Unfortunately I could only find this book in Spanish although OpenLibrary has a bit of a mess on the existence of an english version.

Table of contents

1. How the brain works
2. Concentrating for learning
3. Thinking for learning
4. Remembering for learning
5. Forgetting for learning
6. Diversifying for learning
7. Motivating for learning
8. Self control for learning

Notes on the book

This is a book about learning process and how the brain works in order to acquire new knowledge. It attacks the problem from different perspectives but also debunks some neuromiths about learning.

It builds a really useful mental model to acquire new knowledge. It breaks the memory in long term memory and working memory. The working memory is more flexible but super limited. We need to reduce the things that we are currently learning and try to move them into the long term memory. The long term memory works by creating connections so the more you want to keep something there the more connections it needs to have with something else. The more connections the thing has the easiest it is to draw something out of the long term memory. So if we want to add something to the long term memory we need to optimize for creating that kind of connections. That is when reading and reading over the same text becomes useless. Ideally you need to find the same subject of learning in different contexts and explained in different ways. Also, you can use your own words for it. That will make it more likely to stay in your long term memory.

The approach of having the less cognitive load when learning the better reminded me a lot to what we do when organizing teams in Team Topologies, that we want people to be as focused in the task at matter the most.

Some myths that are proven wrong that surprised me in particular are:

• There is a different way of learning for different people. Evidence points in the direction of that not being the case. There are ways that are better for everyone. Anyway our brains are wired to take the path of less resistance (remember thinking fast and slow?) so we favour the methods that we like the most.
• One of the worst problems we may find during the process of learning is finding distractions. For example, listening to music is proven to be a distraction no matter the genre.
• Reading again and again the same text does not improve learning. You need to assimilate the contents using techniques like explaining the subject in your own words. This reminded me the Feynman technique for learning something new.