How do we learn? And how can we learn better? In this groundbreaking look at the science of
learning Sanjay Sarma head of Open Learning at MIT shows how we can harness this knowledge
to discover our true potential. Drawing from his own experience as an educator as well as the
work of researchers and innovators at MIT and beyond in Grasp Sarma explores the history of
modern education tracing the way in which traditional classroom methods—lecture homework
test repeat—became the norm and showing why things needs to change. The book takes readers
across multiple frontiers from fundamental neuroscience to cognitive psychology and beyond as
it considers the future of learning. It introduces scientists who study forgetting exposing it
not as a simple failure of memory but as a critical weapon in our learning arsenal. It examines
the role curiosity plays in promoting a state of readiness to learn” in the brain (and its
troublesome twin unreadiness to learn”). And it reveals how such ideas are being put into
practice in the real world such as at unorthodox new programs like Ad Astra located on the
SpaceX campus. Along the way Grasp debunks long-held views such as the noxious idea of
learning styles ” equipping readers with practical tools for absorbing and retaining
information across a lifetime of learning.
