Author: barboakley

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Books of the Week

• We often find that when we visit a country (and even when we’re simply interested in that country), it’s a great idea to read books related to that country’s history. Barb’s recent trip to China led her to read Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China, by Jung Chang. This revisionist biography lends a sympathetic eye to Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908), who is considered by many to be the most important woman in Chinese history. If you want to catch a sense of the conditions that led to modern China, this intriguing book will keep you captivated—great biographies like this one are the easiest ways to learn about history. Incidentally, Empress Dowager Cixi is a nice book for audio. Jung Chang is also the author of the spectacular international best-seller Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, with over ten million copies sold worldwide. Yes, Jung Chang can write!
• While in China we were also recommended another related biography—Wu: The Chinese Empress who schemed, seduced and murdered her way to become a living God, (a living God is, after all, a nice gig if you can get it). Where Cixi comes across as brilliant but sometimes necessarily hard-edged, Wu comes across more along the lines of the successfully sinister described in Barb’s classic, tongue-in-cheek titled but critically-acclaimed book Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother’s Boyfriend. (As Harvard’s Steven Pinker noted apropos Evil Genes: “A fascinating scientific and personal exploration of the roots of evil, filled with human insight and telling detail.”)
• China’s Crony Capitalism, by Minxin Pei.  If you want a more up-to-date perspective on modern-day social structures in China, this book will give you a broad perspective. Just when you think you’ve heard it all, there couldn’t possibly be another facet of corrupt cronyism, off Pei goes to explore a new area, from business, to environmental protection, to the judicial system, to education, to the police themselves—and far more. If you’re doing business with China, this book, along with Poorly Made in China, is a must-read.

Math Education in the US

Here is an excellent summary by experienced math teacher Barry Garelick of the deep-seated challenges with standard US mathematics education—he includes a perceptive discussion of issues with Common Core. Barry’s book Math Education in the US: Still Crazy After All These Years, is available for free on KindleUnlimited. [Run again due to previous missing link.]

Standing Up Against Campus Intolerance

Unfortunately, university campuses, which should be the most stalwart bastion of learning and opening the mind to new and different perspectives, are becoming propagandists for narrow-minded ideologues.  The University of New Hampshire is the latest to fall prey to these propagandists.  The cost to attend this publicly-funded (with a $336 million dollar endowment) institution? $15,000 for in-state and $30,000 for out-of-state tuition.  You may wish to reconsider prior to sending your child to this institution, or contributing support as an alumnus. Polite and kind people tend to step back from dysfunctional behavior, but it’s time to (politely) fight back against self-serving extremists—feel free to let the University of New Hampshire know your thoughts: the incoming president is James W. Dean Jr, and the interim provost is Wayne Jones.

The best institution we know of that is fighting against the wave of campus intolerance, which is often sadly supported by weak-willed university administrators, is FIRE: The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.  We’ve donated—consider making your own donation today!

MOOCs of the Week

Ever wonder what blockchain is all about? The University at Buffalo is demystifying this revolutionary technology through a specialization of four Coursera courses:

• Blockchain Basics
• Smart Contracts
• Decentralized Applications (Dapps)
• Blockchain Platforms

The courses are ideal for programmers and designers involved in developing and implementing blockchain applications, as well as anyone who is interested in understanding blockchain’s potential. Learn more and register for the Blockchain Specialization.

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!

• NEW! Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens. Great ideas for parents, too!
• Follow LHTL on Facebook | Join the private LHTL Hall of Fame group | Follow LHTL on Twitter

New articles related to learning, updated daily: The Learning Methods Daily

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Want to Help a Child or Teenager to Learn?

There are so many books to help teachers understand how younger students learn. But you may be surprised to learn that there are virtually no books for those students themselves, or for their parents.  

