Cutting-edge skills for twenty-first-century learners and educators.Designed to transform teaching practice, this book provides the tools to understand thinking patterns and how learning actually happens. It empowers teachers to structure learning in the most meaningful way, helping students explore new paths to knowledge.

Featuring a foreword by David Brooks, This Will Make You Smarter presents brilliant—but accessible—scientific concepts to expand every mind.What scientific concept would improve everybody’s cognitive toolkit? This is the question John Brockman, publisher of Edge.org, posed to the world’s most influential thinkers. Their visionary answers flow from the frontiers of psychology, philosophy, economics, physics, sociology, and more. Surprising and enli...

When you understand how the mind works, you can think smarter—and act smarter.Based on the precepts of cognitive science and drawing on a half century of interdisciplinary studies, Smart Thinking is the first book to reveal a three-part formula that distinguishes Smart Thinking from innate intelligence and shows how memory works, how to learn effectively, and how to use knowledge when you need to get things done.Beginning with defining the difference betwee...

"A supremely enjoyable, intoxicating work." —NatureHow did we come to have minds? For centuries, poets, philosophers, psychologists, and physicists have wondered how the human mind developed its unrivaled abilities. Disciples of Darwin have explained how natural selection produced plants, but what about the human mind?In From Bacteria to Bach and Back, Daniel C. Dennett builds on recent discoveries from biology and computer science to show...

Universal Principles of Design, Revised and Updated is a comprehensive, cross-disciplinary encyclopedia covering 125 laws, guidelines, human biases, and general considerations important to successful design. Richly illustrated and easy to navigate, it pairs clear explanations of every design concept with visual examples of the ideas applied in practice. From the 80/20 Rule to the Weakest Link, every major design concept is defined and illustrated.Whether a...

Paula Lillard, director of a Montessori school ranging in age from 18 months to fifteen years, provides a clear and cogent introduction to the Montessori program for the elementary and later years. In detailed accounts, Lillard shows how children acquire the skills to answer their own questions, learn to manage freedom with responsibility, and maintain a high level of intellectual stimulation by using the Montessori method. This is an essential handbook for parents and teachers who have ch...

"Theway Brockman interlaces essays about research on the frontiers of science withones on artistic vision, education, psychology and economics is sure to buzzany brain." —Chicago Sun-Times on This WillChange EverythingMarkingthe debut of a hard-hitting new series from Edge.org and Harper Perennial,editor John Brockman delivers a cutting-edge master class covering everythingyou need to know about The Mind. With original contributions by theworld’s leading thinkers and scientists, in...

**“The Knowledge Illusion is filled with insights on how we should deal with our individual ignorance and collective wisdom.” —Steven PinkerWe all think we know more than we actually do.**Humans have built hugely complex societies and technologies, but most of us don’t even know how a pen or a toilet works. How have we achieved so much despite understanding so little? Cognitive scientists Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach argue that we survive and thrive despite ou...

Our lives are composed of millions of choices, ranging from trivial to life-changing and momentous. Luckily, our brains have evolved a number of mental shortcuts, biases, and tricks that allow us to quickly negotiate this endless array of decisions. We don’t want to rationally deliberate every choice we make, and thanks to these cognitive rules of thumb, we don’t need to.Yet these hard-wired shortcuts, mental wonders though they may be, can also be perilous. They can disto...

In this landmark book, Scott Page redefines the way we understand ourselves in relation to one another. The Difference is about how we think in groups--and how our collective wisdom exceeds the sum of its parts. Why can teams of people find better solutions than brilliant individuals working alone? And why are the best group decisions and predictions those that draw upon the very qualities that make each of us unique? The answers lie in diversity--not what we look like outside, bu...

Few people devote time to think about, or to improve, their thinking processes, preferring, instead, to focus on outcomes—decisions, plans, conclusions, and judgments—that so preoccupy the North American psyche. This fixation on the latter stages of thinking is backwards and responsible, in large part, for results that are not always optimal. Think Well & Prosper provides insights into the structure of thinking. It breaks down—analyses—the thinking process into understandable steps and seq...

Psychology professor Gary Marcus explores how evolution has affected—and altered—the functioning of the human brain in Kluge.A New York Times Book Review Editors' ChoiceHow is it that we can recognize photos from our high school yearbook decades later, but cannot remember what we ate for breakfast yesterday? And why are we inclined to buy more cans of soup if the sign says Limit 12 Per Customer rather than Limit...