Author: barboakley

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Month

Teachers vs Tech? The Case for an Ed Tech Revolution, by Daisy Christodoulou. We’re tremendous fans of “force of nature” Daisy Christdoulou, author of Seven Myths about Education. In her newest book, Daisy makes the perceptive, balanced case for using technology for many critical teaching-related purposes, including personalized learning, make learning more active, and improving teachers’ reach and engagement with students. When combined with Daisy’s perceptive asides and experience, Teachers vs Tech makes for a compelling read.  

For example, think you can always “just look it up?” As Daisy shows, just looking things up can be worse than just being wrong—it can allow you and your students to be suckered by big tech into their self-serving, deceptive world. Want your students to learn independently? It’s not as simple as that—in fact, students don’t get better at learning independently by just learning independently. Think a video project can help your students learn more about the material? Think again—such a project can ultimately help students learn far more about video-making than about what you’re actually trying to teach.

Amongst all her intriguing perspectives, Daisy has a special insight into rubrics, and why rubrics can mislead teachers into believing students understand the material when they don’t. (Here is some of her published research on the topic.)  Indeed, there is excellent research evidence that just because a student may mouth or write the words you want to hear does not mean they actually understand what you want them to understand.

In the end, Daisy writes like a great teacher—we especially liked the illustrations and straightforward layout that made Daisy’s ideas easier to “chunk” and internalize. In these pandemic days, teachers and parents are pausing to reset their expectations about what the online world can bring to education. Daisy’s book provides an intriguing guide to what lies ahead.

Neuro Learning Hacks

Here’s a quick learning hack from TikTok [Hat tip Jeffery Parent], which articulates key ideas this far longer but deeply informative discussion between Joe Rogan and neuroscientist Andrew Huberman. [Hat tip Cal Newport—don’t miss Cal’s fabulous book Deep Work!]

Evolutionary and Heritable Axes Shape Our Brain

Sometimes as science advances, what seemed unimaginably complex at first can actually be broken down and explained in very simple ways.  In just such a fashion, as this article in Medical Press explains, scientists are discovering that the human brain—in fact, the brain of all primates—is organized along two primary axes. “One axis stretches from the posterior (back) to the frontal part of the cortex. This reflects a functional hierarchy from basic capabilities such as vision and movement to abstract, highly complex skills such as cognition, memory, and social skills. A second axis leads from the dorsal (upper) to the ventral (lower) part of the cortex. Whereas the ventral system has been associated with functions assigning meaning and motivation, the dorsal system may relate to space, time, and movement.” This supports the hypothesis that “ the cerebral cortex developed from two different origins, the amygdala and olfactory cortex on the one hand and the hippocampus on the other hand. From these origins two different lines of cortical development arose, reflecting waves from less to more differentiated areas starting at each origin.”

A Podcast between Atharva Khisti and Barb on Mentor Chat

Here’s Part 2 of the informative and fun-to-listen to chat between Atharva and Barb—enjoy! (Part 1 was last week.)

Google Has a Plan to Disrupt the College Degree

As this Inc. article notes, Google’s new certificate program takes only six months to complete, and will be a fraction of the cost of college. Key graf: “Although traditional degrees are still deemed necessary in fields like law or medicine, more and more employers have signaled that they no longer view them as a must-have—Apple, IBM, and Google, just to name a few.”

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 the course recommended text, A Mind for Numbers!
• And Learning How to Learn, a book for kids and parents.
• Follow LHTL on Facebook | Join Barb on LinkedIn | Follow LHTL on Twitter

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week

The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win, by Maria Konnikova. What a fantastic book! Maria has a doctorate in social psychology from Columbia. But instead of going into academia, after a bout of sad events in her family, and with the stalwart support of her husband, Maria decided to tackle the world of high stakes poker.  Armed only with her own chutzpah (she had no knowledge whatsoever of poker), and a deviously informative research paper, she convinced one of the world’s best poker players to take her on as a student. This extraordinary book tells her tale. What turns this book into a master work is that Konnikova turns her psychoanalytic skills on herself.  As she observes:

“What I will offer throughout is insight into decision making far removed from poker, a translation of what I’m learning in the casino to the decisions I make on a daily basis—and the crucial decisions that I make only rarely, but that carry particular import. From managing emotion, to reading other people, to cutting your losses and maximizing your gains, to psyching yourself up into the best version of yourself so that you can not only catch the bluffs of others but bluff successfully yourself, poker is endlessly applicable and revelatory. The mixture of chance and skill at the table is a mirror to that same mixture in our daily lives—and a way of learning to play within those parameters in superior fashion. Poker teaches you how and when you can take true control—and how you can deal with the elements of pure luck—in a way no other environment I’ve encountered has quite been able to do. What’s more, in an age of omnipresent distraction, poker reminds us just how critical close observation and presence are to achievement and success. How important it is to immerse yourself and to learn new things, truly… This book isn’t about how to play poker. It’s about how to play the world.”