If you want to help a youngster from ages ten to seventeen to learn how to learn, based on practical insights from neuroscience, we can’t help but suggest our own upcoming book Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens.  The funny but deeply informative pictures alone are worth the price of the book. (And yes, there are zombies…) In some ways, this seemingly simple book goes deeper into how we learn than even our MOOC Learning How to Learn. You’ll find that this is also a great book to read together as a family. And you’ll see that even if your children are in the toddler stage, you’ll get some powerful insights on learning that will help you guide them in their learning as they mature.

Barb Is Conducting a Rare 3-Day Workshop for Parents and Teachers about Learning

With the launch of the book Learning How to Learn, Barb is conducting a rare 3-day workshop to help parents and teachers discover how to help their children learn better.  This workshop features active sessions where you’ll interact directly with Barb alongside the other workshop participants. You’ll gain a deeper insight into how the brain learns, how you can help your child to be more motivated, and how to learn more easily and with less frustration.  The workshop will be in beautiful and historic Ljubljana, Slovenia, 24 – 26 September 2018. Register now!

Learn Your Learning Strengths and Weaknesses

We’ve discovered an excellent Academic Skills Inventory,  created by Adina Glickman, Director of Learning Strategy Programs at Stanford University. To take the survey, go to this website and enter your email. See where your learning strengths and weaknesses lie—the results might be very helpful in improving your learning.

Learning How to Learn Has an Online Newspaper!

Our Learning How to Learn archivist, Cristian Artoni, has used Paper.li to set up a new and practical website that finds new articles related to learning (based on a few keywords), and then publishes a new issue every day. Check this out at our new The Learning Methods Daily!

Podcast: Teaching Teachers-to-Be about Learning

Learning is hard work. The most commonly used study techniques often provoke the illusion of knowing. In this episode of the podcast “Tea for Teaching,” David Parisian, a member of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at SUNY-Oswego discuss how he helps students overcome their misperceptions by introducing them to the science of learning. Learn more about the great book on learning, Make It Stick, as well as about how our MOOC Learning How to Learn is used to help train teachers to be better teachers.

Becoming an Effective Instructor on Camera: Tips from the Art Director’s Studio
John Heijligers, the Art Director for EIT Digital at Eindhoven University of Technology, has vast experience in directing new instructors behind a camera (he comes from a background as a director in film). John has written an informative article—coupled with a pretty funny video on seasick instructors—about how to be more natural on camera.

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!

• NEW! Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens. Great ideas for parents, too!
• Follow LHTL on Facebook | Join the private LHTL Hall of Fame group | Follow LHTL on Twitter

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week

This week’s selection is Friend of a Friend: Understanding the Hidden Networks That Can Transform Your Life and Your Career, by business school professor David Burkus. He offers great insight into how and why you can broaden your network, and how important it is to open your mind to those who are different from you, in background, training, outlook, or ideology. We particularly like the stories of both well-known people such as Tim Ferriss, and lesser-known but intriguing characters who’ve made their career breakthroughs by tapping into networks in unusual ways. We couldn’t agree more with the book’s central premise: “making choices about who your friends are and being aware of who is a friend of a friend—can directly influence the person you become, for better or for worse.”

A nice book also for audio listening.

How to Fall Asleep in 2 Minutes or Less—An Outstanding Article!

There was a problem in the US during World War II. Pilots were dying because they were so stressed that they couldn’t relax. Even in the bits and pieces of time pilots did have to sleep, they were often too stressed to do so.  This useful article by Brett and Kate McKay on the blog The Art of Manliness describes Naval Ensign Bud Winter’s useful techniques for teaching relaxation and ways to rapidly fall asleep.  Barb has found these techniques to be invaluable in improving her ability to fall asleep! (And don’t forget last year’s Book-of-the-Year, Why We Sleep.)

When Do You Lose the Ability to Speak Like a Native Speaker?

This interesting article by Dana G. Smith in Scientific American describes a recent research study (which included pre-eminent psychologist Steven Pinker), of when the ability to speak like a native speaker disappears.  The surprising and controversial result? Age 18!

