By Doug Lemov, Erica Woolway, and Katie Yezzi
This book was recommended to me by someone who’s opinions I
highly respect. He told me that this was a good read if you wanted to look at
how to plan, execute, and follow through with the perfect practices; and the word “practice”
imply practicing skill and techniques in general terms. The authors are teachers
and their focus are on helping teachers practice their craft on their students
as well as with their peers. I was looking for a book for best practices which
incorporates lessons learned regarding the latest research in the cognitive sciences.
This book sounded intriguing, so I gave it a go.
I had dual purpose, I was looking for ways to improve my coaching
processes as well as for my teaching processes. One is in junior sports, the
other is in collegiate level STEM education. Most of the time, people feel like teaching is a
relative simple task and that we can just teach as we have been taught, that
might be true in some specific instances but that is not true if you was aiming
to be efficient and effective in their teaching and coaching roles. Indeed,
this book incorporates many of the latest results culled from academic researchers
on how people learn. The results debunks many myths that we had all taken for
granted. The detailed descriptions of the process and the sequence which the
teacher needs to practice their craft is also quite enlightening.
The book is divided into seven parts with 42 different “rules”
distributed amongst the seven parts. The seven parts are:
·
Rethinking Practice
·
How To Practice
·
Using Modelling
·
Feedback
·
Culture of Practice
·
Post Practice: Making New Skills Stick
·
Conclusion: The Monday Morning Test.
The seven parts neatly encapsulates and help the reader
build the process of learning about the practice and how to best plan out and
deal with practices. The seven parts easily leads the reader into a logical
sequence of concepts and ideas. The first two parts were of the most interest
to me, as the the first part is making the argument for reconsidering the
standard pedagogy. The third and fourth parts walks the reader through the
process by which they can obtain the best results. The fifth part talks about
the most difficult part: how to be disciplined and how to develop a culture which
will sustain a continuous culture of diligent practice. The last two parts are
excellent reminders to the reader about how to successfully implement and
execute the rules.
In a many way this is a very rational and attractive
structure for the book, as the readers are led easily through the material. The
“rules are” discussed in chapter and explained via copious amount of details and
examples. Each of the rules ends with a list of individual bullet points to remind
the reader of the key salient points of emphasis. The narrative is very well
done and the examples, while very much focused on teaching and education, they are
explained in relatively broad terms, enabling the reader to easily extrapolate
the lessons to other areas.
In some way’s however, in their haste to make the 42 rules
into 42 easily digested lessons, I felt that there is some amount of connections
that have been sacrificed in the simplicity of the book structure. The authors
apparently feel the same way as they are quite cognizant not missing any
connecting knowledge, they refer to the succeeding and preceding rules to
create a connecting whole, but it is still noticeable.
The best thing of the book is that it is readily understandable,
and it is flexible enough to be many things because of its structure. One can
use the book as a reminder of a specific list, or it can serve as a very
specific outline of the best practices in teaching and coaching.
The authors have put forth a very readable and usable book.
The lessons in the book are readily integrated by the reader, practical, and
well rooted in the education world, and it was a very enjoyable read.