This book is a wow—enjoy it now! (Also great for audio.)

A Review of the MOOC “Understanding Medical Research: Your Facebook friend is wrong.”

Scott Mathews, Scott Mathews, Lead Mentor of our follow-on course, Mindshift, has another hum-dinger review of a MOOC for us.  

“Are you looking for a thorough review of the scientific method, research methodology, and statistical analysis? Are you new to these topics but want to understand them? If so, I highly recommend the Coursera course, ‘Understanding Medical Research: Your Facebook friend is wrong.’ Another excellent course from Yale, I would consider the seven weeks of lectures and limited readings to be the equivalent of a full-semester undergraduate course, based on my own experience with such.

The instructor, Perry Wilson, MD, MSCE, Associate Professor Term; Director, Clinical and Translational Research Accelerator (CTRA); Course Director, Interpretation of the Medical Literature; Co Director, Human Genetics and Clinical Research Core at Yale, Is obviously highly qualified to teach the course. Despite his impressive credentials, Professor Wilson is highly engaging and relatable, with a great sense of humor. 

“To serve as examples, he conducts ‘studies’ such as asking Yale students at random whether he looks more or less intelligent when wearing glasses. He then presents actual studies and walks learners through the process of design, implementation, and interpretation. 

“The week spent on statistics could almost be a semester-length course in itself. The use of graphics and media in the presentations is superior, some of the best and most interesting that I have ever seen. The content is timely, including a lecture on interpreting COVID-19 studies. 

“Anyone with an interest in scientific research would enjoy this course and could probably learn from it, even those with prior knowledge of the topics.”

How to Memorize all 50 US States

Looking to help your kids improve their understanding of the United States and where the States are?  Never fear, memory expert Nelson Dellis is here. Don’t forget Nelson’s terrific books on memory: 

• Remember It! The Names of People You Meet, All of Your Passwords, Where You Left Your Keys, and Everything Else You Tend to Forget 
• Memory Superpowers!: An Adventurous Guide to Remembering What You Don’t Want to Forget (10 – 14-year-olds)

A Podcast between Atharva Khisti and Barb on Mentor Chat

Here’s a fun-to-listen to as well as informative chat between Atharva and Barb—enjoy!

Avoid Training Wheels

This thought-provoking article about training wheels, which notes the counterintuitive ways that training wheels may actually hinder learning.  As MIT engineering professor David Gordon Wilson observes in his classic, Bicycling Science, “It’s hard to see how training wheels can inculcate any of the desired balancing habits, unless they are off the ground.” How many other ways do we perhaps “help” but actually hinder learners?  

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 the course recommended text, A Mind for Numbers!
• And Learning How to Learn, a book for kids and parents.
• (Do you tend to read footnote stuff like this that most people ignore? If so, especially for you, you sharp-eyed person, here’s a stealthy introduction to Barb’s newest book, with info on learning found nowhere else, coming out next June from St. Martin’s Press: Learn Like a Pro)

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week

We’ve been intrigued by books on Zoom, and we wanted to share about a new one, out soon, that takes a different approach: Engaging Learners through Zoom: Strategies for Virtual Teaching Across Disciplines, by Jonathan Brennan. As Barb wrote in her blurb for the book: “Engaging Learners through Zoom is like a banquet of ideas for polls, chats, breakout rooms, using the main session as a central hub, and far more.  What’s terrific about this book is that it gives concrete, innovative examples for practically every discipline—any instructor can benefit! I never knew I needed this book, but now, I couldn’t do without it!”  

Study and Motivation Tips with Barb Oakley and Greg Hammons

Want to see Barb “live” with her friend Greg Hammons, co-star of Learning How to Learn for Youth?  The dynamic duo will be doing a Facebook Live session on Tuesday, September 22, 2020, at 12:00 PM – 1 PM Eastern time.  Sign up now to attend on Tuesday and ask questions about whatever you’d like related to motivation and learning! 

MOOC of the Week

The Science of Well-Being is a Coursera-Yale MOOC taught by Professor Laurie Santos, based on a course that she taught at Yale in Spring 2018 titled, “Psychology and the Good Life.” To everyone’s surprise, it turned out to be the most popular course ever offered at Yale. The Coursera adaptation preserves most of the content of the course over the 10-week length of the course.

Our interlocutor,  Scott Mathews, (Lead Mentor of our companion MOOC Mindshift), found this course to be fascinating, especially in the time of COVID-19. Scott notes: “Professor Santos presents evidence-based findings on the factors and activities that give us feelings of happiness and well-being, many of which are counterintuitive. For example, most of us probably think that making more money, being hired for a great job, acquiring cool stuff, or starting a new relationship would make us happy. But research has found that after an initial boost, our self-rated happiness levels return to baseline in a short time.

