281. Outsmart Your Brain with Dan Willingham

<p dir="ltr">In today's conversation, I am joined by Dr. Dan Willingham, a memory expert with a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from Harvard. Dan’s new book Outsmart Your Brain (which we discuss today) will change your life. While the book is catered to K-16 learners (for example, it includes chapters on “how to take notes,” “how to listen to a lecture,” “how to read hard books,” and “how to take tests”) trust me when I say this book is for you and everyone you know. It is fascinating and will help you with any presentation you may give or meeting you will be in moving forward. Trust me, you’re gonna love this.</p> <p dir="ltr">A little more about Dan: His work has appeared in the Washington Post, The New York Times, and many other publications, and he is the author of several books – his writing has appeared in 18 languages! In 2017 he was appointed by President Obama to serve as a Member of the National Board for Education Sciences.</p> <p dir="ltr">Whether you want to be a better learner yourself or if you have kids (including college students) in your life whom you want to help be successful, this episode and book are for you. I can't wait to dive into this one because there is so much great stuff.</p> <h3 dir="ltr">Show Notes:</h3> <ul> <li dir="ltr">[00:43] In today's conversation, I am joined by Dr. Dan Willingham. Dan earned his Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from Harvard University in 1990.</li> <li dir="ltr">[03:03] Dan shares about himself, his background, and the work he does.  He was trained as a cognitive psychologist.  </li> <li dir="ltr">[04:04] He shares his transition from basic researcher to applied researcher. </li> <li dir="ltr">[07:02] Often, we assume people know that thing that we know so we miss key things when presenting. That means they don’t get value from your talk. </li> <li dir="ltr">[08:41] There are things we know we should do that we find difficult to implement. Sometimes we really don’t know what is optimal to do. We tend to do things in the moment that we feel are working and are