How We Learn

I loved this book for several reasons and would highly recommend it to anyone interested in some of the neuroscience behind how and why we learn the way that we do. It does discuss some of the mechanisms that align with AI and machine learning but that is not the focus of the text (despite what the title may have you believe). It sparked several different ideas and challenged a lot of misconceptions (Babies do have object permanence:https://www.devcogneuro.com/Publications/Diamond_MITchapter.pdf)

Most importantly it rekindled a passion that I have to education in the formative years (k-5) Regardless of if my life takes me in that direction at some point I do think that text like this should be a required reading for anyone who better wants to understand how and why we learn the way that we do.

I wouldn't say there is anything groundbreaking here but it definitely does a good job reinforcing several foundational pedagogical principles.

Great review of the current state of the neuroscience and psychology around learning. Dehaene initially spends a considerable amount of time making comparisons of the brain to modern AI, which might put some readers off. There are lots of valuable insights in the book about the impacts of various factors on learning and retention - some I already knew from previous reading and a long academic journey, but some novel. 

An interesting insight into how children learn, neuroscience, AI and pedagogy. The final sections on teaching techniques, memory consolidation and how being bilingual, learning an instrument or becoming proficient in maths was my favourite.

Just four out of five stars because, even if the book is really well written, interesting and inspirational I don't understand how this research could already be so mature to address children education and teacher training. Either I am missing some important link or it seems to me that the research reported is still too basics to really be used to address education problems with confidence.

Furthermore, the answer to the title of the book is not actually answered which, however, was kind of expected considering that he's a neuroscientist and not a programmer. But still...the title is misleading.