 “The kinds of things that give us lasting happiness, again based on research evidence, are doing acts of kindness for other people (the ‘size’ of the act is unrelated to the happiness it gives us), nurturing social connections, and other non-acquisitive and other-directed activities.

“The course offers a personal happiness assessment, ‘rewirings’ of our brains to eliminate false assumptions, and relevant reading materials. Professor Santos also maintains an active blog that extends the content of the course.

“I will admit that it took me longer than 10 weeks to complete the course, but as always, Coursera deadlines can be reset!”

Georgia Tech Online MS in Computer Science Hits the 10,000 Student Mark for This Year!

There have been over 1,200 articles about the tremendously innovative Online Master of Science in Computer Science Program, including 10 in the New York Times.  In one of the first articles, then Dean Zvi Galil mentioned the number 10,000 per year enrolled students as an achievable goal. He was chided for being overly ambitious. But this goal has been achieved without reducing the quality of Georgia Tech’s program, and without cannibalizing the oncampus program. It seems that Georgia Tech’s program may be one of the largest, if not the largest, top-quality online masters programs in the world.  (Here’s Barb with a “Go Jackets” t-shirt!)

2020 LWMOOCs Conference: How MOOCs Are Reshaping the 4th Industrial Revolution

If you’re interested in MOOCs, the LWMOOCs conference is not-to-be-missed—registration rates are low until September 20th. Barb will be giving a lightning talk, but the talk Barb’s really focused on is that by David Joyner of Georgia Tech, about the successful Georgia Tech’s online masters program.

How a Child with a Fractured Skull Grew Up to Become the ‘World’s Fastest Human Calculator’

This heartwarming story of Neelakantha Bhanu Prakash. “According to the Limca Book of Records—India’s equivalent to Guinness World Records—Bhanu’s mind processes numbers at an average speed of 12 per second, around 10 times faster than a regular brain. Bhanu says he’s able to make such complex calculations at breakneck speed through ‘structured practice.’” Not bad for a kid who doctors warned could be cognitively impaired for the rest of his life due to his head injuries, which included 85 stitches, multiple operations, and a medically-induced coma.[Hat tip Audun Huslid]

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 the course recommended text, A Mind for Numbers!
• And Learning How to Learn, a book for kids and parents. 
• Follow LHTL on Facebook | Join Barb on LinkedIn | Follow LHTL on Twitter

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week

The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn, by Nathaniel Philbrick. Barb and her Hero Hubby Phil were driving through Montana last week and happened to spot signs for the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. Next thing you know, the intrepid duo had parked their little trailer and were off to spend a blistering hot day exploring the battlefield.  In some sense, the Little Big Horn Monument is like an action-packed cemetery, with clusters of gravestones marking the spot of bodies as the battle swept through the gullies and hillsides. But just roaming the hillsides wasn’t enough—they had to learn more.

Enter Nathaniel Philbrick’s extraordinary The Last Stand.  From the very first pages, this exquisitely written book pulls you into the world of bad guys (if Custer’s premeditated attacks on a peaceful Native American villages don’t qualify him as a bad guy, nothing would), good guys like the extraordinary leader Sitting Bull, and everyone in between. The Last Stand gives a tremendous sense of the injustice and inequities experienced by Native Americans around the time of the first US Centennial in 1876. But it also gives a broad sense of place and time thanks to Philbrick’s extraordinary way with words. (Philbrick has won the National Book Award and has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.)  This is a rare, hard-to-put-down masterpiece. Enjoy!

TIME Magazine: The Science of Learning Single Issue 

Here’s Time’s most recent special issue, which focuses on learning. The issue also contains an in-depth article on online learning that quotes Barb extensively.  Enjoy!

MOOC of the Month: Bringing the Fun into Teamwork

This week marks the launch of “Remotely Humorous,” created by Stanford Lecturers Naomi Bagdonas and Connor Diemand-Yauman. This MOOC focused on creating more humorous, joyful, remote teams. The intrepid creator duo have teamed up with comedic minds from The Onion, Funny Or Die, and Comedy Central to create a hilarious, interactive learning experience. You’ll find yourself feeling both uplifted and empowered as you reframe to shine joy into your work and life. 

Did we mention that the course is funny? As in, really funny. Neurotransmitters like dopamine play a crucial role in learning and memory, and there are few faster ways to prompt a surge of dopamine than through laughter. So laugh as you learn! You can see the trailer here for a sense of the course.

Click here to signup (and use the code REMOTEHUMOR before September 9th to get 15% off!).