The 23 Best Memory Improvement Books

Have you ever wanted to learn more about how to improve your memory?  Check out this listing by Upjourney. (A Mind for Numbers is #3!)

How to Learn a Musical Instrument by Internet

One question seems to frequently arise when it comes to online learning—what are the best resources for learning to play a musical instrument?  If that’s your question, the ever-curious Pat Bowden at Online Learning Success has answers for you—read on!

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!

NEW! Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens. Great ideas for parents, too!

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week

About forty years ago, Barb picked up the now-classic book Juggling for the Complete Klutz, by John Cassidy and B. C. Rimbeaux, which comes complete with three bean bags for juggling. Following the book’s instructions, she gradually learned to juggle. (We’re not talking circus level here—just juggling three items was Barb’s triumph!)  Juggling is a bit odd in that you must focus on the item you’re catching while also being more broadly aware of several other items at the same time. We’ve heard the suggestion that juggling can be a great way to relax into the diffuse mode. So recently, Barb picked up another copy of Juggling for the Complete Klutz and its accompanying bean bags and began to renew her juggling skills.  We’re not sure of the underlying neuro-mechanisms, but juggling does seem to be a great way of shifting mental gears.  If you want to learn a fun way to disconnect from whatever you’re doing, try learning to juggle!

Award for the top MOOC in Taiwan! (And, Barb in Taiwan and Shanghai!)

Professor Kenzen Chen of National Chiao-Tung University and Professor Mu-Ming Poo of the Institute of Neuroscience at the Chinese Academy of Science, have developed a new, 7-week Chinese course, the Tao of Learning, based in part on the English Learning How to Learn MOOC. Dr. Chen and Dr. Poo’s work has led to their Tao of Learning MOOC becoming Taiwan’s top MOOC of 2017, as well as kick-starting new MOOC offerings at China’s three major MOOC platforms (XueTangX, NetEase, and CNMOOC)!  Barb is heading to Taiwan to see Kenzen receive his well-deserved award–and to speak about the behind the scenes creation of the MOOC Learning How to Learn. If you’d like to meet her (she’d love to meet you!), check out her speaking events in Taiwan on May 14th and 15th. Kenzen, Mu-Ming and Barb will also be together conducting professional development workshop for China’s MOOC instructors at Shanghai Jiao Tong University on May 17th and 18th.

Here is more information about the different versions of The Tao of Learning:

• ewant  (ended Apr. 30, honor assignment going till may 31; summer for-credit only in preparation)
• XueTangX (will end May 31th, no honor assignment because the peer-review function is not available)
• CNMOOC (ended Apr. 30, no honor assignment because the peer-review function is not available)
• NetEase (will end June 30, self-paced)

Elevate Learning: Taking Education Higher, SUNY Cortland, New York May 22 – 25, 2018

Barb will be keynoting at this amazing SUNY conference, which highlights innovative pedagogical practices and emerging technologies. There’s also a session on how to Learning How to Learn has been successfully used to help improve students learning abilities, which affects institutional retention.
Come to see pedagogical innovations, student-centered experiences, flexible educational settings, application of trending technologies, and creative approaches to assessing evidence of learning. And maybe after her keynote, have coffee with Barb!

MOOC of the Week

First, we have to admit—we’re huge fans of  Dr. Felicia Vulcu, who happens to be an incredibly funny person as well as an outstanding scientist.  Felicia has teamed up with equally talented Dr. Caitlin Mullarkey to create the course DNA Decoded, which will fill you in on all sorts of intriguing insights about DNA—that tantalizing hereditary material at the heart of modern crime investigations, home-testing kits about our health and ancestry, and much more. Watch this trailer and then sign up!

Another Great Memory Tips Video from 4-Time US Memory Champion Nelson Dellis!

Finally a bit of mental math! Here’s another great video from our friend Nelson Dellis with an easy mental math trick anyone can do–how to do cube-roots for any 2-digit perfect-cubed number. The best part? You only need to memorize 10 things beforehand. Learn it in this short video and then you can wow your friends!

