We encourage students in the program to get involved with technology and invite assistance in developing our technology strategy. This month, the book was chosen by the editor, and is Ellen J. Langer's The Power of Mindful Learning, published in 1997 by Addison Wesley. The Power of Mindful Learning has been a favorite reading of mine since finding it a couple years ago, largely because it has challenged a lot of the lifelong ways in which I functioned in all sorts of learning situations. Paying attention means staying focused on one thing at a time. Delaying gratification is important.
Rote memorization is necessary in education.
Forgetting is a problem. There are right and wrong answers. In each highly readable section, Langer sets about to offer evidence and reasoning for why each belief limits and even functions counterproductively in the processes of learning. The book's numerous research citations are delivered as anecdotes and short summaries of dozens of her and her students' investigations into why we learn as we do, and the reader is absorbed easily into the alternative mindsets presented. These approaches, often opposite variants of current educational practice, will challenge teacher and learner alike, but can lead to some liberating and eye-opening experiences both in daily conduct and in laboratory, classroom and private learning contexts.