Co Author Beth Rogowsky

“We need to start basing our teaching on the science of learning. Unfortunately, teacher education textbooks don’t typically include the neuroscience of what makes effective teaching, and if they do, they make sweeping generalizations that offer little insight. Likewise, most neuroscientists are not directly applying their research to education. There remains a disconnect—until now,” says Rogowsky, a Danville, Pa., native and first-generation college student. Uncommon Sense Teaching changes that. The book was written over a two-year period with neuroscientist Terrence Sejnowski and engineer Barbara Oakley, who teach the massive open online course, Learning How to Learn, with over 3 million enrolled. The co-authors met in late 2018, began writing in 2019, and devoted the fall of 2020 to editing. For the final three semesters of the process, Rogowsky used the book draft in her classes and got feedback from her students.

“Growing up, I worked in our family’s child care center, and I learned early on that organizing toddlers for a picture can be a lot like herding cats,” says Beth Rogowsky, Ed.D. “After high school, I went on to college at BU (’96/’01M). Becoming a teacher was a natural fit, given all my hands-on training with the little ones.”

The combination of hands-on teaching experience and scientific research made her the perfect co-author for the book, Uncommon Sense Teaching: Practical Insights in Brain Science to Help Students Learn, which is making waves in the teaching world. It’s sold more than 7,500 copies in the first six months of its release, ranks ninth on Amazon’s list of inclusive education books, and is being translated into eight languages.