training"?

Learning styles are one of the most widely believed psychological ideas known by scientists to be invalid. Over 90% of university students in the USA believe in them, and most adults will gladly share whether they consider themselves to be visual, auditory, or kinaesthetic learners (VAK theory is the leading learning styles theory). In this episode, we look at six publications showing the problems with learning styles theories. The problems fall into three layers:  The questionnaires for many learning styles theories (i.e. the way in which the learning style of a given person is determined) have problems of validity, meaning that they don't measure anything, or they don't measure what they claim to measure. For example, if everyone answers that they would rather learn a dance by dancing it rather than by watching it or listening to an explanation, then that probably says more about what a good way to teach dancing is, rather than what learning style the individuals have. The questionnaires also suffer from problems of reliability. This means that when the same person is re-measured, they get a different result, which means that the measurement isn't trustworthy, and therefore means that nothing is being measured. Those few theories that are shown to be both valid and reliable then have to be tested for whether they actually make a difference to student learning. Is it better to teach visual learners visually, auditory learners auditively, etc.? It turns out that there is no evidence for this in the research in high-quality studies, and in fact there is much evidence to the contrary (that your supposed learning style makes no difference to the way you learn).  Thankfully, the lack of validity of the idea of learning styles simplifies the task of teachers and other educational professionals greatly. You don't have to think about learning styles! Enjoy the episode.   Notes The articles covered in this episode are the following: Dembo &amp; Howard (2007). Advice about the use of learning styles: a major myth in education. Pashler et al. (2017). Learning styles - concepts and evidence. Willingham et al. (2015). The scientific status of learning styles theories. Cuevas (2015). Is learning-styles based instruction effective? A comprehensive analysis of recent research in learning styles. Kirschner (2016). Stop propagating the learning styles myth. Reiner &amp; Willingham (2010). The Myth of Learning Styles.

Learning styles are one of the most widely believed psychological ideas known by scientists to be invalid. Over 90% of university students in the USA believe in them, and most adults will gladly share whether they consider themselves to be visual, auditory, or kinaesthetic learners (VAK theory is the leading learning styles theory). In this episode, we look at six publications showing the problems with learning styles theories. The problems fall into three layers: <ol> <li>The questionnaires for many learning styles theories (i.e. the way in which the learning style of a given person is determined) have problems of validity, meaning that they don't measure anything, or they don't measure what they claim to measure. For example, if everyone answers that they would rather learn a dance by dancing it rather than by watching it or listening to an explanation, then that probably says more about what a good way to teach dancing is, rather than what learning style the individuals have.</li> <li>The questionnaires also suffer from problems of reliability. This means that when the same person is re-measured, they get a different result, which means that the measurement isn't trustworthy, and therefore means that nothing is being measured.</li> <li>Those few theories that are shown to be both valid and reliable then have to be tested for whether they actually make a difference to student learning. Is it better to teach visual learners visually, auditory learners auditively, etc.? It turns out that there is no evidence for this in the research in high-quality studies, and in fact there is much evidence to the contrary (that your supposed learning style makes no difference to the way you learn).</li> </ol> Thankfully, the lack of validity of the idea of learning styles simplifies the task of teachers and other educational professionals greatly. You don't have to think about learning styles! Enjoy the episode. Notes The articles covered in this episode are the following: Dembo &amp; Howard (2007). Advice about the use of learning styles: a major myth in education. Pashler et al. (2017). Learning styles - concepts and evidence. Willingham et al. (2015). The scientific status of learning styles theories. Cuevas (2015). Is learning-styles based instruction effective? A comprehensive analysis of recent research in learning styles. Kirschner (2016). Stop propagating the learning styles myth. Reiner &amp; Willingham (2010). The Myth of Learning Styles.