Edx to Move Away from “Offering Virtually Everything for Free”, Begins Testing a Support Fee

Class Central keeps a close eye on changes in the MOOC world that can affect learners.  Check out this insightful article about Edx’s moves away from “free.”

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!

NEW! Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens. Great ideas for parents, too!

Follow LHTL on Facebook | Join the private LHTL Hall of Fame group | Follow LHTL on Twitter

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week

Sometimes we enjoy stepping back into the past, (it can be surprising how many of today’s challenges are just repeats from the past!) This week, we dove into biographer extraordinaire Walter Isaacson’s first historical biography: Benjamin Franklin: An American Life.  What’s not to like about a prototypical science nerd who had a smooth way about his life and (often lusty) loves?  Franklin was something of a North American Leonardo da Vinci (another of Isaacson’s great biographies).  If your background about US history is a little sketchy, Franklin’s life will also catch you up on all the major events that swirled around the country’s founding. Fantastic book!

The Scientific Importance of Free Speech

If you believe science is a foundation for modern society, you’ll be attuned to this important article, written by neurobiologist Adam Perkinson, on the vital importance of free speech in making advances in science. A perfect example of how seemingly “rational” scientists can attempt to crush dissenting perspectives in science can be found in Nobel Prize winner Stanley Prusiner’s Madness and Memory: The Discovery of Prions—A New Biological Principle of Disease. (Prusiner deserves the Nobel as much for his ability to overcome those who would halt his research as for his scientific breakthroughs.) Perkinson himself is the author of the interesting-looking The Welfare Trait: How State Benefits Affect Personality.  Environment and culture matters a great deal, as we discovered in our own explorations of pathologies of altruism. Truly helping others is often not as easy as it seems, and we must be careful to avoid doing more harm than good through seemingly obvious “beneficial” actions.

Fortunately, we feel there is a genuinely beneficial way to others—by teaching younger people to be more independent and effective learners and critical thinkers. That’s the project we’re working on now!

Learning How to Learn: 70 Books Guaranteed To Accelerate Your Learning And Unlock Your Potential

And speaking of learning, our friend Arthur Worsley has created a great reading list of 70 top books on learning. (Our A Mind for Numbers is #13!)

Jazz improv and your brain: The key to creativity?

This article by Sandee LaMotte at CNN describes how inhibiting the part of the brain that allows self-criticism, (that pesky dorsolateral prefrontal cortex), can allow the default network (the “diffuse mode”) to become more active. Neuroscientist Dr. Charles Limb, himself an accomplished jazz musician, notes: “I view this as a neurological description of letting go… If you’re too self-conscious, it’s very hard to be free creatively.” Interestingly, Lamb also notes: “What the trained experts who are so creative are always revealing is that it was practice—a lot of effort and practice—that gave them the creative edge, rather than the genius, talent or aptitude they were born with.”

MOOC of the Week

Coursera’s brand new Career Decisions: From Insight to Impact is taught by Sharon Castonguay, Director of the Gordon Career Center at Wesleyan University. As Sharon notes: “If you are interested in this course, chances are you are facing some sort of transition in your life. Perhaps you are thinking about switching jobs, or changing careers. Maybe you’re starting college, and are trying to get a handle on what you want to study. Or you just graduated, and are trying to figure out what to do next. If you’re interested in making good career decisions, this course is for 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!

NEW! Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens. Great ideas for parents, too!

