Author: barboakley

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Month

The Cancer Code: A Revolutionary New Understanding of a Medical Mystery, by Dr. Jason Fung.  This is an extraordinarily insightful book. If you simply have an interest in a disease that has killed far more than COVID has, or you fear cancer might be in the future for you or a loved one, this book will give you ideas for subtle tweaks that could make an enormous difference in what unfolds long term.

As the book begins, you might think—well, been there, done that—the book’s just describing how it’s carcinogens that cause cancer.  Oh yes, and maybe genetics.  But in Dr. Fung’s masterful hands, you gradually learn that cancer often involves a process where cells revert to primordial states. In these states, rather than playing nicely with the rest of the cells of the body, malignant cancers forge ahead on their own ancient kill-or-be-killed fashion, using ancient anaerobic pathways to fuel themselves while poisoning other cells and gaining building materials for new malignancies.  

You will gain extraordinary insight into cancer that is often not conveyed by cancer experts.  This is a not-to-be-missed book. Also great for audio.

Online Course of the Week

We are delighted to point LHTLers toward the fantastic lecture series “First Principles of Computer Vision,” presented by Barb’s friend Shree Nayar,  T. C. Chang Professor of Computer Science in the School of Engineering at Columbia University. Shree is the real deal—a man totally dedicated to helping everyone learn about vital topics such as computer vision. You will love Shree’s gentle, happy demeanor, and the wonderful way he presents the material—we cannot recommend this lecture series more highly.  You can find the series on YouTube or on Columbia University’s website.  Enjoy!

From Education Revolution to Massive Success

We highly recommend this upcoming talk with Zvi Galil—the Georgia Tech mastermind behind bringing low-cost, high-quality graduate-level education to us all.  As this description page of the talk notes: “In March 2020, universities around the world were suddenly forced to move some or all of their teaching online.  Georgia Tech had begun this process six years prior. In January 2014,  they shocked the education sector by offering a fully-online version of their master’s in Computer Science (OMSCS), for a tenth of the tuition fee… OMSCS’ growth has been phenomenal. By this spring, the programme enrolled 11,300 students — and it is still growing every semester. It is apparently the largest master’s programme in the world in any subject online or on-campus. Their success has inspired similar MOOC-based programmes at other universities. The programme in itself contributes to a nationwide 10% growth of Computer Science graduates – one of the biggest skill shortages in the labor market. 

“The conversation will cover the story of OMSCS: how Dean Galil started it, the controversy, change management, reinventing the teaching and service model, artificial teaching assistants, what has been learned, and the role the programme and its successors have played before and during the pandemic. And perhaps most interesting: how the learners of the online vs the on campus programs are different and have different needs.  Dr. Zvi Galil will also share his view on the role that online programmes can play in the future of higher education.” Register today for this free, open-to-the-public, not-to-be-missed webinar.

Interview with Barb on MyTutor

Barb will be giving a quick half hour presentation on March 24th at 2:00 pm Eastern, 6:00 pm London time for teens on how to learn effectively, followed by a half hour of Q & A.  It’s an enjoyable way to have a quick learning review–or to introduce your kids or students to ideas on how to improve their learning. Sign up here!

How Being More Productive Starts With Doing Nothing

This persuasive but behind-a-pay-wall Wall Street Journal article by Annemarie Dooling weaves in a discussion with Barb. Key grafs: 

“In our efforts to squeeze every second from the day, it seems counterintuitive to watch a pot of coffee boil or gaze out the window. But your brain uses those free periods for important cleanup work, neuroscience research indicates. And during the pandemic, as the boundaries between work and home have blurred, it has become harder to create mental breaks.

“Even brief timeouts help the brain reinforce long-term learning and productivity. You come out of downtime able to learn more, and can access that learning faster. “‘When you take a break, you may want to do something mind-consuming to help with motivation, but technically your best way of taking a break is to do something mindless,’ says Barbara Oakley, a professor of engineering at Oakland University in Michigan who teaches a popular online course on how to open your mind to learning.” 

(And we know which course Annemarie means! 😉 )

Learning How to Learn is Helpful Even For More Advanced Materials

LHTLer Nikolai Pankratiev writes to tell us “I just want to say a BIG THANK YOU for your great course Learning How to Learn. I was looking for some tips on how to learn Tensorflow—a highly technical course from Google involving Artificial Intelligence. Someone mentioned your course as a good starting point. Despite initial skepticism, I decided to follow the course—it was a great experience! Very importantly I learned some psychologically liberating tricks that reinforced my engagement to learn. Thank you very much.”

Correction

Last week, we alluded to the eye-popping read, “The Miseducation of America’s Elites,” by the former New York Times reporter Bari Weiss, noting that she had resigned due to the rampant anti-Semitism in the New York Times workplace. As several astute LHTLers have pointed out, Bari actually resigned due to a number of factors, including anti-Semitism, cancel culture, intolerance to differing opinions of management and staff, bad office environment in general, the firing of a colleague, and more. We stand corrected!

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

• Get in early on the upcoming critically acclaimed Uncommon Sense Teaching!
• Get the course recommended text, A Mind for Numbers!
• And Learning How to Learn, a book for kids and parents.

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week

Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art, by Rebecca Wragg Sykes. We have to admit, like many a fellow Homo sapiens, we’re enamored of Neanderthals. So we were very excited to get our hands on this book. And indeed, Kindred did a great job of pointing out not only the surprising intelligence of Neanderthals and their cunning abilities with stone tools, but also of describing the enormous time spans involved in the Neanderthal sojourn in Europe and parts of Asia.  We did notice that reviewers often observed that the book was “fact packed,” which can often be a bit of code to avoid unkindness.  Sadly, after a while, the facts grew monotonous, while interpretation was often lacking. The lead up to why the Neanderthals vanished was something of a bust—although humans are a reasonable bet to being the culprits, at least in part, we instead hear of inbreeding and disease. 

Kindred is an interesting read if you’re into the current nitty-gritty of Neanderthal anthropological findings. But if you’re looking for a more conclusive read, you may wish to wait a few more years until more definitive findings might come available.