81a. The Myth of Learning Styles

Malcolm Gladwell

The funny thing about Malcolm Gladwell is that everyone seems toenjoy reading him, but few remember many details of what heactually wrote. I had a conversation with a parent of one of mystudents not long ago about the overestimation of the importance ofIQ, referencing some studies done by Lewis Terman. She listenedwith rapt attention and deep in thought. The information seemednew, original, and surprising to her. I mentioned that MalcolmGladwell wrote about this in his book Outliers, to which sheresponded, "I read that book!" Apparently these things don'tstick! Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking is one ofGladwell's many bestsellers. He seems to have an enduring interestin both psychology and in education, which means that he'll makeseveral appearances on the podcast, even though he's "just ajournalist". He seems to draw people in with his combination ofViking-quality storytelling and modern statistical and scientificthinking. It seems to me that his later books are more knowledge-and idea-rich, and his earlier ones are a bit moretake-one-idea-as-far-as-you-can. The idea in Blink is that some apparent thinking is done withoutconscious processing (although Gladwell puts it in much sexierterms). For example, art critics know whether something is agenuine Greek sculpture or not because they can *feel* it, and theyoften can't explain why. Their intuitions can be - tend to be, infact - more accurate than careful and detailed analysis andbackground investigations. What's going on here? If you've been paying attention to the podcast so far, youshould see where this fits in with the themes we've been exploring.Several books so far have been concerned with something similar.Thinking, Fast and Slow is about cognitive biases, which aresubconscious "wrong" thinking. The Power of Habit looked at howpeople can learn even when they can't form any long-term memories."Picture yourself as a stereotypical male" dealt with stereotypethreat, i.e. how people subconsciously fulfil stereotypes aboutgroups they belong to. Apart from the idea of subconscious thinking, Gladwell alsodiscusses some cases where this thinking is accurate, and otherswhere it is wrong, or even disastrous. Surprise surprise, expertstend to have valid intuitions, whereas novices shouldn't trusttheir gut feeling. This idea of the differences between experts andnovices is one reason why we're covering this book now, as our nexttheme for the coming weeks will be the question "how do people getgood at things?". Enjoy the episode.

The funny thing about Malcolm Gladwell is that everyone seems to enjoy reading him, but few remember many details of what he actually wrote. I had a conversation with a parent of one of my students not long ago about the overestimation of the importance of IQ, referencing some studies done by Lewis Terman. She listened with rapt attention and deep in thought. The information seemed new, original, and surprising to her. I mentioned that Malcolm Gladwell wrote about this in his book Outliers, to which she responded, "I read that book!" Apparently these things don't stick! Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking is one of Gladwell's many bestsellers. He seems to have an enduring interest in both psychology and in education, which means that he'll make several appearances on the podcast, even though he's "just a journalist". He seems to draw people in with his combination of Viking-quality storytelling and modern statistical and scientific thinking. It seems to me that his later books are more knowledge- and idea-rich, and his earlier ones are a bit more take-one-idea-as-far-as-you-can. The idea in Blink is that some apparent thinking is done without conscious processing (although Gladwell puts it in much sexier terms). For example, art critics know whether something is a genuine Greek sculpture or not because they can *feel* it, and they often can't explain why. Their intuitions can be - tend to be, in fact - more accurate than careful and detailed analysis and background investigations. What's going on here? If you've been paying attention to the podcast so far, you should see where this fits in with the themes we've been exploring. Several books so far have been concerned with something similar. Thinking, Fast and Slow is about cognitive biases, which are subconscious "wrong" thinking. The Power of Habit looked at how people can learn even when they can't form any long-term memories. "Picture yourself as a stereotypical male" dealt with stereotype threat, i.e. how people subconsciously fulfil stereotypes about groups they belong to. Apart from the idea of subconscious thinking, Gladwell also discusses some cases where this thinking is accurate, and others where it is wrong, or even disastrous. Surprise surprise, experts tend to have valid intuitions, whereas novices shouldn't trust their gut feeling. This idea of the differences between experts and novices is one reason why we're covering this book now, as our next theme for the coming weeks will be the question "how do people get good at things?". Enjoy the episode.

17. Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

A while back, I listened to an interview with Bruce Lee*. There were two things that I took away from it, neither of which I understood at the time: Bruce Lee's insistence that martial arts are first and foremost about self-expression; and the concept of "acting un-acting" or "un-acting acting" (elsewhere I have heard him talk about "fighting un-fighting"). Recently I was reminded of this interview, but this time it made sense to me, because of what I had learned in the meantime about the nature of learning. Perhaps surprisingly, another look at what he had said got me to think of A Mathematician's Lament, an article by Paul Lockhart about maths education that had I previously covered on the podcast. I feel as though, armed with my new insights, I have a feeling as to what Paul Lockhart may have gotten wrong in his controversial piece. Overall, then, I am able to extract some ideas from what Bruce Lee says in a rather more coded or mysterious way, and generalise them so that they can apply to any field, while showing how they apply to maths in particular. Enjoy the episode.   *Full interview available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jfQSCbkA940, entitled "Bruce Lee Interview HQ".

A while back, I listened to an interview with Bruce Lee*. There were two things that I took away from it, neither of which I understood at the time: Bruce Lee's insistence that martial arts are first and foremost about self-expression; and the concept of "acting un-acting" or "un-acting acting" (elsewhere I have heard him talk about "fighting un-fighting"). Recently I was reminded of this interview, but this time it made sense to me, because of what I had learned in the meantime about the nature of learning. Perhaps surprisingly, another look at what he had said got me to think of A Mathematician's Lament, an article by Paul Lockhart about maths education that had I previously covered on the podcast. I feel as though, armed with my new insights, I have a feeling as to what Paul Lockhart may have gotten wrong in his controversial piece. Overall, then, I am able to extract some ideas from what Bruce Lee says in a rather more coded or mysterious way, and generalise them so that they can apply to any field, while showing how they apply to maths in particular. Enjoy the episode. *Full interview available at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jfQSCbkA940" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jfQSCbkA940</a>, entitled "Bruce Lee Interview HQ".

64. What Bruce Lee taught me about learning

When she was working at Delano Elementary School in Chicago, Marva would often be given the "worst", most disruptive students, and in her 14 years there she developed a way of dealing with them. By the time she set up her own school, she was a master of helping them get out of their destructive cycle and working to achieve their academic and social potential, which was way beyond what anybody had expected. In this episode, we look at several examples of Marva Collins dealing with particularly recalcitrant children. She is the expert here, so it's best to leave the talking to her. Enjoy the episode.

When she was working at Delano Elementary School in Chicago, Marva would often be given the "worst", most disruptive students, and in her 14 years there she developed a way of dealing with them. By the time she set up her own school, she was a master of helping them get out of their destructive cycle and working to achieve their academic and social potential, which was way beyond what anybody had expected. In this episode, we look at several examples of Marva Collins dealing with particularly recalcitrant children. She is the expert here, so it's best to leave the talking to her. Enjoy the episode.

74c. Dealing with difficult children

Daniel Pink

Common sense tells us that in order to get someone to do something, or to get them to do it better (faster, more thoroughly, more carefully), you might offer them a reward - or if the offer is already there, increase its size. All kinds of clever-sounding people hold this view - principally economists and management consultants, but more or less anyone else too, as it seems to be so basic and so widespread an idea as to not merit further inspection. Daniel Pink's book Drive introduces us to the research that seems to turn much of this "common sense" on its head. It turns out the rewards such as financial incentives usually make people perform worse. It's not limited to financial incentives (although Pink focuses on these), and not even limited to people - the initial example given is of how giving contingent food rewards to monkeys makes them worse at learning how to open latches than literally just leaving the monkeys alone. In place of the carrots-and-sticks theory, Pink introduces us to a new theory, which is about 40 years old and yet still isn't all that well known. According to MAP theory (not the only name), the most important components of motivation are mastery, autonomy, and purpose. The author explains to us in more detail quite what each of these mean, but in short, people are motivated to do things when they can apply their existing expertise and develop it further; choose what they get to do, when, how, and with whom; and do something that they think is important, and/or connects them to other people. One of the reasons that it's taken so long for the ideas to catch on is the prevalence not only of the "rational agent model" of economics, but also of the psychological field of behaviourism. Behaviourism, along with psychoanalysis (a very different and mostly incompatible worldview), was the leading theory in psychology in the first half of the 20th century, and remains influential today. It turns out that behaviourists aren't completely wrong that rewards can motivate behaviour, but it also turns out that rats pushing buttons isn't the same as humans doing creative work. Separating out when using rewards is a good idea and when it isn't is an important question, and one that Daniel Pink also addresses. Behaviourism is a huge topic in its own right, and we will have to tackle it in a separate episode (or three). For now, though, Daniel Pink's book gives us a fascinating and, to be honest, heartening new way of looking at human motivation and behaviour. Enjoy the episode.