A Nice Interactive Graphic Article about Spaced Repetition

If you’d like to learn more about the powerful spaced repetition technique, check out this article by Nicky Case, which also allows you to occasionally interact with the graphics. Includes a valuable comparative discussion of Anki versus Leitner Box and Tiny Cards.  [Hat tip Roman Hardgrave.]

Career Advice in Mathematics from a World Leader in Math

Terrence Tao is a living legend in mathematics, which is all the more awe-inspiring given his youth. Tao is the winner of the 2006 Fields Medal and is a MacArthur Fellow.  Here is his collection of various pieces of advice on academic career issues in mathematics.

Never Too Old to Change and Grow, Career-Wise!

A LHTLer writes inspiring words for us all: “I’m writing to you because I just want to send some appreciation your way. I took the Learning How to Learn course during lockdown, and your story and techniques inspired me to begin studying computer science at the age of 30, when I assumed I had been long past the sensitive area of neural plasticity to learn something so new and challenging. And yesterday I completed Harvard’s rigorous Introduction to Computer Science. I don’t know if I would have done it without your inspiration. So 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 the course recommended text, A Mind for Numbers!
• And Learning How to Learn, a book for kids and parents. 
• Follow LHTL on Facebook | Join Barb on LinkedIn | Follow LHTL on Twitter

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Month

Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World, by Carl T. Bergstrom and Jevin D. West. This very readable book describes how easy it is for journalists, politicians, companies, and yes, even researchers themselves to bullshit people.  As Bergstrom and West note: “Perhaps the most important principle in bullshit studies is Brandolini’s principle. Coined by Italian software engineer Alberto Brandolini in 2014, it states: ‘The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than [that needed] to produce it.’ Producing bullshit is a lot less work than cleaning it up. It is also a lot simpler and cheaper to do. A few years before Brandolini formulated his principle, Italian blogger Uriel Fanelli had already noted that, loosely translated, ‘an idiot can create more bullshit than you could ever hope to refute.’ 

We also like this book because it provides fresh perspectives on the black box of artificial intelligence algorithms; how to understand conditional probability in simple, visual ways; how p-hacking leads to a misleading research landscape; and why even superb scientists can publish irreproducible results. This is an important book that we feel is destined to become a classic. Also good for audio listening.

A New Campus Diary Podcast Series from EdSurge

Fall 2020 will bring the first full college term of the COVID-19 pandemic, and no one knows quite what to expect. New social distancing rules have been issued for students—and already broken. How will it all work out?The indefatigable Jeff Young from EdSurge has started a new podcast series that features the audio diaries of professors and students to follow campus life during this unprecedented pandemic semester. Here’s the first episode.

“Groupiness” in Social Interactions

This article describes research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Rachel Kranton and colleagues related to people’s tendencies to think like and identify with a group—very relevant to today’s educational trends related to cooperative learning.  This topic has long been a fascinating one for Barb, sparked by Donna Musil’s BRATS: Our Journey Home, a documentary about the apparent different ways of thinking of some children who grow up moving all the time. Barb moved every year or two during most of her formative years because her father was in the Air Force.  Ultimately, she grew more comfortable with the discomfort of never quite being like her classmates.  When she moved from rural Texas to tony Malibu, for example, she didn’t look right (she wore the wrong jeans), she didn’t sound right (thick Texas twang), and ultimately she didn’t think right, at least according to the ruling cliques of middle school. 

Today, Barb is sometimes surprised by how people will reach judgments by appealing, not to facts, but to the idea that, “why, everybody thinks that way!” This is notwithstanding the fact that some despicable social movements of the past were spurred by the fact that nearly everybody thought in the same problematic way. Kranton’s research is just the beginning of the deeper work that’s needed involving groupthink and concepts outlined in Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer. Barb can’t help but wonder, can formative experiences during youth, including experiences in the educational system, also play a role?

The Value of Online Learning in Helping You Get a New Job

One of Barb’s former face-to-face engineering students wrote to say “Welllll…after completing learning how to learn, I was continually asking myself if I had become obsessed or “addicted” to the MOOCs! Ha, ha, ha. The hardest part was choosing a path and deciding how to chain them together for a complete and even greater experience.

“And it seems like I managed to get it at least kinda right! I started my new job last week and one of my interviewers let me know that what sealed the deal for me were the courses I had taken during my time off.

“Pretty cool!”