Caffeine—Why We Love It…

Here’s an interesting article by Chris Melore in StudyFinds related to caffeine’s effect on sleep and cognition. Key grafs: “The surprising results reveal caffeine use does not result in poorer sleep. However, researchers find there are significant changes in the volume of gray matter just in the 10 days with or without caffeine in a person’s system.

“After 10 days of no caffeine, participants had a much higher volume of gray matter in the brain than they did while consuming caffeine. The differences are especially noticeable in the brain’s right medial temporal lobe. This area includes the hippocampus, which is essential for memory consolidation… While caffeine may shrink the amount of gray matter in the brain, the study finds these changes don’t last for long if a person stops consuming the stimulant. Researchers say gray matter regenerated in the subjects during their 10 days on the placebo pills.”

Cajal Embroidery Project 2020

LHTLer Susan Van Wyck has made us aware of a fascinating project to honor the beloved father of modern neuroscience Santiago Ramón y Cajal, who, along with his breakthrough discoveries, is also famous for his “beautiful, detailed, and accurate, illustrations of the histology of the central nervous system.”  (Cajal and his father had fought since his earliest days about Cajal’s desire to be an artist versus his father’s desire for him to become a doctor. In the end, Cajal found a way to fulfill both careers!)  The large, multi-panel embroidery has been featured on the cover of many scientific journals, and for good reason!

The Value of Reading More Broadly—and of a Great Environmental Education Program!

 Apropos last week’s comment from us about the importance of also reading conservative sites, Professor Howard Drossman, the TREE Semester Director and Professor of Environmental Education at Colorado College, writes: “Loved your point about reading conservative sites. Though I lean liberal, I took the time to search more about the Washington Beacon last week and found an article by Mother Jones (no less) touting the Beacon‘s journalism. Good for you to call out those who only read one side!”

Incidentally, as Colorado College’s informative article observes, Teaching and Research in Environmental Education (TREE) Semester has received a statewide award for Innovation in Environmental Education for its outstanding work in preparing future leaders in environmental education who learn how to inspire K-12 students to become ecological stewards. The program is one of only nine accredited environmental education programs in North America, and one of only two such undergraduate programs in the country. If you’re interested in environmental education, this program is well worth checking out!

When Education Becomes a Cult

This important article, “The Miseducation of America’s Elites,” by the former New York Times reporter Bari Weiss (she resigned due to the rampant anti-Semitism in the New York Times workplace), describes the cult-like indoctrination, rather than education, going on in elite schools.  It’s an eye-popping read. 

Listening is Essential. Here’s How to Get Better at It.

This article by Megan Collins in EdSurge reminds us that listening is a skill we can cultivate.  Megan notes “Providing a variety of paths to listening may not be enough; a proactive approach is essential. Developing ‘listening hours’ either in person or via Zoom is a great tool to start this work. In these sessions, parents, teachers or even students can meet with school leaders to discuss certain topics. Remember: The purpose of these sessions is to listen not to respond, defend or resolve. These listening sessions also allow opportunities to develop insight into experiences and perspectives that are not your own; a key component in developing empathy.”

Practical Tips for Online Teaching

CJ Hong, the Lead Mentor for the Chinese version of Learning How to Learn, found this little article with practical tips about online teaching to be helpful—you may find it helpful, as well.

A Correction with Regard the Discussion of Botswana 

With regard our book recommendation of The Colour Bar from several weeks ago, LHTLer Peter Miskelly writes to say “Hi Barb, LHTL‘er from way back, still read the email. Setswana is a prefix language. Tswana is the stem noun. Botswana the country, motswana is one person, batswana is two or more. So they are not botswanans but batswana. (Worked there for two years). BTW my son is now doing LHTL.”

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

• Get in early on the upcoming critically acclaimed Uncommon Sense Teaching!
• Get the course recommended text, A Mind for Numbers!
• And Learning How to Learn, a book for kids and parents.

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Month

Taking the Stress Out of Homework: Organizational, Content-Specific, and Test-Prep Strategies to Help Your Children Help Themselves, by Abby Freireich and Brian Platzer. This wonderful book is a much-needed masterpiece—chock-full of simple, easy-to-implement ideas that will enable you to help your child whatever your own background or skill levels. One thing we particularly like about this book is that it shows you exactly how to be most effective you’re your help, whether the topic is math, reading, writing, or what-have-you. For example, Freireich and Platzer write:

“We’re about to walk you through some of the most common mistakes we see our students make. But the real question is: How are you supposed to give all this advice?

“If Lisa’s mom sat her down and said, ‘Use correct homophones and don’t write long sentences and watch out for pronoun antecedents and don’t repeat words and avoid cliches,’ Lisa would run out of the room screaming.

“If your child is open to your feedback, make it a game that allows her to do the critical thinking, rather than simply stating which errors need to be corrected.  Point to a sentence or line of text, and ask them if they can identify two or three mechanical or grammatical errors.  This puts them in the driver’s seat (in editing, we should have revised this cliché!) and means that they are more likely to internalize the edits needed.”

If you are a parent or caregiver, you want this book—it provides the best material we know of to help you help your child learn better! Also good as an audio read.

Barb Speaking for Coursera’s Bold & Innovative Educator Series

At 8:00 am Eastern time (6:30 pm India Standard Time) on Tuesday, March 9th, Barb will be giving an online webinar “Uncommon Sense Teaching in a Post-COVID World” for Coursera’s Bold & Innovative Educator Series. This talk gives an excellent perspective on the good—and the bad—aspects of active learning, and also provides insights from research about high-impact teaching interventions.  If you are looking to lead your institution with better practices based on sound research—and have a little fun seeing how driving mindlesslessly along a road is related to student motivation—this talk is for you.  The webinar is free: Register here.

IDoRecall—Now You (or Your Students) Can Study with Buddies!

We have often described iDoRecall (iDR) as our favorite flashcard system (Barb has volunteered as their Chief Learning Science Advisor, basically because iDR is a learning system that leverages a host of cognitive science-backed principles.) With iDR, users create spaced-repetition flashcards linked to the facts and concepts in their learning materials that they want to remember. When they practice memory retrieval, if they struggle with an answer, they can click to view the source learning file or video at the precise location where they learned it. “Learning materials” in the setting of iDR can be PDFs, Word-compatible files, PowerPoints, image files, and videos. 