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Books of the Week

We have two related books to recommend this week:

• The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids, by Madeline Levine, PhD. Our tendency is to focus on obviously disadvantaged kids coming from poor families. That can be a mistake, says author and practicing psychologist Madeline Levine, who works in affluent Marin County, California. Consumerism and focus on achievement can produce depressed, anxious, angry and bored teenagers who suffer from high rates of drug use, eating disorders,  and suicide. Sometimes, in fact, the seeming poor can have a far wealthier internal lives. Levine offers great suggestions for the advantaged to help them avoid common parenting pitfalls involving intrusiveness and autonomy.
• The Courage to Grow: How Acton Academy Turns Learning Upside Down, by Laura Sandefer.  The Acton Academies are private schools that were created to solve precisely the types of problems discussed in Levine’s Price of Privilege.  Laura Sandefer tells a personal story of her own children, and how and why she and her husband Jeff chose to develop a new system of schooling that focuses on the hero’s journey—and vaults students well above their standard grade level. (Incidentally, Jeff Sandefer, with his MBA from Harvard, was named by BusinessWeek as one of the top Entrepreneurship professors in the United States and by The Economist magazine as one of the top Business School professors in the world.) Acton Academies are spreading quickly worldwide, and it’s little wonder, because the schools embrace personal accountability even as they provide powerful learning opportunities for children. An honest, forthright, deeply thought-provoking book about what an education could and should be. (Audio version read by Laura Sandefer herself.)

How to Get a Low Cost Accredited Bachelor’s Degree Online

This magnificent article for Class Central by Manoel Cortes Mendez tells the story of how he got a bachelor’s degree in computer science online and at low cost through the the Open University (OU), a distinguished UK institution. Manoel notes: “Despite its unconventional mode of delivery, the OU is on paper a university like the others. More precisely, it’s a recognized body in the UK, which is British legalese for fully accredited. And it’s one of the few UK universities to also be regionally accredited in the US. So if after your OU degree, you want to pursue further studies in a brick university, you can. And this includes prestigious universities. For instance, one of my OU classmates went on to study a master’s degree in computer science at Oxford University.”

If you’re interested in low cost, high quality online degree programs, don’t miss this superb article!

So, You’re about to Submit a MOOC Quiz, and Your Internet Dies. What Do You Do?

Read this helpful article by Online Learning Success about how to cope with an unreliable internet, and be prepared!

Santiago Ramón y Cajal

As Learning How to Learners know, we’re keen fans of everything related to Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the “father of modern neuroscience.”  Here’s a swell article and video by Nasos Papadopoulos of Metalearn that will help you apply some of Ramón y Cajal’s key principles for success to your own life.

How can one control their nerves during public speaking or even an exam?

Barb’s answer to this question on Quora was so popular that it was also translated into French and republished on Slate FR.  

Are You Interested in Practical Creativity?

Building and creating beautiful objects like ceramics, glass, tapestry, kinetic sculpture, woodworked items, and bound books takes a special form of creativity—a more practical creativity.  Check out “The Practical Creative” podcast to learn more about these unique forms of expression.

Creating a “To-Do” List at Night May Help You Fall Asleep More Quickly

This nice Psychology Today blog post by Lydia Denworth describes recent research showing that: “In the study of 57 young adults, researchers from Baylor University and Emory University found that writing to-do lists, rather than writing about completed tasks, helped people fall asleep an average of nine minutes faster—in about 16 minutes versus 25.” [Hat tip: brandonrox10.]

The Problem with Learning Styles

Those of you who have been following the saga of lack of validation for learning styles theory won’t be surprised to read the following article about the latest findings: “‘Another nail in the coffin for learning styles’ – students did not benefit from studying according to their supposed learning style.”

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!

NEW! Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens. Great ideas for parents, too!

Follow LHTL on Facebook | Join the private LHTL Hall of Fame group | Follow LHTL on Twitter

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week

This week, we read Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft—if you have any interest in writing at all, this is a great book, especially when paired with William Zinsser’s On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction, which is geared towards non-fiction.  What we particularly like about King’s book is that he doesn’t just talk about the nuts and bolts of writing (although what he does provide along those lines is great).  The memoir portions of the book are utterly engrossing—you’ll learn what it’s like to grow up and become an international best-seller, and the bizarre things that best-seller-dom can do to your psyche. King has sailed through it all—including his near lethal run-in with an out-of-control car. By our count, this is an “all-time top five” book on writing!  