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 the course recommended text, A Mind for Numbers!
• And Learning How to Learn, a book for kids and parents. 
• Follow LHTL on Facebook | Join Barb on LinkedIn | Follow LHTL on Twitter

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Month

Curious: The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends On It, by Ian Leslie. Barb has an upcoming talk for Novartis on curiosity for their Curiosity Week, (it will start with the story of the worst professor Barb ever had, and this professor’s inadvertent role in inspiring the corny video editing behind Learning How to Learn). So meanwhile, Barb couldn’t help but become more curious about curiosity.  Ian Leslie’s book is a scorcher on the topic—highly readable and beautifully researched.  Here’s a sample: “Sir Ken Robinson’s 2008 [TED] talk on educational reform—entitled “Do Schools Kill Creativity?”—has now been viewed more than 4 million times. In it Robinson cites the fact that children’s scores on standard tests of creativity decline as they grow older and advance through the educational system. He concludes that children start out as curious, creative individuals but are made duller by factory-style schools that spend too much time teaching children academic facts and not enough helping them express themselves. Sir Ken clearly cares greatly about the well-being of children, and he is a superb storyteller, but his arguments about creativity, though beguilingly made, are almost entirely baseless.”

This is also a great book for audio.  Enjoy!

Five Rules to Make the Most of Your Online Learning

Here’s an article Barb wrote for The Indian Express about how to make the most of your online learning. A key point: “Do not think about finishing the course! Just think about putting in the time: Good online learners use processes that involve putting a certain daily amount of time into their chosen course. (It is best, at least at first, to only do one online course at a time.) Your daily goal is always to put in the time you’ve allotted, whether it’s five minutes or five hours. This means never missing an ‘X’ on your calendar, signifying you’ve done your day’s studies.” 

Learn Faster and Remember More

We’re always fans of Farnham Street, and their comprehensive article on learning shows why.  Key graf: “The greatest enemy of learning is what you think you know. When you think you know something, learning something new means you might have to change your mind, so it’s easy to think there’s no room for new ideas. But not wanting to change your mind will keep you stuck in the same place. Overcoming our egos can be one of the big challenges of learning. Therefore, being willing to admit when you’re wrong and adjust your thinking is the thing that will help you learn the most.”

11 Teacher-Recommended Math Apps and Online Tools

This is a terrific article by Emelina Minero in Edutopia that wades through and provides many inspired recommendations for apps and the like to help kids learn math. (We would just add one of our favorites to the list: Smartick.)

Ever Wondered How to Ensure You Look Properly Professional in Your Online Synchronous Sessions?

Wonder no more, as Andrew Ishak takes you on an increasingly bizarre journey through how one professor ensures his students feel suitably at home in his carefully arranged office. [Hat tip, Mako Haruta]

MOOC description about interesting course

Here is a fascinating research paper about the development of the world class “Understanding Multiple Sclerosis” MOOC,  distributed by the University of Tasmania, which is also the creative fountain behind the phenomenal “Understanding Dementia” and “Preventing Dementia” MOOCs. [Hat tip Pat Bowden of Online Learning Success.] 

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 the course recommended text, A Mind for Numbers!
• And Learning How to Learn, a book for kids and parents.
• Follow LHTL on Facebook | Join Barb on LinkedIn | Follow LHTL on Twitter

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week

Memory Superpowers!: An Adventurous Guide to Remembering What You Don’t Want to Forget, by Nelson Dellis. It’s probably clear from our many past postings that we’re HUGE Nelson Dellis fans. That’s because four-time US memory champ Nelson isn’t just a memory expert—he’s also one of the best memory teachers in the world.  Nelson’s latest fantastic book is geared toward helping teens achieve remarkable memorization skills. If your child is a struggling underachiever, read a little section of this book together each evening so you both can learn how to outwit the Memory Thief. If your child is an overachiever, encourage them read this book on their own so they can achieve still more, all while enjoying adventures in the Forest of Forgettable Names and the Great Word Pyramids, maneuvering around the Pirates of the Periodic Table and journeying through the Himalayan Memory Palace. Nelson notes: “10-14 is the age range (but not limited to that. I mean, lot’s of adults could read it and get a lot out of it. Some advanced readers under 10 could read it too.” Truly a fun and highly practical guide to helping kids achieve remarkable memorization skills.

The Importance of Becoming a Self-Directed Lifelong Learner

This penetrating article by Dr. David Handel, CEO of iDR, is well worth reading.  Barb and Terry’s philosophy when it comes to learning is to never take for granted the received wisdom of decades-old theories and stipulations, but instead to go back to first principles in more foundational disciplines such as neuroscience and cognitive psychology and see what derives from there. David’s article goes even more deeply into first principles, meta-learning, meta-thinking, and taking charge of your learning.  Incidentally, David is co-Founder of iDoRecall, our very favorite flashcard system.