One of iDR’s unique features is the ability to create a GROUP. Students can use this feature to create a study group and invite classmates to join in and gang tackle a subject, sharing their flashcards and study materials with their friends. Group members can clone this content into their individual iDR accounts. When they clone flashcards that have source-linked files into their personal iDR accounts, the source links, when clicked, will open the linked content at the precise, relevant locations.

David Handel, MD, created iDoRecall based upon the strategies that helped him graduate #1 in his medical school class. Before he started using the cognitive science-backed principles to guide his studying, he had been a lifelong mediocre student. Here is a demo of the GROUPS section of the iDoRecall that is part of a comprehensive deep-dive video.

Here is a special coupon code you can use at checkout:  FriendOfBarb. This coupon gives a 20% discount for all types of subscriptions and is unlike any other coupon iDoRecall has ever created in that it’s recurring. This means that when your subscription renews, the discount is reapplied to the renewal, perpetually. 

5 Online Learning Strategies for Students

Here’s an article by Barb in e-Student about online learning strategies for students. 

Going to Extremes 

We received a raft of supportive emails about last week’s Cheery Friday emphasizing the need for proof of efficacy with regard anti-bias training. Many readers share researchers’ concerns that the explosion of untried programs may well be worsening instead of improving bias. But we were surprised to also receive several emails observing that we shouldn’t have looked at or linked to a conservative website—no matter that the reporting might be accurate or that it cites a high-quality scientific study.  

In this regard, we’d like to gently observe that genuine learning means being able to assess the quality of an article for yourself, and not just instantly discard information because it’s not from your own crowd. Would we want conservatives to spurn reading progressive periodicals simply because the periodical didn’t agree with their leanings?  Refusing to take the time to open-mindedly consider others’ perspectives is how extremism begins.  Cass Sunstein’s outstanding Going to Extremes provides an excellent description of this phenomenon. Here is a relevant excerpt:

“Much of the time, groups of people end up thinking and doing things that group members would never think or do on their own. This is true for groups of teenagers, who are willing to run risks that individuals would avoid. It is certainly true for those prone to violence, including terrorists and those who commit genocide. It is true for investors and corporate executives. It is true for government officials, neighborhood groups, social reformers, political protestors, police officers, student organizations, labor unions, and juries. Some of the best and worst developments in social life are a product of group dynamics, in which members of organizations, both small and large, move one another in new directions… When people find themselves in groups of like-minded types, they are especially likely to move to extremes… Political extremism is often a product of group polarization, and social segregation is a useful tool for producing polarization.”

Sunstein’s Going to Extremes is one of the top ten books we would recommend that all well-read people should read.

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

• Get in early on the upcoming critically acclaimed Uncommon Sense Teaching!
• Get the course recommended text, A Mind for Numbers!
• And Learning How to Learn, a book for kids and parents. 

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week

Colour Bar: The Triumph of Seretse Khama and His Nation, by Susan Williams, tells a fascinating tale about how love, racism, and politics can intertwine to affect an entire country.  Sir Seretse Khama was born to inherit the throne of leadership in the British Protectorate of Bechuanaland. This area would become Botswana, and Khama was to be elected its first president.  Seretse’s strong stance against corruption has helped make today’s Botswana one of the most advanced, with the highest GDP, in all of Africa. 

But behind all this is an extraordinary love story between Khama and his wife, Lady Khama. She was born Ruth Williams, the daughter of George and Dorothy Williams of South London. Initially, virtually everyone who was anyone in  Bechuanaland and England opposed the wedding—the English because they opposed a white woman marrying, of all people, a black man, and the Batswana because they opposed Khama marrying, of all people, a white woman. But the Batswana were soon to prove much more accepting, while the English powers that be (save for Churchill!) dug in their heels. We found the book to be a bit heavy on the behind-the-scenes political maneuvering—we would have loved to have known more of what Seretse and Ruth themselves were thinking. But then, a biographer can only work with what’s available. How Seretse and Ruth found a way through a world of rampant prejudice is the stuff of legend. 

Stunning New Neural Visualization Technique

A new technique called “Light Beads Microscopy” has shattered the ceiling of what was possible at large-scale recordings of the brain.  Alipasha Vaziri’s lab has been able to record from 1 million neurons at 5Hz. That is not only ten times more and twice as fast as the previous record, it also means researchers are now only 2 log 10 below the mouse brain and ~6 log 10 below the human brain. Terry comments with excitement about the fantastic imagery: “I see a lot of traveling waves and synchronous bursting.” And if you check the link, you can see the tremendous imagery,  too! [Hat tip: Gerald Pao.]

The Life Changing Value of a Book 

LHTLer Kathy Maloney writes “I was so excited to read in the 2/19 email that you chose Simon Singh’s book Fermat’s Enigma! That book has meant so much to me for such a long time. I’d had math phobia and anxiety for so long until I read his book. I still count on my fingers to this day and math still kind of stresses me out, but that book made me see how math relates to nature, to humanity, to everyday life, and how it has inspired passion in so many people throughout history. I had no idea how much drama there has been related to math! I’ve never been interested in history and even less interested in reading about math, but this amazing book just completely hooked me and made me see math in a totally different way. Learning there was a time in history when the concept of zero had not yet been discovered was mind blowing for me. I’ve read it a few times, given it to people, and I think it’s my favorite book of all time, fiction or non-fiction. I found the book because around 1998 I happened to watch the PBS Nova episode called “The Proof” about Andrew Wile and his pursuit in proving Fermat’s Last Theorem. Watching it, I just could not believe that this guy shut himself in his attic for seven years to solve a math problem. Why, why would someone do that?! Further, that this introverted, quiet man actually got emotional on camera talking about—math?! Who in the world tears up talking about math? I had to know more, so I found Simon Singh’s book and it totally changed my thinking and appreciation for something I’d hated and been afraid of most of my life. I highly recommend watching “The Proof” if you can find it, absolutely fascinating. Thank you so much for spreading the word about this great book. I just finished your Coursera Learning How to Learn course and I’m reading A Mind For Numbers right now. You do great and valuable work, thanks for all of it!”