MOOCs to Help You Become a Better Writer

Here is a terrific article by Pat Bowden in Online Learning Success about the many MOOCs that can help you learn to become a better writer.  Pat has taken many of the MOOCs she mentions, so she knows what she’s talking about!

Farnam Street Blog

We really enjoy the Farnam Street Blog—it’s dedicated to reducing your blind spots in life and business, so you have a better chance of coming out ahead.  The latest podcast on Farnam is with our very own Barb Oakley, covering some material you know related to learning, such as focused and diffuse modes, but also veering into other territory, as with the best techniques to help your child excel in math.

Math Education in the US

Here is an excellent summary by experienced math teacher Barry Garelick of the the deep-seated challenges with standard US mathematics education—he includes a perceptive discussion of issues with Common Core. (Barry’s book Math Education in the US: Still Crazy After All These Years, is available for free on KindleUnlimited.)

Famous Failures

One of our favorite interviews was with Ozan Varol, on his website “Famous Failures.”  Ozan has turned the interview into a podcast, which you can listen to here. 

We should give you a cryptic preview that Ozan has a big book coming out with one of the world’s leading publishers—his work is catching international attention!

The Santa Fe Institute’s Spring 2018 Complexity Challenge: Solve a Classic Dynamic Optimization Problem for a Prize  

Looking for a new way to learn? Want to apply your quantitative and reasoning skills in a new way? The Complexity Challenge hosted on Complexity Explorer is a unique online learning program where students are given an open-ended question to solve using methods from complex systems science. Whether you’re familiar with complex systems science or simply great at problem solving, apply now and try your hand!

Unlike other online competitions, the Santa Fe Institute’s Challenges aren’t designed to solicit the right answer, but many right answers. It’s then up to the Challenge participants themselves to decide the best solution through the Institute’s unique peer review system. Therefore, participants with a background in any field – from sociology to computer engineering – should be able to look at the upcoming Challenge, see something they recognize, and come up with a brilliant solution.

And did we mention there will be prizes? Yes, there will be prizes! Apply now, the Challenge starts April 23rd! The Institute is only accepting 200 applicants on a first come, first serve basis.

Learning how to learn + mastering things effectively—an interview with Barb

Here’s a review and discussion on effective learning with Abel Csabai—episode 94 on his SSD podcasts.  If you’d like a quick review of the ideas of Learning How to Learn, and a little more, you’ll enjoy this podcast.

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!

NEW! Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens. Great ideas for parents, too!

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week

This week, we read This Is the Year I Put My Financial Life in Order, by New York Times reporter John Schwartz.  This is an important book—before she passed away, Barb’s aunt Renie could have told you why.

Renie was a smart, independent career woman.  When she retired, to her surprise, found herself unable to afford to live independently.  The reason? Although Renie had learned many things over her life, she’d never bothered to learn about personal finances.  As it turns out, putting away a little each month beginning relatively early in your career can make enormous improvements in your life, and the lives of your family members, as you grow older.

John Schwartz tells you how to get your financial life in order, no matter what your age.  This is the Year  is not some dry accounting discussion—instead, the book builds from a candid and entertaining description of Schwartz’s own occasional financial successes and many failures, including his brush with bankruptcy and disastrous housing “investment.”  Schwartz describes the what type of account to set up for retirement, how much to put away (it’s not much, especially if you start early), and how to think about your income, taxes, debt, investments, insurance, and home purchasing. If you want to do the best you can long term for yourself and those you love, you owe it to yourself to read this excellent book. (Also nice on audio.)

The Conference “Career Goldmine”

Here’s an article from Barb in the Open SUNY Online Teaching Blog on how conferences have made enormous improvements in her career—and how they can change your life, too!

