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inalist for "Foreword Magazine's" 2011 Book of the
YearWith his knack for making science intelligible for
the layman, and his ability to illuminate scientific
concepts through analogy and reference to personal
experience, James Zull offers the reader an engrossing
and coherent introduction to what neuroscience can tell
us about cognitive development through experience, and
its implications for education.Stating that educational
change is underway and that the time is ripe to
recognize that the primary objective of education is to
understand human learning and that all other objectives
depend on achieving this understanding, James Zull
challenges the reader to focus on this purpose, first
for her or himself, and then for those for whose
learning they are responsible. The book is addressed to
all learners and educators to the reader as
self-educator embarked on the journey of lifelong
learning, to the reader as parent, and to readers who
are educators in schools or university settings, as well
as mentors and trainers in the workplace.In this work,
James Zull presents cognitive development as a journey
taken by the brain, from an organ of organized cells,
blood vessels, and chemicals at birth, through its
shaping by experience and environment into potentially
to the most powerful and exquisite force in the
universe, the human mind.Zull begins his journey with
sensory-motor learning, and how that leads to discovery,
and discovery to emotion. He then describes how deeper
learning develops, how symbolic systems such as language
and numbers emerge as tools for thought, how memory
builds a knowledge base, and how memory is then used to
create ideas and solve problems. Along the way he
prompts us to think of new ways to shape educational
experiences from early in life through adulthood,
informed by the insight that metacognition lies at the
root of all learning.At a time when we can expect to
change jobs and careers frequently during our lifetime,
when technology is changing society at break-neck speed,
and we have instant access to almost infinite
information and opinion, he argues that self-knowledge,
awareness of how and why we think as we do, and the
ability to adapt and learn, are critical to our survival
as individuals; and that the transformation of
education, in the light of all this and what
neuroscience can tell us, is a key element in future
development of healthy and productive societies |
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