A New Way to Learn

Bloomsbury presents A New Way to Learn: Finding Calm, Ease, and Joy in Your Studies by Deena Shaffer, read by Julie Rogers

A New Way to Learn aims to myth-bust, disrupt, and transform outdated, never-stop, go-go-go ways of working.

If you ask a student, "how are you?", the response will likely be, "tired," "stressed," or "burnt out". Day after day, there are assignments to write, tests to study for, and presentations to prep, against a backdrop of relentless distractions. "Working harder," "maximizing efficiency," and hustle-and-grind culture hacks aren't leading learners towards more success.

This book gives readers an inviting, reassuring, and practical guide to studying differently, in ways that leave them much less exhausted, and much more excited, resourced about what they're learning. A New Way to Learn increases learners' capacity to learn by revealing how to do it, and do it well.

Part I of the book looks at students' relationship with time. No more shaming language of, "you just have to learn how to prioritise!". The chapters in this section provide different ways to see and do time management, including challenging how this is usually conceived and presented. Part II is about new ways of studying. Most students were never taught to study, most teachers were never taught to study or to teach how to study, and most parents weren't taught either. This section unlocks the strategies which will make a difference. Part III focuses on being productive: the focus will be upon the difficult tasks of beginning, moving through, and accomplishing hard work. A student's life is dominated by reading (lots of it) and writing (even more of it). Part IV looks at new ways to accomplish reading and writing. The final part of the book gives an honest, innovative take on goal-setting. It will help readers to name their aims, show how to move towards their intentions, and shed light on how to tap into purpose.