A Big Christmas Present!
19th December 2025
Cheery Friday Greetings from Barb Oakley!
How to Fall in Love with Math (Even If It’s Broken Your Heart Before)
What happens when a playwright-turned-mathematician, an engineer-turned-neuroscience educator, and a math professor walk into a podcast? You get a delightful, eye-opening conversation that just might change how you see math forever. Join Barbara Oakley and John Mighton as they sit down with Anna Stokke to bust myths, share personal stories of math redemption, and reveal what science actually says about how we learn best. Whether you’re math-phobic, math-curious, or a lifelong number nerd, this episode is a must-listen. Bonus: we talk about Sylvia Plath, secret math codes, and how not to kill your patient with a calculator error.
Listen now on Chalk & Talk: https://www.annastokke.com/podcast/episode61
And don’t miss our FULL free Coursera course, Making Math Click: https://www.coursera.org/learn/math-click?action=showPartnerSupportedAccess (Be sure to choose the “Audit function” Do NOT click on the “Register for free” function!)
Which brings me to the big reveal!
A Christmas present from Learning How to Learn
Here are free links to almost all our courses with full access to the entire content! (Except for the certificate, of course—Coursera does need to stay in business, after all!)
To access the full free version of the course, just click on the link below and then be sure to select the “audit” option. (If at first you accidentally selected the “one week free” option, you’ll have to go into your profile and delete the course. Then go back to the free link and try again–make sure you select the “audit” option.)
Learning How to Learn
https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn?action=showPartnerSupportedAccess
Speak Freely, Think Critically
https://www.coursera.org/learn/free-speech?action=showPartnerSupportedAccess
Making Math Click: Understand Math Without Fear
https://www.coursera.org/learn/math-click?action=showPartnerSupportedAccess
Uncommon Sense Teaching Specialization (3 courses)
https://www.coursera.org/learn/uncommon-sense-teaching?action=showPartnerSupportedAccess
https://www.coursera.org/learn/teaching-online?action=showPartnerSupportedAccess
Critical Thinking: A Brain-Based Guide for the ChatGPT Era Specialization (4 courses)
https://www.coursera.org/learn/critical-thinking-decisions?action=showPartnerSupportedAccess
https://www.coursera.org/learn/critical-thinking-deductive?action=showPartnerSupportedAccess
https://www.coursera.org/learn/critical-thinking-logic?action=showPartnerSupportedAccess
https://www.coursera.org/learn/critical-thinking-science?action=showPartnerSupportedAccess
Well, This Was Unexpected!
A bit of good news to wrap up the year—I’m honored to be named to Worth Magazine’s Worthy 100 list for 2025, alongside some remarkable folks working to spark positive change. It’s a lovely reminder that doing meaningful work does matter—and it sure feels nice when it’s noticed. Here’s to keeping at it! 🙂
That’s all for now. Have a happy New Year in learning!
Barb Oakley
- Uncommon Sense Teaching—the book and Coursera Specialization!
- Mindshift—the book and MOOC
- Learn Like a Pro—the book and MOOC
- The LHTL recommended text, A Mind for Numbers
- For kids and parents: Learning How to Learn—the book and MOOC. Pro tip—watch the videos and read the book together with your child. Learning how to learn at an early age will change their life!
