Four Favorite Books from 2017

I’ve already written about the best books of 2017 for teachers, and so today I will focus on the other books that I’ve read this year. My “favorite” books are the ones that I am most likely to read again. Here they are:

1. Elizabeth Strout: Anything Is PossibleRead More

“We now know that this picture of a static, unchanging brain is wrong.”

Richard Davidson, my favorite scientist, continues: “Instead, the brain has a property called neuroplasticity, the ability to change its structure and function in significant ways.” This has important implications for teachers like me who want to understand how people learn.  It turns out that every time we learn something … Read More

“In her research, Fassinger (1997) found that the variable that best explained student participation was a student trait – confidence.”

Thirty years of research on classroom discussion has generated many theories on why some students participate in discussion and others do not. I’ve come to believe that while a combination of factors come into play, Fassinger’s findings are probably key. If you put her research side-by-side with Jean Twenge’s new … Read More

“Our views about insomnia are continuing to evolve.”

For many years, insomnia was considered to be primarily a symptom of another illness, writes Wallace Mendelson in The Science of Sleep. During his 40-plus years as a sleep researcher, Mendelson has seen many views evolve, and this is one of them. In addition to being the result of some … Read More