Making Millions Out of Worsening Racism

We’ve been asked why we haven’t touted the book White Fragility—especially since we are so profoundly supportive of efforts to lift education for the disadvantaged. This article by Charles Fain Lehman of the Manhattan Institute sums up our thoughts pretty well—we are not into helping build the financial empire of someone who, in reality, seems to encourage seeing racism everywhere so she can make a buck off it. Key grafs: “DiAngelo’s wealth is jarring in part because of her criticisms of white privilege. It is also surprising given that available evidence suggests the anti-bias training she peddles does not work.

“A review of nearly 1,000 studies of anti-bias tools found little evidence that they have any impact. In fact, recent studies suggest anti-bias training’s primary effect may be to encourage discrimination: Firms with diversity training end up with fewer minorities in management, and field research finds that training both reinforces stereotypes and increases animosity against minority groups.

“But DiAngelo’s concept of ‘white fragility’ offers an answer to that academic evidence: The negative responses whites express when told they’re racist are simply evidence that they lack ‘racial stamina’—and indicate that more $40,000 anti-bias sessions are necessary.”

Incidentally, the review article that Lehman refers to is “Prejudice Reduction: What Works? A Review and Assessment of Research and Practice.” This article concludes: “Notwithstanding the enormous literature on prejudice, psychologists are a long way from demonstrating the most effective ways to reduce prejudice. Due to weaknesses in the internal and external validity of existing research, the literature does not reveal whether, when, and why interventions reduce prejudice in the world… Entire genres of prejudice-reduction interventions, including diversity training, educational programs, and sensitivity training in health and law enforcement professions, have never been evaluated with experimental methods.”

If you are genuinely into social justice, as we are, it is vitally important to rely on sound scientific approaches and not just jump on the bandwagon with knee-jerk virtue-signaling that can actually worsen the situation. That way lies the destructive path of pathological altruism. If you are involved in a training program, ask the tough questions to make sure that program has concrete scientific evidence of its efficacy—don’t accept vague answers. An excellent book about training programs that “everybody knows” work—but which in reality worsen the situation, is Redirect, by premier psychologist Timothy Wilson, who (sort of) originated the concept of 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert.

What Great Educators Can Do

This excellent article describes how East LA native Sergio Valdez played an integral part in Mars mission. Sergio was taught by legendary high school math teacher Jaime Escalante.  Escalante, the teacher in the ’80s film “Stand and Deliver,” certainly didn’t mess around with the likes of DiAngelo or modern reform math approaches—it is an unfortunate fact that Escalante was consistently blocked by school administrators and the teacher’s unions. It will be great when leaders in education return their focus to real education, following the extraordinary Escalante’s footsteps.  We have no doubt this will unfold—our hope is that it is sooner rather than later!

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

• Get in early on the upcoming critically acclaimed Uncommon Sense Teaching!
• Get the course recommended text, A Mind for Numbers!
• And Learning How to Learn, a book for kids and parents.

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week

Fermat’s Enigma: The Epic Quest to Solve the World’s Greatest Mathematical Problem, by Simon Singh. Wow, what a book!  You might expect this volume to be the next best thing to Ambien as a sleep-inducer, but instead, Fermat’s Enigma is a real page-turner, providing a dazzling overview of the growth of mathematics from Pythagoras, (whose different way of thinking led to his being burned to death by a proto-cancel culture mob), through Euclid, and on through the early mathematical giants of Euler,  Gauss, Sophie Germaine (a mathematical savant who managed to save Gauss’s life while inadvertently revealing she was a woman), the tragic geniuses Évariste Galois (who wrote as much as he could of his key mathematical discoveries the night before his death), and Yutaka Taniyama (spoiler alert—it didn’t go well for him).  You don’t need to know much more than elementary math to enjoy this book, because an enormous part of the story is the personalities and fascinating lives of the mathematicians. By the time we finally homed in on Andrew Wiles and his solution, we thought—well, the drama is done, we’re back to the humdrum modern world.  But that’s when the book really came alive. Highly recommended!

A Wonderful Article for Lay Audiences about the Beauty of Math

We have to bring your attention to this wonderful New York Times article by Gareth Cook on mathematician Terrence Tao. (As one of Tao’s students has joked ‘‘They will never make a movie about him… He doesn’t have a troubled life. He has a family, and they seem happy, and he’s usually smiling.”)

As Cook writes:

“The true work of the mathematician is not experienced until the later parts of graduate school, when the student is challenged to create knowledge in the form of a novel proof. It is common to fill page after page with an attempt, the seasons turning, only to arrive precisely where you began, empty-handed — or to realize that a subtle flaw of logic doomed the whole enterprise from its outset. The steady state of mathematical research is to be completely stuck. It is a process that Charles Fefferman of Princeton, himself a one time math prodigy turned Fields medalist, likens to ‘‘playing chess with the devil.’’ The rules of the devil’s game are special, though: The devil is vastly superior at chess, but, Fefferman explained, you may take back as many moves as you like, and the devil may not. You play a first game, and, of course, ‘‘he crushes you.’’ So you take back moves and try something different, and he crushes you again, ‘‘in much the same way.’’ If you are sufficiently wily, you will eventually discover a move that forces the devil to shift strategy; you still lose, but — aha! — you have your first clue.

That is an excellent article. It does a great (and rare) job of explaining for the lay audience the relevance and elegance and satisfaction of mathematics.”

Brain’s ‘Background Noise’ May Hold Clues to Persistent Mysteries

This prescient article in Quanta by Elizabeth Landau homes in on an area of much interest now to neuroscientists—there is fascinating information buried in seeming electrical noise in signals from the brain. As is often said nowadays “Someone’s noise is another one’s signal.” [Hat tip: LHTL Lead Mentor Steven Cooke.]

More on Attention versus “Diffuse Mode”

LHTLer Norman Rabin points out: “In my thinking about ‘default mode’ (diffuse mode), I personally find it very helpful to remember that there is physiological suppression of parts of the brain when humans pay attention—that’s why attention is often referred to as ‘selective attention.’”  Norman points toward this Scientific American article, which notes “… the harder you concentrate, the greater the suppression. One fundamental role of cognition is to select what your brain goes on to process. It does that, at least in part, by blocking irrelevant information.”