Supercharge your Pomodoro: How to Stay Focused and Productive During These Challenging Times

With many of us working from home, it can be difficult to stay focused when your usual routine is out the window. This is where our favorite mental tool, the Pomodoro Technique, comes in. Over the past few years, we’ve been following the development of TimeChi. Unlike other Pomodoro timers, TimeChi works by scheduling customized focus cycles by blocking both physical interruptions and digital distractions—and making sure you take regular breaks. TimeChi also helps track your productivity with personalized dashboards, so you can further optimize your work environment for deep work to get the most out of your time. You can get a feel for TimeChi—and preorder if you’d like—at Indiegogo.

A Message from Some of Coursera’s Top Instructors

Here’s an uplifting video from some of Coursera’s top instructors (including Barb!) to help boost your spirits.

An Inspiring Video Story of Dedication to Learning

Veveonah is a 18-year old Malaysian girl who lives at the extremely rural edge of eastern Malaysia in a village named Kampung Sapatalang. She was a freshman student at the university. However, due to the Malaysian Movement Control Order, universities in Malaysia were closed—online became the only mode of delivery in the spring semester. Veveonah found the highest hill near her home and climbed on a tree to get a relatively stable 3G connection. This is where she took her final exams. By the time she completed her exams, it was sunset, and she could only sleep on the tree for that night. She tells (and shows) her story here—watch out for the Asian giant “murder” hornet!  

The good news was that, after Veveonah posted her experience on YouTube, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission responded that the government will take actions to connect rural areas as soon as possible. [This video is a hat tip to our good friend Kenzen Chen of National Chiao-Tung University, who notes: “She is brave, dedicated, and many of her videos amaze me!”]

Interesting Insights on Online Learning

LHTLer Paul Burgmayer has been researching around the web for advice about online learning for students, parents, and teachers.  The best advice he’s found for teachers on how to teach is from the Education Endowment Foundation in the UK which in April posted a really nice summary called “Best evidence on supporting students to learn remotely.”  It is solid work supported by published research.  Their conclusions are not startling but good reminders of what matters most.

 Paul continues: “There’s not a lot out there for how to help students learn.  The best one I found is part of a blog series by a company called Neo LMS which is part of Cypher Learning.  Their newest post is 7 Tips on How to Adapt Teacher-Student Rapport while Teaching Online, which covers a lot of what I’d consider the basics.  This article links to a couple of other blogs on the same site which are also helpful.  One is on teaching students how to learn which seems related to the Learning How to Learn Coursera course.  The other post is about browser extensions that can promote learning by avoiding online distractions and helping facilitate studying.

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 the course recommended text, A Mind for Numbers!
• And Learning How to Learn, a book for kids and parents.
• Follow LHTL on Facebook | Join Barb on LinkedIn | Follow LHTL on Twitter

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week

Online Teaching with Zoom: A Guide for Teaching and Learning with Videoconference Platforms, by Aaron Johnson. We had previously read and liked Aaron’s first book on online teaching, Excellent Online Teaching. Aaron’s new book provides a solid overview of how to use Zoom for teaching—his insights are also more broadly applicable to any sort of online teaching.  And the price is right—both books are free on Kindle Unlimited!

Another Top MOOC: Design Thinking for the Greater Good

Lead Mentor of our companion MOOC Mindshift, Scott Mathews, brings us another fine MOOC review, this time of “Design Thinking for the Greater Good,” by the University of Virginia via Coursera.

Scott notes: “Design Thinking for the Greater Good: Innovation in the Social Sector, from the renowned Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia (Go ‘Hoos!) gives us a human-centered, as opposed to an organization-centered, approach to creative problem solving. This approach is especially useful for structuring thinking about problems that are complex or amorphous.

The four iterative processes  of design thinking are 1) ‘What is?’ 2) ‘What if’ 3) ‘What wows’ and 4) ‘What works.’ The first phase is typically the longest, defining the problem by involving people who actually do the work and not just managers/department heads. The second phase is brainstorming…everything is  on the table, no matter how unlikely it may seem at first glance. The third phase is determining what solution(s) stand out. The fourth phase determines what may work, with iterative testing and prototyping.”  

Scott concludes: “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a template like this to help guide departmental budget meetings? :)” He’s now enrolled in a companion course by the same professor, “Design Thinking for Innovation.”

Headline: “Teachers Are Wary of Returning to Class, and Online Instruction Too”

The title of The New York Times article, as well as the article itself, summarizes the attitudes of teachers’ unions in relation to teaching either in person or online. This no doubt is what is fueling joking prankster headlines like “Teachers Refusing To Go Back In The Fall Launch ‘Every Child Left Behind’ Movement.” This article in The Atlantic, “I’m a Nurse in New York. Teachers Should Do Their Jobs, Just Like I Did,” makes a perceptive case for why schools are essential to the functioning of our society—which should mean that teachers are essential workers. 

And lastly, this article in The Federalist observes: “If there was ever an argument for school choice, this is it. When enrollment dollars are on the line, delaying school or doing extended closures would be unthinkable. But when public school districts have a monopoly, then they can easily justify this move.

