If you are a teacher, there are a lot of books available to you for professional development, but it's hard to know which ones are worth your time. Some of the most popular ones should not be, and there are some gems that you might not ever hear about. I read a lot of these, and I will soon be reading even more, so I thought we might wrap up this year and start the new semester with a few recommendations. This is by no means a complete list of great education books, but you don't have time to read about my complete list. I'll do another recommendation post in May, so you can read something great over the summer.
If you want a very practical book about working memory and attention, this is the book for you. Andrew Watson is an incredibly nice guy, and that comes across in his writing. He was a high school English teacher before going into consulting work, so he understands the challenge of balancing curriculum requirements with student needs and understands this particular part of how the brain works better than anyone I know. (Bonus recommendations: Andrew has two other books: Learning Grows is about growth mindset and stereotype threat. The Goldilocks Map is a book I have not yet read, but I plan to read it this summer because it is about how to evaluate which research is valuable for implementation in your classroom.)
This was my introduction to the world of brain science (except for some seminars on Brain-Based-Learning, which seems to have disappeared). I saw Kevin at an ACSI conference and found him both credible and fascinating. I bought this book and became Facebook friends with him. He's another super nice guy, and this book will change how you view lesson planning. It's not something you can do with every lesson; even he says you wouldn't have time for that. What it is great for is to have a structured approach to those topics you always struggle to get across, the one that every class seems to have difficulty with. I learned a lot from this book, and it primed me for my future love of cognitive science.
I picked this one up because my Learning and the Brain friend, John Almarode tweeted that he could not put it down. At first, I wasn't sure how I would feel about it because there is a lot of stuff in the first quarter of the book about Artificial Intelligence and how it compares or contrasts with human intelligence. That's not bad, but it wasn't what I was looking for. Once you get past that part, however, this is a fabulous book on how our brains work. There were parts that stopped me cold, and I had to post the quote right away. If you want to understand your brain and how this collection of cells between your ears acquires and assimilates information, then 75% of this book is for you!
Of all the books on this list, this is the best one for learners. Barbara Oakley has a great story of believing that she wasn't good at math. Don't let the title confuse you, though. This book isn't actually about learning math; it's just about learning. She figured out how to learn so well that she is now a professor of Engineering and teaches a MOOC on Coursera called Learning How to Learn. (Another bonus recommendation: If you think the title of this one would put a student off, she also has a book geared toward teenage students that is also called Learning How to Learn.)
Teachers, if you are going to read only one book about education, make it this book. While I have found great value in every book on this list and many others, this one floored me. There are valuable books that are hard to read, and there are easy-to-read books that aren't that valuable. This one is the best of both worlds. For years, I had seen it on lists of must-read books for teachers, but I let the title put me off. I think I believed it would be about personalized learning, but when a trusted friend told me "Run. Don't walk" to read this book, I ordered it. I read it over a three-day weekend, and I found myself stopping every few minutes to post notes from it. It explains cognitive science and its impact on student learning better than any book I have read.
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