Insight into Raising a Bright, Quirky, and Sometimes Challenging Child April 25-30

Are you raising a bright and quirky child? Looking for support in helping your child thrive, even with focus, learning, social, emotional or behavioral challenges?  Wanting to find a community of experts who ‘get’ a twice exceptional child who is both bright and struggling?
Join Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Debbie Steinberg Kuntz for a free (each day) series: The Bright & Quirky Child Online Summit. Speakers include Ned Hallowell, Temple Grandin, and our very own Barb Oakley, along with many more psychologists, authors, and experts.
You’ll learn tools and strategies to:

• Manage anger and intensity
• Calm anxiety and perfectionism
• Navigate school and learning challenges
• Increase motivation and executive function
• Find balance with screens and video games
• Solve problems without power battles
• Develop talents, passions and interests
• Enhance social interactions

Note that between April 25-30, 2018, content for each day of the summit will be free for 24 hours. Click here to sign up!

How to Memorize Large Numbers

The indefatigable 4-time US Memory Champion Nelson Dellis is back with another entertaining and informative random memory tips video—this one is on on how to create a 2-digit number system for memorizing large numbers. Enjoy!

How to Make the Most of Class Central

This insightful article from Pat Bowden of Online Learning Success gives you insight about the best MOOC-related search engine and review site: Class Central.

Specialization of the Week

And in conjunction with Schwartz’s book, we’d like to bring up Arshad Ahmad’s specialization Finance for Everyone, through McMaster University-Coursera. This specialization goes into the language of finance and helps you better understand the flow of money. You’ll examine the connections between global and local finance; the flow of assets through businesses, governments, and other institutions; and the commodity, bond, and equity market dynamics that create and destroy financial value. This specialization helps you to better understand both global financial news and your own personal financial decisions.

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!

NEW! Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens. Great ideas for parents, too!

Follow LHTL on Facebook | Join the private LHTL Hall of Fame group | Follow LHTL on Twitter

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Month

Ray Dalio’s Principles: Life and Work is a masterpiece of insight, not only on how to achieve your goals, (whatever those goals might be), but on how you can build an organization that is structured for success.  Dalio knows what he’s talking about—he founded his investment firm, Bridgewater Associates, out of a two-bedroom apartment. Now, forty years later, Bridgewater has made more money for its clients than any other hedge fund in history, and grown into the fifth most important private company in the United States.

Dalio attributes some of Bridgewater’s  success to his principle of radical open-mindedness. This means, at least in part, being aware of your internal signals of annoyance, anger, or irritability—which are all signs of close-mindedness.  You can use those internal signals to trigger quality reflections. Radical open-mindedness doesn’t mean accepting all information—it means seeking out quality information that you may not want to hear.

We have often used radical open-mindedness even in our research—for example, we send advance versions of our research papers to people we know will dislike our work. When we get past our own petty feelings of “ouch—that’s not true!” in the responses, we’re not infrequently surprised to find how the criticism, even “bad” criticism, helps improve what we’re working on.

Dalio’s Principles will, we feel, go down in the annals of best books of the decade. It is a deep book of productivity that gets at the essentials of your life.  

Getting Things Done

One of the great classics of productivity is David Allen’s Getting Things Done.  The indefatigable Arthur Worsley has done a 5,000 word crunch of the book.  Arthur notes: “That book single-handedly got me through Psychology, Philosophy and Physiology at Oxford and into a job at McKinsey while running two companies with over 150 part-time employees. It’s the bomb.” We must add, so is Arthur’s crunch!

Some Ideas to Boost Your Language Learning

We’ve just read 50 Ways to Learn a Language, a short book by Shane Dixon and Justin Shewell that gives terrific insight and encouragement about language learning. If you’re wanting a little mental boost to get you going, you’ll like Shane and Justin’s book!

Yabla

And speaking of language learning, we’re keen fans of the website Yabla, with great videos and translations in Chinese, Spanish, Italian, French, German, and English. Our only complaint is that we want Yabla in more languages—like Russian and Portuguese!

Latest Updates from Class Central

Class Central has a new look, along with more of their MOOC-world insights.  Check the latest out here.

