PDF Summary:Uncommon Sense Teaching, by Barbara Oakley, Beth Rogowsky, and Terrence J. Sejnowski

Teachers and students alike often struggle. What if that’s because our ideas about teaching are all wrong? In Uncommon Sense Teaching, learning experts Barbara Oakley and Beth Rogowsky team up with neuroscientist Terrence Sejnowski to explain how your brain actually processes and stores information. They also provide practical, science-based strategies to help you harness your brain’s natural learning mechanisms.

We’ll begin this guide by explaining how learning works in a neurological sense and discussing the two main systems your brain uses to learn new information. Then, we’ll explore various ways to create a healthy and effective learning environment for others. In our commentary, we’ll go into greater detail about the scientific reasons behind the authors’ methods. We’ll also compare and contrast their ideas with those of other influential books on education, such as Jim Kwik’s Limitless and Oakley’s own A Mind for Numbers. Finally, we’ll suggest some actionable ways to improve your own learning and teaching skills.

(continued)...

The authors emphasize that the process of storing memories takes time, and that you can’t learn effectively if you’re constantly barraged with facts and ideas. Therefore, any type of learning should involve alternating periods of gathering new information and working with that information in order to process it—this is known as active learning. Processing might involve activities like discussing the topic with someone else who’s studying it, working on practice problems, or “re-teaching” the new concepts to another person.

(Shortform note: Many people believe active learning is more effective than rote memorization, which is when you’re expected to simply memorize and repeat information on demand (the “barrage of facts” approach). However, some studies have shown that rote learning is actually the more effective method for basic, foundational concepts like the alphabet and the periodic table.)

Oakley, Rogowsky, and Sejnowski also recommend taking regular breaks during long study or practice sessions. Doing so might feel like a waste of valuable time, but those short rests are crucial: They let your brain form new neural connections and consolidate long-term memories into coherent, usable networks.

(Shortform note: In Feel-Good Productivity, entrepreneur Ali Abdaal explains that taking regular breaks also helps you stay focused and energized. But he urges you to make the most of your break periods: Do something fun, or find something that makes you feel energized and uplifted, rather than just doing something that distracts you and fills the time. For example, try reading an inspiring article or taking a power nap instead of scrolling through social media.)

The Procedural System: Automatic Responses

The second system of learning that Oakley, Rogowsky, and Sejnowski describe is called the procedural learning system, which deals with automatic responses like habits and reflexes. Located in the basal ganglia of the brain, this system largely works outside of your conscious awareness and requires different teaching methods to build strong neural connections.

(Shortform note: The basal ganglia are a series of structures found at the center of the brain. They control voluntary movements, which might seem to contradict the authors’ statement that the ganglia are responsible for procedural knowledge like involuntary reflexes. However, the movements themselves are largely automatic, even when the decision to make those movements isn’t. For example, you might consciously decide to pick up a glass, but you don’t need to think about how to do that—the “skill” of drinking from a glass is procedural knowledge for you.)

The authors explain that procedural learning benefits most from mixing together different types of problems or concepts, as opposed to working through blocks of similar questions. This approach, called interleaving, is more difficult initially, but it builds strong and flexible knowledge that you can apply more easily to unfamiliar situations.

For example, when you studied basic arithmetic, you most likely got worksheets with addition and subtraction problems mixed together, rather than a worksheet of addition problems followed by a worksheet of subtraction problems. The interleaved addition and subtraction problems meant that you had to keep switching between those two skills, which trained you to access the relevant knowledge quickly and easily.

(Shortform note: Peter Brown, Henry Roediger, and Mark McDaniel discuss interleaving in more detail in Make It Stick. They explain that, along with training you to access knowledge more quickly and with less effort, interleaved practice has the added benefit of helping you connect new information to things you already know. This is because it forces you to apply your knowledge to a variety of subjects and situations. Returning to the example of basic arithmetic, word problems made you apply your math skills differently than you were used to from just solving equations. You’d have to use reading comprehension skills to understand the problem, translate what you read into an equation, and then solve it.)