“Whether or not they offer a genuinely good education or even stay open, most students have to attend these schools because they have nowhere else to go. By contrast, private businesses cannot hold their customers captive this way. If they close, they lose customers and go bankrupt — which is exactly what happened to many companies during the COVID-19 shutdowns.

“More importantly, school choice rewards passionate, hardworking teachers with better compensation and actual students to teach. Right now, there isn’t much incentive to be brave and go to work, nor is there extra compensation for those who provide high-quality instruction. No school is competing for students or the best teachers; rather, they are competing for government funds and more relaxed standards, which only incentivize questionable excuses and weak performances.”

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 the course recommended text, A Mind for Numbers!
• And Learning How to Learn, a book for kids and parents. 
• Follow LHTL on Facebook | Join Barb on LinkedIn | Follow LHTL on Twitter

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

The Most Important Movement in Higher Education Today

We feel that former Dean of Computing Zvi Galil of Georgia Tech, along with Georgia Tech’s innovative faculty, have produced the most significant leap forward in higher education of recent decades with their Online Master of Science in Computer Science (OMSCS) degree. The program’s creation is described in Zvi’s own words here. (The article’s embedded video is also worthwhile.) Zvi begins: “We took the words emblazoned on the seal of Georgia Tech—’Progress and Service’—as our mission. To start with, we committed the program to a unique admissions policy—GRE is not required, and instead, OMSCS students have to obtain grade B or higher in two courses from a specified list in their first year to be officially admitted [for admission requirements see here]. While the selectivity of the on-campus Master in Computer Science program (MSCS) is slightly higher than 10%, 70.7% of the more than 26,000 OMSCS applicants were admitted. Added to the novel admissions policy, I insisted on keeping OMSCS tuition affordable—less than $7,000 for the full degree, payable by course, rather than $40,000 for a public on-campus program, or $70,000 or more in a private university.” 

The results have been outstanding. If you are a university administrator dreaming of providing social justice for your students, you couldn’t do better than to emulate Zvi Galil and Georgia Tech’s example.

Book of the Week

The Meaning of Travel: Philosophers Abroad, by Emily Thomas. Thomas’s book helps explain why travel is so useful and important, and such a valuable tool for creativity. (Although it doesn’t quite get to why travel can, for some, be such an addiction.) Although the book can be a bit uneven, Thomas gets into unusual, often-overlooked aspects of travel. For example, the European “Grand Tours” that served as a sort of finishing school for the wealthy were apparently just as often an exercise in debauchery. We particularly appreciated the descriptions of how travel has changed over the years—mountains and empty spaces, for example, weren’t always seen as beautiful. Thomas’s description of the meaning of sublime is alone worth the price of the book, and echo Barb’s experiences at the South Pole Station in Antarctica. If you’re pining for travel, this book will help serve as a temporary touchstone to assuage your longing.

Barb’s Travel Adventures

Despite COVID, Barb has found a relatively safe way to fuel her travel addiction, at least in the USA, by traveling with her Hero hubby in their pickup, pulling a little self-contained travel trailer. You can see the scenery, mask at hand, as Barb just passed through the Willamette Valley in Oregon. She’s now visiting with old friends in Lake Chelan, Washington, where there are surprisingly good rosé  wines. Her stay with old friends also gave Barb a good internet connection for the Course Hero conference she just presented new materials at. (This included debut materials on the value of the hidden procedural system; and the presentation many of you had been waiting for on online learning.)  Incidentally, trailering into place, she’ll be social-distance-speaking in-person for the Logan-Magnolia Community School District in Logan, Iowa on August 10th.

MOOC of the Month: Mountains 101 from the University of Alberta

Lead Mentor of our companion MOOC Mindshift, Scott Mathews, observes: 

“My new favorite Coursera course is “Mountains 101” from the University of Alberta, Edmonton. It’s a 12-week course that I completed in one week…like a book that you just can’t put down, it’s that good. Who knew that learning scientific information about mountains and their environs could be so fascinating to a non-scientist? The course is exceptionally well-produced, with useful supplementary material for each week, including some practical “How-to” videos from professional mountain guides (and no peer-reviewed assignments.) The forums are lively, and they are actively mentored by one of the instructors.” 

(Yes, we’ve touted this course before, but it’s worth touting again!)

The Youngster Learning How to Learn Challenge

LHTLer Apoorv Mathur writes: “My eight-year-old son and I recently completed your course Learning How to Learn on Coursera. We watched the videos on TV and completed the quizzes on a cell phone. It was really cool for both of us to be learning together in COVID times. We really appreciated how you explained the concepts and the partnership with Dr Sejnowski.  My son created a series of two minute videos referring to the techniques you taught. We also got the certificate recently too (which can only be issued on my name since my son isn’t 18).”

