Waterstones The Power of Mindful Learning
145 ratings
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Price: £12.99
Brand: Waterstones
Description: Radical in its implications, this original and important work may change forever the views we hold about the nature of learning. In The Power of Mindful Learning, Ellen Langer uses her innovative theory of mindulness, introduced in her influential earlier book, to dramatically enhance the way we learn. In business, sports, labouratories, or at home, our learning is hobbled by certain antiquated and pervasive misconceptions. In this pithy, liberating, and delightful book she gives us a fresh, new view of learning in the broadest sense. Such familiar notions as delayed gratification, the basics, or even right answers, are all incapacitating myths which Langer explodes one by one. She replaces them with her concept of mindful or conditional learning which she demonstrates, with fascinating examples from her research, to be extraordinarily effective. Mindful learning takes place with an awareness of context and of the ever-changing nature of information. Learning without this awareness, as Langer shows convincingly, has severely limited uses and often sets on up for failure. With stunning applications to skills as diverse as paying attention, CPR, investment analysis, psychotherapy, or playing a musical instrument, The Power of Mindful Learning is for all who are curious and intellectually adventurous.
Category: Books
Merchant: Waterstones
Product ID: 9780738219080
Delivery cost: 2.99
ISBN: 9780738219080
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Author: Adriano Silva
Rating: 5
Review: This is a book that brought enlightenment and freshness in many ways to me and opened the doors of new, exciting and innovative ways to improve teaching and learning - even though the subject of mindfulness has been there for ages, especially in the East. She provides some great insights and advocates each of the topics in a way that at least most of times makes a lot of sense - those few that didn't might have been a question of re-reading to better understand. However, if you want to apply these insights to the real world, you'll need some additional literature to figure out what works with certain types of students and what doesn't - that may include to apply some of the "traditional" ways of teaching until you and your students are comfortable with this new approach, because, yes, this is a learning to learn process for the students included.
Author: Stephen Armstrong
Rating: 3
Review: This book exemplifies the post-modern trend in psychological thinking, i.e., (i) There are no universally valid "givens," other than this one; (ii) Truth depends on perspective and context; and (iii) Validity stems from a proposition's meaning, and so forth. Langer happens to be one of the more articulate proponents of this kind of thinking, namely: (i) conditional teaching and (ii) creative distractions increase the "mindfulness" of a person's learning; that (iii) rote learning is verboten, (iv) that one should help youngsters move toward "mindfulness," and (v) that "flexibility" in thinking, not raw intellect, is favored as an indicator of intellect. Some of her techniques can be useful to educators and teachers: (i) conditional questions and presentations, (ii) mindful scanning, (iii) reading from more than one perspective, (iv) searching for differences, (v) shifting questions from "obvious" to "not so obvious," and so on. Despite the post-modern flavor, the embedded educational philosophy here is Progressive and Romantic, not Basics, so if you want something that will tell you how good it is to memorize the multiplication tables, this book is not it. While I have do doubt that Prof. Langer is a very creative and unique person, the unstated educational philosophy here is as elite and as unfulfilling as a Bordeaux cookie.