This little video from NOVA shows how selective attention is behind our perception of magic tricks. There is a related illusion called “change blindness,” which you can see here (it’s pretty cool). Terry observes “Despite all the neurons in the visual cortex, you can only fully process one object at a time.  That’s why attention is needed to choose what to process.  Other objects are suppressed.  What is amazing is that once you have noticed the change, you can’t not see it any more.”

A Twist on the Pomodoro Technique

Prof. Rajesh Tayal shares his version of the Pomodoro technique that he also teaches his students (he teaches professional courses such as those for chartered accountants).

1. Study for 25 minutes without any distraction
2. Use the next 5 minutes to think seriously and organise thoughts about the topic
3. Then use the next 5 minutes I use for making bullet point or mind map notes
4. Use the final 5 minutes to do body stretches, drink water, and a little walk.

After 3 cycles of 40 minutes each, he takes a 20 minute break. Ultimately, he finds this approach to be very powerful. You may find the same—it combines the Pomodoro with both retrieval practice and exercise, both of which are very helpful for learning.

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

• Get in early on the upcoming critically acclaimed Uncommon Sense Teaching!
• Get the course recommended text, A Mind for Numbers!
• And Learning How to Learn, a book for kids and parents.
• Join Barb on LinkedIn

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Month

Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick, by Wendy Wood. It looks like we’re on a roll this month with fantastic reads! Good Habits, Bad Habits is one of those life-changing books where the implications of what you’re discovering unfold gradually, until it hits that you’ve been oblivious to a vital part of you.  Although Wendy writes in an easy-to-read, friendly way, the book is not just woo-woo fluffy stuff—Dr. Wood is a UK-born psychologist who is the Provost Professor of Psychology and Business at University of Southern California, as well as the Distinguished Visiting Professor at INSEAD Business School in Paris. Her research on the brain’s habitual system is world class. (Our very own Terry recommended this book to Barb.)  

As a bit of historical background, Skinnerian research about the habitual system was quashed about fifty years ago by the burgeoning cognitive revolution. “Cognivistas” claimed (with some legitimacy) that Skinner’s behaviorists had been suppressing them. The problem is that Skinner and his behavioral approaches were on to something big—a lot of learning does take place through simple stimulus-reinforcement. Only in the past decade has the value of stimulus-reinforcement (habit-based) learning come to be more widely appreciated—except, sadly, in the field of education. (But follow our merry, mischievous crew this year… there is much more on that to come!) 

Good Habits, Bad Habits is an extraordinary book. Your relationships, productivity, health, and ability to learn will all benefit from reading it—and it’s so well-written that you’ll enjoy every word.  Also excellent as an audio book.

Barb Opening the Learning & the Brain Conference

Barb will be giving the opening keynote for the Learning & the Brain Conference, where she will discuss “Keeping Students Focused, Motivated, and Engaged in the Classroom and Online.” You’ll learn how little spurts of dopamine can make an enormous difference in your students’ attitudes—and how you can encourage those dopamine spurts.  You may also wish to attend Barb’s surprisingly practical second talk about the mysterious procedural learning system and its importance in learning math. (Psst—the procedural system also helps with learning art, language, music, dance, and pretty much any subject you want to name, so you’ll get a lot out of this talk whatever your discipline.)  

The all-star line up of speakers at this conference is extraordinary—Paul Kirschner, Carol Ann Tomlinson, Dan Willingham, Daisy Christodoulou, Richard Mayer, James Lang, and many, many more. This conference is definitely worth your while. What’s even better is that with registration, you have access to all the video-taped speeches for a whole month, allowing you to check out those talks you wanted to see that are in different tracks.

Top Influential Computer Scientists Today

A new listing has been published of the most influential computer scientists alive today. Two of the top ten are heavily into online learning, including Coursera’s mastermind co-founder Daphne Koller and the genius underpinning Georgia Tech’s breakthrough low-cost masters’ program, Zvi Galil. (Here is a fantastic interview with Zvi about his inspiring “earthquake” of a low-cost graduate program.) Clearly the intersection between computer science and online learning is an outstanding way to have high impact!

A Virtual Workshop on Engaging Learners through Zoom 

Jonathan Brennan, author of the superb strategy manual Engaging Learners through Zoom, has put together a virtual workshop on the topic to be held March 5th.  Dozens of active learning strategy examples with step-by-step directions, along with ideas for including diverse content across a broad range of disciplines. Register here for yourself or a group. Another Engaging with Zoom workshop  will be held just prior to the OnCourse national conference.  

An Innovative Conference on Learning by Students and for Students

McGill University is breaking innovative new ground in education with students organizing the webinar conference “Rediscovering Learning: Engineering New Perspectives”—a conference intended directly for students themselves to help them learn. The speakers’ talks will range in topics from self-mentorship, leadership in engineering environments, metacognition, and equity in STEM fields—all through the lens of learning and adaptation. There will also be panels on diversity and accessibility in engineering, told from student and faculty perspectives. Finally, there will be a mingling session at the end designed to allow for direct interaction with the speakers. Barb’s keynote will focus on reviewing key insights from Learning How to Learn that are practically useful for students in their studies. 

Incidentally, whatever high school or university you may be affiliated with, you may wish to send some of your students to this conference to get ideas about putting together your own student-run conference. Register here!

Engaged Learning in Engineering (ELINE), the organizer of the conference, is a new committee that’s been formed under the Engineering Undergraduate Society. Their purpose is to help engineering students more deeply learn the skills, technical or “soft,” that they need to succeed in academia and industry. Their end goal is to create more passionate and involved lifelong learners.

We look forward to seeing you at the conference!

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

• Get in early on the upcoming critically acclaimed Uncommon Sense Teaching!
• Get the course recommended text, A Mind for Numbers!
• And Learning How to Learn, a book for kids and parents. 