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!

NEW! Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens. Great ideas for parents, too!

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Books of the Week

This week we read two related books:

• From Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future, by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters. This classically important book helps readers understand the importance of creative entrepreneurial thinkers to the world’s future. Even if you have no interest in business, the book is worthwhile for its insights into contrarianism and creativity.  We like New York Times best-selling author Neal Stephenson’s characterization: “The first and last business book anyone needs to read; a one in a world of zeroes.” (The audiobook is read by Blake Masters—you may be able to get two free audiobooks through this link.) 
• Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue, by Ryan Holiday.  Holiday’s book tells the story of Peter Thiel’s behind-the-scenes destruction of online media company Gawker. We have to admit, Conspiracy is a page turner, and Holiday’s access to both of the principals in this case, Peter Thiel and Nick Denton, gave the kind of insider details that really kept us hooked.  It was amusing to watch how journalists’ seemingly objective view of the verdict flipped once they discovered Thiel’s involvement. Ryan Holiday’s entire career has arisen from his ability to keep journalists happy (he wrote the best-selling Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator, which we admit we really liked). So it’s no surprise that he ends the book by going almost comically over-the-top in siding with journalists.

Learning Lays a Path to Recovery

Here is an inspiring message we received from LHTLer Izzy Gifford on the effect of learning on her health. Izzy writes:

          A couple of years ago I took your learning how to learn course, on Coursera. I don’t recall the exact date, but I wanted to email you and thank you.
See, I suffer from chronic migraines, and the medications they’d put me on not only made me struggle with my physical health, my brain health suffered. My memory was failing me and I was suffering from terrible depression.

          Thanks to your course, I learned that I could hack my brain. That no matter what I was going through, I could keep learning. Even on the days when I was unable to get out of bed, I reminded myself that learning just prior to sleep could help cement a pathway. So I’d read a little, or study a little. I’d focus on things that were important to me.

          Now, a few years later – my health is finally starting to improve because I didn’t give up. I’m still studying, I’m still learning, but now I’m writing too. Because I didn’t give up.

          What’s really significant about it all is that learning that I wasn’t just a helpless victim to my brain made it possible for me to keep going. I might never be as bright as some other people, but that never mattered. I can keep learning and enjoying life and I feel like I have you to thank for it.

Top Three Lessons on How to Have Higher Impact in Your Career If You Are Trying to Help Others

Here is a great video from Benjamin Todd at 80,000 Hours on how to work on something that will truly have an impact.  (Warning—the first couple seconds are a bit graphic.) As Ben points out at, it’s easy to be seduced into pouring enormous energy and resources into programs that not only do not help, but which actually make the situation worse.  But there are smart ways to approach the challenge. (Incidentally, Ben’s book 80,000 Hours: Find a fulfilling career that does good, is an excellent one.)  

Earn Tuition-free College Credit

Saylor Academy is a nonprofit initiative working since 2008 to offer free and open online courses to all who want to learn. As Wikipedia notes, “the foundation offers 317 free, college-level courses, which are selected as typical courses in high enrollment majors at traditional U.S. colleges.” Through Saylor Academy, you can earn modern, digital certificates of completion; earn tuition-free college credit through their network of partner schools; or even start a low-cost, convenient degree program.

[Hat tip, Enrique Planells Artigot.]

Visualizing Japanese Grammar

Here’s an interesting video by Jake Hebbert on his efforts to learn Japanese by creating flashcards that don’t refer to English. Jake would welcome your comments and suggestions.

Are French People Rude?

Here’s a fun but insightful article by Géraldine Lepère on Fluent in 3 Months about why French people seem rude sometimes, and how you can use a few techniques to prevent any unpleasantness. As language expert Benny Lewis explains, Géraldine “has a real knack of getting right to the point and explaining exactly what’s going on when you encounter a French person who seems rude.”

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!

NEW! Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens. Great ideas for parents, too!

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