| Summary: | "With his knack for making science intelligible for the layman, and his ability to illuminate scientific concepts through analogy and reference to personal experience, James Zull offers the reader an engrossing and coherent introduction to what neuroscience can tell us about cognitive development through experience, and its implications for education. Stating that the time is ripe to recognize that 'the primary objective of education is to understand human learning' and that 'all other objectives depend on achieving this understanding', James Zull challenges readers to focus on this purpose, first for themselves, and then for those for whose learning they are responsible. He presents cognitive development as a journey taken by the brain, from an organ of cells, blood vessels, and chemicals at birth, through its shaping by experience and environment to potentially to the most powerful and exquisite force in the universe, the human mind. Zull begins his journey with sensory-motor learning, and how that leads to discovery, and discovery to emotion. He then describes how deeper learning develops, how symbolic systems such as language and numbers emerge as tools for thought, how memory builds a knowledge base, and how memory is then used to create ideas and solve problems. Along the way he prompts us to think of new ways to shape educational experiences from early in life through adulthood, informed by the insight that metacognition lies at the root of all learning"--Provided by publisher.
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