If you want to see the brilliant, uplifting enthusiasm of the coming generation, look no further than Apoorv Mathur’s talented son. He’ll reaffirm your own natural excitement about learning!

GPT-3—Taking Language Generators to a Higher Level

For those of you who are interested in language analysis, GPT-3 is the latest thing. It is a deep learning network with 195 billion parameters. As this MIT Technology Review article notes, the number of parameters is the bottom line when it comes to language analysis. All of this will eventually be quite important in performing widespread peer evaluations via AI—an intriguing company along those lines is Intergrader.  

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 the course recommended text, A Mind for Numbers!
• And Learning How to Learn, a book for kids and parents. 
• Follow LHTL on Facebook | Join Barb on LinkedIn | Follow LHTL on Twitter

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week

Urban Myths about Learning and Education, by Pedro De Bruyckere, Paul A. Kirschner, and Casper D. Hulshof. This book, originally published in 2015 (and followed by a 2019 sequel), is as topical as ever. Killing commonly repeated educational myths is, it seems, its own cottage industry, although it probably isn’t nearly as lucrative as the sales of learning styles assessments. What we particularly like about Bruyckere et al’s book is the personal nature of the writing. Sometimes it feels as if a good friend is writing to you, making mildly snarky side-comments about the strange things they’re discovering when trying to detect the source of some of education’s most popular—and utterly bogus—imagery and ideas. Sometimes seemingly solid research citations lead nowhere. Anyone involved in education would find gold in this easy-to-read but thought-provoking book.

Steven Strogatz on Synchronization, Networks, and the Emergence of Complex Behavior

We’re big fans of Steven Strogatz, (see our review of his wonderful Infinite Powers: How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe).  So it was a pleasure reading Steven’s interview on Sean Carroll’s Mindscape Podcast (look around and you’ll see the link if you would prefer to read instead of listen). Barb’s daughter Rachel was inspired by Steven to switch from being an artist to instead apply for and now be deep in the throes of graduate studies in statistics.  Now that’s an inspiring author!

Una mente per i numeri: Un metodo di studio (non solo) per la matematica

Yes, A Mind for Numbers is now out in an Italian edition. Let your Italian family or friends know!

Useful Insights on Teaching Math—And a Delightfully Nerdy Football Cheer

LHTLer Stephen Greenberg, a mechanical engineer turned math teacher, notes “In the Spring of ’64, I went to see the Director of Personnel at the Buffalo (NY) public schools, mostly as a curiosity. He asked me if I knew anything about math or science, and I explained my education. Three minutes into the interview, he asked ‘When can you start?’ That’s how desperate that district was for math and science teachers. Two things I have stressed to both my students and their parents, understanding and fluency. It has been, and continues to be, one joyous ride. Not such a bad thing to memorize something beautiful like the nearly isosceles 20, 21, 29 right triangle.”

Stephen also sends along the football cheer from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute RPI, (not particularly noted for sports excellence):

e to the x, dy dx

e to the x dx

square root, cube root, cosine, sine

3.14159

disintegrate ’em, RPI!

A New Timer for Pomodoro Aficionados

LHTLer Raymond Griffiths sent along a link to this intriguing new countdown timer, currently under production and just beginning to ship. If you like the Pomodoro, this might be just the ticket for you. (But read the comments if you’re concerned about the shipping date.)

A Brief History of the Whole Universal Grammar Kerfuffle

Here’s a quick review of the recent history of linguistics research: What do all languages have in common? – Cameron Morin. We feel that linguistic and language research is going to be a hot area, what with all the data and advances that artificial intelligence is making available. [Hat tip: Steven Cooke]

Defending Explaining Postmodernism

One of our favorite books of philosophy is Stephen Hicks’ Explaining Postmodernism, which we reviewed previously.  Here’s Stephen’s eloquent podcast rebuttal to kibitzing on the margins.

PhD Comics

An old joke about becoming a Ph.D., has it that “B.S.” stands for “bullsh*t,” “M.S.” for “More of the Same” (or “More Sh*t”), and “Ph.D.” stands for “Piled Higher and Deeper.” We’ve heard good things about (and enjoyed!) Ph.D Comics. This article by Sara Coelho in Science notes that Ph.D. Comics deals with “everyday frustrations of life in the lab – procrastination, dealing with advisers, serving on committees, lack of inspiration…Supervisors interested in learning what’s on their students’ minds might find PHD an illuminating place to start.” 

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 the course recommended text, A Mind for Numbers!
• And Learning How to Learn, a book for kids and parents.
• Follow LHTL on Facebook | Join Barb on LinkedIn | Follow LHTL on Twitter