Common sense tells us that in order to get someone to do something, or to get them to do it better (faster, more thoroughly, more carefully), you might offer them a reward - or if the offer is already there, increase its size. All kinds of clever-sounding people hold this view - principally economists and management consultants, but more or less anyone else too, as it seems to be so basic and so widespread an idea as to not merit further inspection. Daniel Pink's book Drive introduces us to the research that seems to turn much of this "common sense" on its head. It turns out the rewards such as financial incentives usually make people perform worse. It's not limited to financial incentives (although Pink focuses on these), and not even limited to people - the initial example given is of how giving contingent food rewards to monkeys makes them worse at learning how to open latches than literally just leaving the monkeys alone. In place of the carrots-and-sticks theory, Pink introduces us to a new theory, which is about 40 years old and yet still isn't all that well known. According to MAP theory (not the only name), the most important components of motivation are mastery, autonomy, and purpose. The author explains to us in more detail quite what each of these mean, but in short, people are motivated to do things when they can apply their existing expertise and develop it further; choose what they get to do, when, how, and with whom; and do something that they think is important, and/or connects them to other people. One of the reasons that it's taken so long for the ideas to catch on is the prevalence not only of the "rational agent model" of economics, but also of the psychological field of behaviourism. Behaviourism, along with psychoanalysis (a very different and mostly incompatible worldview), was the leading theory in psychology in the first half of the 20th century, and remains influential today. It turns out that behaviourists aren't completely wrong that rewards can motivate behaviour, but it also turns out that rats pushing buttons isn't the same as humans doing creative work. Separating out when using rewards is a good idea and when it isn't is an important question, and one that Daniel Pink also addresses. Behaviourism is a huge topic in its own right, and we will have to tackle it in a separate episode (or three). For now, though, Daniel Pink's book gives us a fascinating and, to be honest, heartening new way of looking at human motivation and behaviour. Enjoy the episode.

2. Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink

After the events of summer 1982, when Jaime Escalante's Advanced Placement Calculus students were accused of cheating and then vindicated on a re-test, Escalante had become famous first in local and then national news. The original story about an American institution, ETS, allegedly discriminating based on race to accuse the latino students of cheating, turned into a story of surprise and applause as an "academic sinkhole" like Garfield High managed to have such a large number of students taking AP Calculus. The events of 1982 inspired a film about Jaime Escalante, Stand and Deliver, which spread his fame to an even wider audience. But the film came too early. In the years following 1982, calculus at Garfield High continuedto grow with the same momentum, reaching ever greater heights. After the 18 students taking the exam in 1982, there were 33 in 1983, a whopping 68 in 1984 (more than double the previous year!), and two years later, in 1986, a staggering 151 students took the test, more than eight times as many as in the year that brought Escalante fame. While AP Calculus was in overdrive, other AP programs also began to thrive. Garfield High now offered Advanced Placement courses in History, English, Biology, Physics, French, Government, and Computer Science, with a growing number of students taking these year on year. Within twelve years, Garfield High had transformed from a gang-ridden hole on the brink of being shut down, to an academic beacon with a waiting list of 400 students. It is truly a story worth telling. Enjoy the episode.