Knowledge Can Change From Declarative to Procedural

Oakley, Rogowsky, and Sejnowski say that you initially learn most skills through your declarative system. With enough time and practice, those skills can then transition to your procedural storage and become automatic. This transition is crucial for using skills effectively in your daily life because procedural knowledge operates much more quickly than declarative knowledge and doesn't burden working memory during use.

For instance, there was a time when you’d have had to work through the steps of a simple addition problem like 12+12. Now, however, you can most likely solve that problem at a glance. Furthermore, because simple addition is procedural knowledge, you’re not even aware that you solved it—you simply know that 12+12=24.

The Automatization Theory of Learning

This discussion of declarative knowledge becoming procedural knowledge closely resembles psychology’s automatization theory: the process of skills and behaviors becoming automatic through repetition. However, while Oakley, Rogowsky, and Sejnowski describe two stages—declarative knowledge and procedural knowledge—automatization theory describes three.

First is the cognitive stage, which is identical to declarative learning. This is when you actively learn a new skill, practice it under supervision, and use feedback from someone more knowledgeable to correct your mistakes.

Next is the associative stage, a transitional phase that doesn’t match either of the stages Oakley, Rogowsky, and Sejnowski talk about. During the associative phase, you’ve automated some (but not all) of your new skill, and you continue to refine that skill through further practice. For example, you probably already have a general sense of how to throw a punch. However, a boxing coach could teach you how to position your feet, twist your body, and hit the parts of your opponent’s body to maximize your punches’ effectiveness.

Finally, the autonomous stage mirrors procedural knowledge. When you reach this stage, you no longer need to consciously think about using a skill. You can simply do it quickly and correctly.

The overall process is essentially the same as what Oakley, Rogowsky, and Sejnowski describe. However, the addition of the associative stage clarifies that you won’t master a new skill or concept all at once, and that it’s important to keep honing the finer points of a new skill or concept even after the basics start to come naturally.

How to Teach Effectively

So far, we’ve discussed the neurology of learning and the best ways to work with your brain to build new memories. In this final section, we’ll widen our perspective and discuss how to use these principles to build an effective learning environment for students.

Making a Lesson Plan

Oakley, Rogowsky, and Sejnowski say that creating an effective learning environment starts with effective lesson plans. This includes having clear objectives, a lesson structure that supports how people naturally learn, and regular activities to assess students’ progress.

According to the authors, any lesson-planning process should begin with clear learning goals: the specific knowledge and skills your students should have by the end of the lesson. To make them engaging for students, instead of posting them as straightforward objectives, you might phrase them as questions the students should be able to answer or problems they should be able to solve by the end of class.

Once you know specifically what you’re going to teach, plan a lesson that will encourage students to connect what they learn to what they already know. Remember that adding to existing knowledge is much easier than trying to create completely new neural connections. For example, suppose you’re teaching a history lesson on segregation in the southern US. You could teach your students about legally-enforced segregation, then ask them to write a paragraph connecting it to a previous lesson about the US Civil War.

Oakley, Rogowsky, and Sejnowski add that assessments should be woven throughout instruction, rather than given only at the end of a unit. Note that these assessments don’t need to be tests or pop quizzes; they can also include activities like having students pair up to discuss a question, quick polls to learn your students’ thoughts on a particular subject, or simply observing their work and looking for any glaring weaknesses. With regular assessments like these, you’ll have a fairly good sense of how each student will do on the eventual end-of-unit test.

Finally, close out each class by encouraging your students to actively reflect upon what they’ve learned. For example, instead of summarizing what you taught that day, ask them to briefly explain what you taught and how it fits into what they already knew. This will help them to process and consolidate their knowledge, ensuring that it transfers into long-term memory.

(Shortform note: In The Only Study Guide You’ll Ever Need, Jade Bowler suggests two different approaches to reflecting on a class. The first method is to have students reduce a topic to its most fundamental points from memory, then compare their summary against their notes to see how well they remembered the topic. The second method, called “blurting,” means having students quickly write down everything they remember about the topic, then review their notes to see what they overlooked.)

