Category Archives: Book Reviews

From Stressed to Resilient by Deborah Gilboa

Our lives are filled with change and all change is stressful whether that change is good or bad. Whether stress takes a toll on our well-being or whether we use that stress to build resilience is determined partly by a



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Teaching Minds & Brains: the Best Books to Read

When I started in this field, back in 2008, we all HUNGERED for good books. After all, teaching is profoundly complicated. And, psychology is mightily complicated. And, neuroscience is fantastically (unbearably?) complicated. If we’re going to put those three fields



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Future Tense by Tracy Dennis-Tiwary

Being that approximately 20% of US adults have reported having an anxiety disorder in the last year, and many more have experienced situational anxiety which they are trying to reduce, Tracy Dennis-Tiwary suggests it is time for us to redefine



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The Best Book on Cognitive Load Theory: Ollie Lovell to the Rescue

Teaching ought to be easy. After all, we have a functionally infinite amount of long-term memory. You don’t have to forget one thing to learn another thing — really. So: I should be able to shovel information and skills into



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Remembering and Forgetting in the Age of Technology by Michelle Miller

The cognition of remembering and forgetting is central to our lives and our intellectual valuation of ourselves. Remembering and Forgetting in the Age of Technology: Teaching, Learning, and the Science of Memory in a Wired World refreshes our knowledge and



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The Power of Us by Dominic Packer and Jay Van Bavel

The broad use of social media, internet search engines, personalized news feeds, and other emerging information technologies have influenced the ways we have been constructing our identities. This has only accelerated during the ongoing pandemic as many of our social



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Failure to Disrupt by Justin Reich

Failure to Disrupt: Why Technology Alone Can’t Transform Education is a well-written critical synthesis of overzealous claims and unrealistic attempts to revolutionize education through technology. Its author, Justin Reich, is an Assistant Professor in the Comparative Media Studies department at



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The Art of Insubordination by Todd Kashdan

The Art of Insubordination: How to Dissent and Defy Effectively, a provocative title in a time of incredible social turmoil. One may think Todd B. Kashdan focuses on defying a system that is oppressive and conformist; the title brings to



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Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics, Grades K-12 by Peter Liljedahl

Initially, I looked at this title and thought “not another best practice book” the bookstores already have too many poor books on how to teach content effectively. However, I begrudgingly opened Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics, Grades K-12: 14 Teaching



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Rationality by Steven Pinker

Over the last couple of years, we have often felt like the world is losing its collective mind. The news is profuse with interviews and shocking examples of apparent declines in rational thinking, and we are faced with regular internet



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