I’ve been a long-time admirer of the [Head First](http://www.headfirstlabs.com/index.php) series of books since the dim and distant days of [Head First EJB](http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596005719/). I have quite a collection of these books myself and often recommend them to students who want to do some self-directed learning, say to learn [Java](http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596009205/) or [HTML and CSS](http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596101978/).
Every book starts by explaining the pedagogical principles (developed by Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates) behind the books and these principles are [enumerated](http://www.headfirstlabs.com/readme.php) on the Head First labs site.
My question is can these principles be adapted to a lecture course?
I’m going to spend some of the remainder of this summer evaluating a couple of the newer books for one of my modules and I’ll be trying to keep these principles in mind as I do so.
Amplify’d from [www.headfirstlabs.com](http://www.headfirstlabs.com/readme.php “http://www.headfirstlabs.com/readme.php”)
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So what does it take to *learn* something? First, you have to *get* it, then make sure you don’t *forget* it. It’s not about pushing facts into your head. Based on the latest research in cognitive science, neurobiology, and educational psychology, *learning* takes a lot more than text on a page. We know what turns your brain on.
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[See more at www.headfirstlabs.com](http://www.headfirstlabs.com/readme.php “http://www.headfirstlabs.com/readme.php”)
See this Amp at [http://amplify.com/u/8hpv](http://amplify.com/u/8hpv)