Plan Lessons Using SMART Goals

One way to apply the authors’ principles to your lesson plans is by adapting the SMART goals framework, as laid out by Jim Kwik in Limitless. SMART is an acronym that describes the qualities of good goals: Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Time-based. Let’s briefly discuss how you could use each of those aspects to create an effective lesson plan.

Specific: Instead of vague objectives like "students will understand fractions," use clear and concrete goals like "students will add fractions with different denominators using visual models."

Measurable: Build in concrete ways to assess student progress, such as end-of-class discussions and weekly quizzes. Also, make sure to set clear benchmarks so you can tell whether your class is meeting your expectations. For example, one benchmark might be "the majority of the class should score at least 80% on this week’s quiz.”

Achievable: For each goal, clearly map out the steps you’ll take to achieve it. In other words, along with clear learning goals for each lesson, your plan should include the specific materials and tools you’ll use to teach that lesson. If you can’t come up with a comprehensive plan to reach a particular goal, then it’s probably not achievable.

Realistic: Set goals that challenge your students appropriately without overwhelming them. For example, being able to accurately describe the events of D-Day near the end of World War 2 might be an appropriate goal for a single lesson. On the other hand, summarizing the entire war would be more appropriate for an end-of-unit assessment, as nobody could reasonably expect to learn all of the major events in one day.

Time-bound: Set clear timeframes for how long each lesson and activity should take, as well as how many lessons you plan to spend on each topic. Also, establish deadlines for when students should be able to demonstrate their proficiency (whether by taking a test or completing some other type of project). Not only does this make sure you’re pacing your instruction appropriately, it also creates urgency for both you and your students to get through the lessons efficiently.

Managing Students’ Working Memory

No matter how good your lesson plan is, Oakley, Rogowsky, and Sejnowski say that keeping a room full of students engaged and focused is an exceptional challenge. However, you can greatly mitigate this problem if you effectively manage your students’ working memories. This means keeping those with small working memories from getting frustrated, while preventing those with large capacities from getting bored.

(Shortform note: Avoiding frustration and boredom is certainly important for keeping your students engaged, but it’s only one part of the solution. In Humanocracy, Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini say that there are four key elements to keeping people engaged with their work. Those elements are the autonomy to find their own ways to solve problems, growth through learning new things and tackling interesting challenges, a sense of connection with their peers, and a mission they can believe in; for students, that usually means a compelling answer to the age-old question “why are we learning this?” While Hamel and Zanini apply these principles to employee engagement, they’re equally valid as elements of student engagement.)

The authors write that having clear rules and procedures for your classroom will benefit all of your students, regardless of their individual memory capacities. This happens because your expectations eventually become procedural knowledge for the kids, after which they’ll automatically know how to get ready for class and how to behave. As a result, they won’t have to use up their working memory capacity thinking about what they’re supposed to do.

(Shortform note: In 1-2-3 Magic, clinical psychologist Thomas W. Phelan says that clear and regular routines have benefits beyond reducing the need for working memory. First, routines help children build their executive functioning skills—self-control and the ability to act on their own initiative—because they already know what they’re expected to do. Second, routines boost children’s self-esteem because they can carry out those routines on their own, instead of needing to ask for an adult’s help.)

The authors also say building a lesson plan in the way they recommend will create an overall structure that’s accessible for all students. However, they urge you to build on that initial structure by accommodating individual students’ needs as much as possible. You can do this effectively by providing options and resources that every student is able, but not required, to take advantage of.

For example, you could hand out written instructions that break tasks down into smaller steps, so students can refer to them as needed. This can be helpful for everyone, though students with smaller working memories will likely need to refer to the instructions more frequently. You might also offer optional, extra-credit activities that encourage students to apply their knowledge in new ways, such as writing an essay or creating a diorama. This will provide interesting challenges for students with large memory capacities, while not punishing those who don’t have the capacity for such activities.

(Shortform note: The authors offer some suggestions that can help most students effectively manage their own needs. However, some kids—especially those with learning disabilities or other disorders—may need additional accommodations. For example, some common accommodations for children with ADHD include allowing extra time for tests and assignments, technological aids like text-to-speech programs (so they can listen to the material instead of reading it), or permission to use fidget toys in class as long as they don’t disrupt other students.)

