How to Harness Two Powerful Pathways for Learning

Hello!

Today's 2 x 2 Newsletter is all about broadening areas of expertise and acquiring multiple skill sets.

As promised in last week's newsletter, here is a summary of Barbara Oakley's latest book, Uncommon Sense Teaching.

At the heart of the book is the contrast between declarative and procedural learning pathways. Activating both pathways simultaneously is a great way to make learning stick. You can read my summary to find out more about these two learning systems, as well as how to get the most out of them.
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2 Quotes — Learning Across Disciplines
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• “The future belongs to those who learn more skills and combine them in creative ways.” — Robert Greene, Mastery​

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• "Our greatest strength is the exact opposite of narrow specialization. It is the ability to integrate broadly." — David Epstein, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World ​

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2 Thoughts From Me:

• Our current education system inextricably funnels students towards specialization. In the world of economics, incentive structures are also set up to promote knowing more and more about less and less. However, many of the greatest contributions to human knowledge have come from scientists who were also woodworkers, painters, poets, musicians, or writers. What you learn outside of your core discipline can help to shape and transform your practice.

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• Each new skill that you develop provides an additional way of seeing the world. Building mental representations in different areas takes a lot of time and effort, but can bring added clarity and creativity.

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This past week, I compiled a list of over 120 books to help guide readers—and myself—towards an interdisciplinary education. It's a good resource if you are looking for something new and outside-of-the-box to read over the summer.
I'm looking forward to the upcoming newsletter, where I will touch on Sal Khan's approach to mastery learning and the role of dopamine in the learning process.
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If you have any comments, questions, or feedback about the blog or the newsletter, I would love to hear them! You can respond directly to this email. I read and value all input on how to make this project run better.

Thanks for reading!

Matthew Outerbridge
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