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Month

We have long been fans of Adam Grant, whose powerful book Give and Take is one of our favorites.  His newest book, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know, is worth the price of the book in the first chapters alone. Grant nails it, for example, with his discussion of the problems of being too smart—as our own Santiago Ramon y Cajal has pointed out, geniuses can flounder not because of their intelligence, but because of their lack of flexibility.  Key graf:

“Mental horsepower doesn’t guarantee mental dexterity. No matter how much brainpower you have, if you lack the motivation to change your mind, you’ll miss many occasions to think again. Research reveals that the higher you score on an IQ test, the more likely you are to fall for stereotypes, because you’re faster at recognizing patterns. And recent experiments suggest that the smarter you are, the more you might struggle to update your beliefs. One study investigated whether being a math whiz makes you better at analyzing data. The answer is yes—if you’re told the data are about something bland, like a treatment for skin rashes. But what if the exact same data are labeled as focusing on an ideological issue that activates strong emotions—like gun laws in the United States? Being a quant jock makes you more accurate in interpreting the results—as long as they support your beliefs. Yet if the empirical pattern clashes with your ideology, math prowess is no longer an asset; it actually becomes a liability. The better you are at crunching numbers, the more spectacularly you fail at analyzing patterns that contradict your views. If they were liberals, math geniuses did worse than their peers at evaluating evidence that gun bans failed. If they were conservatives, they did worse at assessing evidence that gun bans worked. In psychology there are at least two biases that drive this pattern. One is confirmation bias: seeing what we expect to see. The other is desirability bias: seeing what we want to see. These biases don’t just prevent us from applying our intelligence. They can actually contort our intelligence into a weapon against the truth. We find reasons to preach our faith more deeply, prosecute our case more passionately…” 

Adam’s fascinating book contains so much more, on “idea cults,” the problems with perspective-taking, resisting the impulse to simplify, the difference between skepticism and denialism…  The insights don’t stop coming. Think Again is also a great book for audio. 

The Science of Reasoning With Unreasonable People

We’re on a bit of an Adam Grant binge here today by also drawing your attention to his most-recent op-ed in the New York Times on how to reason with unreasonable people. The key? Truly understanding their perspectives. As Grant notes: “When we try to change a person’s mind, our first impulse is to preach about why we’re right and prosecute them for being wrong. Yet experiments show that preaching and prosecuting typically backfire—and what doesn’t sway people may strengthen their beliefs. Much as a vaccine inoculates the physical immune system against a virus, the act of resistance fortifies the psychological immune system. Refuting a point of view produces antibodies against future attempts at influence, making people more certain of their own opinions and more ready to rebut alternatives.”

Grant wanted a friend to rethink his blanket resistance to vaccines—but Grant realized if he really wanted to do so, he needed to rethink his approach, including his tendencies toward being a logic bully. The real person who changed in this exercise? Grant himself.

Routine childhood vaccines decline amidst COVID-19 pandemic

And speaking of vaccinations, Barb’s oldest sister Carolyn was amongst the last of the children to catch polio before vaccines became available (Carolyn’s sad life was recounted in Barb’s autobiographical Evil Genes.) Witnessing polio’s effects up close has made Barb all the more interested in how vaccinations can change lives.  This interview article  with Barb’s pediatrician daughter Rosie Oakley in the Black Hills Pioneer gives an overview of what’s happening in rural areas with vaccinations—and is not too far off describing what’s happening in urban areas, as well. Key grafs:

“This year in particular there has certainly been a drop off in immunizations,” [Rosie] said. “We have families that are nervous to take their children into clinic because of COVID, and so they are skipping multiple well child checks.” Oakley said the drop in regular visits and vaccinations worries her because children who are not vaccinated miss out on a critical period for protection against diseases, some of which can be life threatening. Oakley cited meningitis (an infection of fluid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord), and epiglottitis (a condition that occurs when cartilage surrounding the windpipe swells and blocks air flow to the lungs) as two main examples.

“There are some life threatening illnesses prevented by vaccines that occur more often in kids, such as epiglottitis,” Oakley said. “This is why it is so important to immunize children before they are adults. It is for the same reason we make children wear seatbelts in the car, cover electrical outlets in the home, or give them bitter tasting medicine when they have an infection: they are too young to know better and it is in their best interest.

“Every year in our community we have multiple children who come into our clinic or emergency department with life threatening illnesses that could have been prevented if they had been immunized,” she continued.

Learning How to Learn with Learning Issues 

LHTLer Megan C writes to tell us: “My 14-year-old daughter has struggled with learning issues which were only diagnosed last year. After taking your course, I purchased Learning How to Learn and made her read it. She has applied many of the strategies to her own learning and is now crushing it at school. She is applying to independent high school and she was asked to write about a book that she read outside of school that has made a significant impact on her life. This is what she wrote: 

A book that I really enjoyed over the past year is Learning How to Learn by Dr. Barbara Oakley and Dr. Terry Sejnowski. This book is about how to properly and efficiently study. It shows diagrams and pictures of strategies to study. It is based on neuroscience, something I am fascinated by. At the end of every chapter there are guiding questions to help the reader remember the material more. I liked this book because I can sometimes have trouble focusing and finding a good study strategy. After reading this book, I have learned a lot of helpful strategies that I have used this school year. For example, I study for 25 minutes and do not stop. Then after 25 minutes, I take a 15 minute break. I have found this strategy really helpful. I think it is interesting to use science about the brain to help you develop better learning habits.  

Thank you for helping my daughter develop a sense of agency in her own learning growth. 

Don’t forget to remember—memory champion Nelson Dellis has squeezed a few final slots open at Barb’s request

Nelson’s wonderful memory mastery course now has a final extra slot just for you (if you get there fast enough!) before enrollment closes today.  Enroll here—your memory will thank you! 

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

• Get in early on the upcoming critically acclaimed Uncommon Sense Teaching!
• Get the course recommended text, A Mind for Numbers!
• And Learning How to Learn, a book for kids and parents.

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the week

We have it directly from Barb’s pediatrician daughter Rosie that P Is for Pterodactyl: The Worst Alphabet Book Ever, by Raj Haldar, Chris Carpenter, and illustrator Maria Beddia is actually one of the greatest children’s books evuh!  Many children get tired of spelling rules—P Is for Pterodactyl features words that break all the rules. You and your gleeful youngster will have a blast with this bizarrely educational book. 

Let your imagination become innovation with Barb’s home team at Oakland University!