Why Students Procrastinate and How to Help

Oakley, Rogowsky, and Sejnowski add that people tend to assume that when students procrastinate on an assignment, it’s because of a lack of engagement (or simply laziness), but that isn’t always the case. Instead, procrastination is often the result of genuine discomfort.

The authors explain that when people think about unpleasant or difficult tasks, it activates the parts of the brain responsible for processing physical pain. As a result, people tend to avoid thinking about such tasks, just like they avoid physical discomfort—in other words, they procrastinate. Understanding this will help you respond to procrastination with appropriate strategies, rather than simply demanding harder work or better time management.

(Shortform note: Speaking more broadly, the human brain processes physical and emotional pain in remarkably similar ways. This suggests that, on a subconscious level, we can’t differentiate between physical danger and mental or emotional distress. Furthermore, this neurological quirk has effects that go far beyond simple procrastination. For example, it helps to explain why so many people suffer from such an intense fear of rejection that they spend their lives trying to please everyone else, to the point that they neglect their own needs and desires.)

To stop your students from procrastinating, the authors advise you to help your students learn how their minds operate and how they can work with their brain’s natural processes. When kids understand why a task feels unpleasant and have the tools to deal with that feeling, they’re much less likely to procrastinate.

For example, suppose you have a student who gets frustrated because they can’t seem to grasp a skill, no matter how many practice questions they work through. You could explain that working through numerous, similar problems is only helpful at first (during the declarative learning process), and that they’ll develop true mastery more easily by trying different kinds of exercises and practicing a little bit each day. You could then suggest a strategy for building procedural knowledge, such as working through just five exercises a day while consulting their notes as little as possible.

(Shortform note: This strategy works because, neurologically speaking, procrastination is the result of a conflict between two parts of the brain: the limbic system’s emotional drive to avoid discomfort and the prefrontal cortex’s rational drive to finish a task. When your students understand and address the feelings behind their procrastination, their limbic systems become less active—in essence, their brains convince themselves that there’s no real danger, and therefore no reason to keep avoiding the task. This allows the rational parts of their brains to take control and get the task done.)

Cultivating a Safe, Supportive Classroom

Oakley, Rogowsky, and Sejnowski say that a healthy social environment is crucial for students to learn effectively. Without it, a hurt, scared, or overwhelmed child will be more concerned with feeling safe than with paying attention in class—stressful situations trigger instinctive fight-or-flight responses that shut down rational thinking. Therefore, it’s important to make sure that your classroom dynamics are supportive rather than competitive or judgmental.

Building a safe environment means sometimes being flexible with your rules and expectations. Individual students may have days when they’re upset, overwhelmed, or struggling for some other reason. During those difficult times, your patience and understanding will help them far more than rigidly enforcing the rules (which would only put them under even more stress). For example, a child who’s too upset to focus on their work will only become more upset if you berate or punish them for their inattention.

(Shortform note: While “fight-or-flight” is how people commonly describe instinctive self-defense mechanisms, there are other responses to the feeling of danger. In Complex PTSD, psychotherapist Pete Walker identifies two more common responses: freeze, in which the person tries to avoid notice by doing nothing at all, and fawn, wherein they try to stay safe by appeasing the people around them. This means that students who simply sit and do nothing might feel unsafe, and the same may be true of students who try too hard to please you. However they show their discomfort, such students will benefit from reassurance that your classroom is a safe place where they won’t be hurt, insulted, or unfairly punished.)

The authors also say that your role as a teacher includes guiding your students’ social and emotional development. Young children in particular need to learn collaboration, conflict resolution, and communication skills. You can reinforce those skills by having students model various interactions with one another or work together on assignments—this will help create a positive learning environment both in and out of your classroom.

(Shortform note: What the authors describe here is known as social-emotional learning (SEL), and research supports the academic benefits of developing these skills. For instance, a study from 2011 found that teaching students SEL skills like self-awareness, empathy, and emotional self-management raised their grades by an average of 11%. In the long run, SEL skills lead to greater success in the workplace, improved mental health, and stronger interpersonal relationships throughout a person’s life.)