After the events of summer 1982, when Jaime Escalante's Advanced Placement Calculus students were accused of cheating and then vindicated on a re-test, Escalante had become famous first in local and then national news. The original story about an American institution, ETS, allegedly discriminating based on race to accuse the latino students of cheating, turned into a story of surprise and applause as an "academic sinkhole" like Garfield High managed to have such a large number of students taking AP Calculus. The events of 1982 inspired a film about Jaime Escalante, Stand and Deliver, which spread his fame to an even wider audience. But the film came too early. In the years following 1982, calculus at Garfield High continuedto grow with the same momentum, reaching ever greater heights. After the 18 students taking the exam in 1982, there were 33 in 1983, a whopping 68 in 1984 (more than double the previous year!), and two years later, in 1986, a staggering 151 students took the test, more than eight times as many as in the year that brought Escalante fame. While AP Calculus was in overdrive, other AP programs also began to thrive. Garfield High now offered Advanced Placement courses in History, English, Biology, Physics, French, Government, and Computer Science, with a growing number of students taking these year on year. Within twelve years, Garfield High had transformed from a gang-ridden hole on the brink of being shut down, to an academic beacon with a waiting list of 400 students. It is truly a story worth telling. Enjoy the episode.

73e. Escalante - the glory years

Daniel Kahneman

A classic book on people's irrationalities. Daniel Kahneman is a Nobel Prize-winning psychologist and cognitive scientist. Together with his late research partner Amos Tversky, he co-founded the field of cognitive heuristics and biases in psychology, and that of behavioural economics. This all stems from his investigations into the irrationalities of human thought.   In this book, he explains his findings from a lifetime of research.   NOTES In the introduction to the episode, I mention some PISA reports with international perspectives on education. Here are links to all six volumes of the 2012 report: Volume I: What Students Know and Can Do: Student Performance in Mathematics, Reading, and Science Volume II: Excellence through Equity: Giving Every Student the Chance to Succeed Volume III: Ready to Learn: Students' Engagement, Drive, and Self-Beliefs Volume IV: What Makes Schools Successful? Resources, Policies and Practices Volume V: Creative Problem Solving - Students' Skills in Tackling Real-Life Problems Volume VI: Students and Money - Financial Literacy Skills for the 21st Century The other figure I mention, who talks about education in international perspective with an anti-PISA stance, is Yong Zhao. His website is zhaolearning.com.

A classic book on people's irrationalities. Daniel Kahneman is a Nobel Prize-winning psychologist and cognitive scientist. Together with his late research partner Amos Tversky, he co-founded the field of cognitive heuristics and biases in psychology, and that of behavioural economics. This all stems from his investigations into the irrationalities of human thought. In this book, he explains his findings from a lifetime of research. NOTES In the introduction to the episode, I mention some PISA reports with international perspectives on education. Here are links to all six volumes of the 2012 report: <a href="https://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/pisa-2012-results-volume-I.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Volume I: What Students Know and Can Do: Student Performance in Mathematics, Reading, and Science</a> <a href="https://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/pisa-2012-results-volume-II.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Volume II: Excellence through Equity: Giving Every Student the Chance to Succeed</a> <a href="https://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/pisa-2012-results-volume-III.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Volume III: Ready to Learn: Students' Engagement, Drive, and Self-Beliefs</a> <a href="https://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/pisa-2012-results-volume-IV.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Volume IV: What Makes Schools Successful? Resources, Policies and Practices</a> <a href="https://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/pisa-2012-results-volume-V.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Volume V: Creative Problem Solving - Students' Skills in Tackling Real-Life Problems</a> <a href="https://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/pisa-2012-results-volume-VI.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Volume VI: Students and Money - Financial Literacy Skills for the 21st Century</a> The other figure I mention, who talks about education in international perspective with an anti-PISA stance, is Yong Zhao. His website is <a href="http://zhaolearning.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">zhaolearning.com</a>.

11. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

The Best Multi-Part Documentaries, with documentaries on Obama, Federer vs Nadal, the making of Star Wars, Netflix vs Blockbuster and more. Add episodes you're interested into your queue below!

Best Multi-Part Documentaries

The best philosophy podcast episodes. Asking questions about how to live a better life, what it means to be and do good, to the idea of God. This topic includes episodes that bring about important questions that everyone should be asking themselves. Add episodes you're interested into your queue below!