We can’t resist telling you about the Engineering and Computer Science Day at Barb’s home Oakland University, in beautiful Rochester, Michigan.  (Pssst, we’re pretty good at cars around here.) If you’re trying to inspire your offspring or mentees to consider an outstanding engineering and computer science program, you couldn’t find an easier way to do it than to sign up for this virtual tour of Oakland’s Engineering Center. You’ll hear all about the wonderful opportunities available at this top-notch—but low cost—engineering and computer science program. It runs this Saturday (tomorrow!), January 30  from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Eastern time.  Register for this free event here.

Study reveals what the brain does during daydreams

One recommendation we’ve commonly been hearing of late is that one should try to avoid the default mode network (diffuse mode), and keep your focus as much as possible to improve your happiness levels. Well, yes—that is, if you’re willing to give up on both creativity and mental relaxation in your quest for happiness. This fine article from Science News describes why the mind wandering and default mode activities can be so valuable. Key graf: “The findings suggest that tuning out the outside world and letting your thoughts flow freely and creatively are necessary to promote mind relaxation and exploration, according to the researchers.

“’If you focus all the time on your goals, you can miss important information. And so, having a free-association thought process that randomly generates memories and imaginative experiences can lead you to new ideas and insights,’ said study co-author Zachary Irving, an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Virginia.”

This Study Finds article by Craig T. Lee, “Daydreaming can be creatively beneficial for office workers,” adds even more thoughtful insight. (Barb tends to get a bit defensive about the value of mind wandering and daydreaming, because she does so much of it…Wait, what?!)

MOOC of the Month: Machine Learning for Everyone with Eric Siegel Specialization

If you’re interested in learning more about machine learning and how to use it, this course is accessible and useful for both business-level learners and dyed-in-the-wool techies. It covers both state-of-the-art techniques and the business-side best practices. Eric is a dynamite instructor and the course is very highly rated.  Check it out here!  

Mental models—A blog, with flashcards!

A LHTLer has started a blog, Wise Charlie, (Yes indeed, Charlie Munger is pretty wise!) on mental modes. Our LHTLer observes: “Wise Charlie helps you become a better leader using mental models.  Mental models are big ideas from big disciplines, like business, psychology, science, engineering, and more. These models can provide solutions to recurring problems, forming a sort of playbook with strategic tactics. An understanding of the key concepts from different disciplines will help you ask the right questions and allow you to more easily jump boundaries from one discipline to another. This is a pathway to great leadership and strategic thinking.”

Flashcards are one of the best ways to help you gain procedural fluency with varying ideas.  As it turns out, you can purchase flashcards about these key mental models—practice with these cards can help you more easily pull the ideas to mind when you need them. Each card has a simple definition of a model with a funny example.  Wise Charlie has a special 15%  discount code for fellow LHTLers: LHTL.  If you’re a fan of useful mental models, these cards can be a great way to truly master the ideas. 

Talking out loud to yourself is a technology for thinking

We’re fans of Dr. Nana Ariel, who wrote this thoughtful article on the value of talking to yourself. (Nana is our kind of person!)  Key graf: “The idea that speaking out loud and thinking are closely related isn’t new. It emerged in Ancient Greece and Rome, in the work of such great orators as Marcus Tullius Cicero. But perhaps the most intriguing modern development of the idea appeared in the essay ‘On the Gradual Formation of Thoughts During Speech’ (1805) by the German writer Heinrich von Kleist. Here, Kleist describes his habit of using speech as a thinking method, and speculates that if we can’t discover something just by thinking about it, we might discover it in the process of free speech. He writes that we usually hold an abstract beginning of a thought, but active speech helps to turn the obscure thought into a whole idea. It’s not thought that produces speech but, rather, speech is a creative process that in turn generates thought. Just as ‘appetite comes with eating’, Kleist argues, ‘ideas come with speaking’.”

Dr. Ariel will also be starring in the upcoming Hebrew version of Learning How to Learn from Tel Aviv University—stay tuned!

Don’t forget to remember—final signup opportunity for memory champion Nelson Dellis’s class

This wonderful memory mastery course starts Feb 1st.  Enroll here—your memory will thank you! 

Missing Link on the Controversial Controversial Episode of the Podcast Take the Lead Where Barb Lets Loose on Critics of Online Learning 

Sorry—last week’s Cheery Friday email was missing the direct link to Dr. Diane Hamilton’s podcast interview with Barb.  Here it is—enjoy! 

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

• Get in early on the upcoming critically acclaimed Uncommon Sense Teaching!
• Get the course recommended text, A Mind for Numbers!
• And Learning How to Learn, a book for kids and parents. 

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week

Nonfiction Book Proposals Anybody Can Write: How to Get a Contract and Advance Before Writing Your Book, by Elizabeth Lyon. We’re often asked how to get started in publishing a non-fiction book. You can’t do any better than to read Elizabeth Lyon’s guide, which provides a crash course on how to write a book proposal that (along with three sample chapters), will help you sell your book idea without having to write the entire book.  A few things to note. It’s easy to overlook the importance of doing the market analysis—that is, analyzing the books that will compete with yours.  But that’s one of the first issues you should explore. What’s different about your book that hasn’t already been said in many other books?  It’s also easy to overlook the importance of developing your own personal platform.  Not everyone is going to be a Harvard professor or have a “sailed through Yale” resume. But, even so, you need some innovative dash of panache to establish your credibility as an expert.  You also need to keep in mind that it’s not enough to even just be an expert in your subject—you also want to captivate your audience.  Lyon gives great insight into how to do precisely that.

Final Signup Opportunity for Champion Teacher of Memory Nelson Dellis

We mentioned a bit ago that our friend Nelson Dellis is not only the four-time US Memory Champion, but is also perhaps the best teacher of memory tools in the world. The official course launch is February 1st, but meanwhile, Nelson is adding even more value by releasing a 6-part video series for free. This extraordinary course contains all the memory techniques and strategies he’s mastered and worked on for the last 10+ years, all jammed into one engaging, upbeat online class. Highly recommended!  Nelson’s classes often close out within minutes of opening—again, this early pre-registration for our LHTL community will allow you to go to the front of the line. We should note that Nelson’s video editing uses the same approach we use on Learning How to Learn—except he’s a much better video editor than Barb is. This class is going to be memorably special!

