Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Book Review: Brain Rules

Title: Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School
Author: John Medina
Review:

Should classrooms come complete with treadmills?
Should the school day include nap time?
Should students have the same class three times in the same day to optimize content review?
Should I spray the walls of my classroom with Brute?
Should I delete any PowerPoint presentation I see with words on it?
Should our core content classes be taught in single gender classes?

John Medina is a molecular biologist who is intimately aware of decades of brain research.  More importantly, he is able to take that information and put it into laymen's terms that everyone can understand (most of the time).  Knowing how the brain works (what helps and hinders learning) can help us teach students effectively.

Medina's ideas based on this research are interesting to say the least. Some of them are simple to implement. Others would takes some major idea wrangling to get accomplished.  The bottom line is this book shows us everything we've been doing wrong in education for years and years.



You can read more about the book (and its companions) at www.brainrules.net.