Barb Lets Loose on Critics of Online Learning in a Controversial Episode of the Podcast Take the Lead

Dr. Diane Hamilton is an awesome interviewer who asks some of the most perceptive questions around. Her seemingly innocuous approach can lull interviewees into revealing their candid thoughts—which can make for the very best of podcasting. As the podcast description notes:

“A lot of professors contend that online education will never be as good as face-to-face learning, but Coursera’s inaugural “Innovation Instructor” merely chuckles at that notion. Dr. Barbara Oakley maintains that a lot of the resistance from these professors is due to the fact that their online courses simply stink. They are so used to trapping students inside a classroom that they don’t know how to engage students effectively in a setting where they have the choice to simply get away. In this conversation with Dr. Diane Hamilton, Dr. Barbara talks about her upcoming book, Learn Like a Pro, where she gives the most updated advice on learning taken from breakthroughs in neuroscience and psychology. Come and join in as she unfurls her mind on all things learning and shares some of the learning habits that she has for herself.”

Talking Back, Talking Black

We’re big fans of John McWhorter’s great work on language. (His most recent book on The Creole Debate and Talking Back, Talking Black is right up our alley and we hope to review it soon). On Thursday, February 11 at 7pm EST, there will be a virtual conversation with John McWhorter about viewpoint diversity among Black intellectuals and the state of open inquiry in higher education today. Advanced registration is required. For more information on the event, please click here. 

Synthesis—online enrichment club, looking for both students and also for exceptional facilitators 

Synthesis is an online enrichment club where students ages 8-14 learn about decision making and problem solving through team games. It’s based on the most popular class at Ad Astra, the school Elon Musk and Josh Dahn started at SpaceX. 

Synthesis is looking for exceptional facilitators to join their team. Having previous classroom experience is great, but is not required. What Synthesis is really looking for art smart, adaptive generalists who are passionate about helping students and putting education on a bright new path. 

• Synthesis is  hiring for part-time (flexible, with a minimum of 3 hours per week) at $100/hour. [Apply here]
• Check out Synthesis itself if you are a parent, teacher, or caregiver. It looks like a fascinating program!

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

• Get in early on the upcoming critically acclaimed Uncommon Sense Teaching!
• Get the course recommended text, A Mind for Numbers!
• And Learning How to Learn, a book for kids and parents.

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week

Negative Self-Talk & How to Change It, by Shad Helmstetter.  After reading about how one of Caesar’s assassins, Brutus, shifted himself from probable victory into suicidal defeat at the Battle of Philippi, (at least as detailed in The Last Assassin),  we became interested in negative self-talk. Helmstetter’s short, uplifting book tackles an important issue––how we talk to ourselves makes a big difference in how we feel about ourselves, how we interact with others, and ultimately, how successful we are, at least according to however we define success.  As Helmstetter notes, “The problem is that Negative Self-Talk Disorder is an unconsciously acquired disorder that becomes physically, chemically, wired into your brain. (It becomes an actual disorder––faulty wiring––in the brain.) If you do nothing to change it, it not only stays, it also gets progressively worse. It becomes a part of your programs, and follows the rules under which your brain operates. Imagine meeting a sour, pessimistic, down-in-the-mouth person who is negative about everything. When you meet someone like that, it is clear that person did not suddenly become a negative, unhappy person overnight. People who are super-negative––whether they are aware of it or not––have worked at it. Probably for years. Day after day, thought after thought, they have, usually without knowing it, wired their brains to see the world in a darker, more insecure, less enlightened and optimistic way.”

If you’re looking for ideas about how to get yourself out of a negative way of treating yourself,  Helmstetter’s book is a good place to start. The book is a bit of a self-promotion for his audio materials, but then, we like Helmstetter’s audio materials, so we didn’t mind.

A Beautiful Visual Explanation of Bayes Theorem

Bayes Theorem is one of the most useful theorems around, especially when it comes to new breakthroughs in artificial intelligence.  This terrific video by 3Blue1Brown allows you to understand the theorem in a concrete visual way.  The video also showcases teaching at its best. 

Learning & the Brain Online Educational Conference

Barb gave the opening keynote for the last Harvard-MIT-Dana Alliance “Learning & the Brain” educational conference in Boston in November, 2019–one of her last live, face-to-face engagements before the COVID social-distancing shutdown. The good news is that on Feb. 20, 2021, the conference returns in online form. The lineup of speakers is incredible!  And Barb’s own talk will include wonderful updates on learning from her speech last year. (Neuroscience is advancing rapidly!)  Register for this outstanding online conference here.

5 Ways to Support Kids With ADHD During Remote Learning

When it comes to special challenges, perhaps our most frequent question from parents and teachers relates to helping students with ADD and ADHD. This outstanding article by Katy Reckdahl in Edutopia provides useful background and excellent tips that are also useful for all students.  Key grafs: 

“ADHD affects the entire brain,” says Adiaha Spinks-Franklin, MD, a developmental-behavioral pediatrician and an associate professor at Baylor College of Medicine. “Your brain does not make enough dopamine or epinephrine—chemicals that are important for self-control and self-regulation. So students with ADHD can’t regulate their impulses, their attention, their emotions. They struggle with being disorganized and with time and money management.”

Remote classrooms pose special problems. Researchers recently found that 31 percent of parents of kids with ADHD described remote learning as “very challenging” and struggled to support their children at home. Educators and students can be at a disadvantage, too. In the physical classroom, teachers can generally see when students with ADHD are confused, fidgety, and in need of a quick refocus prompt—but many of these signals are lost in translation during Zoom instruction. And because learning from home is generally more independent, it requires more focus and organization, two qualities that are often in short supply for students with ADHD.

To support kids with ADHD in elementary and middle school, the educators we spoke with said they’re focusing on the fundamentals of smart online teaching: brain and body breaks, chunking lessons into shorter units, and connecting with and soliciting feedback from their students—but especially those with ADHD—as often as possible. “In regular classrooms, the whole first quarter is about understanding students’ learning styles and creating partnerships with them to learn what I might do to help them,” says New Orleans elementary school educator Sari Levy. “We can’t forget that point when we’re teaching digitally.”

If you are interested in helping students keep their focus, you’ll enjoy reading the whole article.

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

• Get in early on the upcoming critically acclaimed Uncommon Sense Teaching!
• Get the course recommended text, A Mind for Numbers!
• And Learning How to Learn, a book for kids and parents.