Author: barboakley

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week

Jordan Peterson’s book 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, has been floating at the top of the Amazon best-sellers listing for several weeks, so we had to see what all the hullabaloo was about. Peterson’s book is an intriguing mixture of deeply researched psychology, philosophy, religious studies, and history, with a connective tissue of neuroscience and real-life experiences. Given our own not-so-hot experiences with communism, we were gratified to see that Peterson, unlike many modern academicians, didn’t brush right over one of the most horrific movements, (alongside the often unspoken ravages of colonialism), of the last several hundred years. (See the magnificent King Leopold’s Ghost for more on colonialism’s shadows.)  

Peterson’s book forms a worthwhile effort to find an inspiring, rather than nihilistic, worldview of life and of learning. Read it yourself to see what all the hype is about. Peterson, with his wonderfully listenable accent from rural Canada, reads the audio version of his book. (You may be able to get two free audiobooks through this link.)

Brain Pickings!

Thanks to Arthur Worsley, we’ve been introduced to the insightful, beautifully written website “Brain Pickings.”  Check out Maria Popova’s latest posting there, “Nobel-Winning Physicist Niels Bohr on Subjective vs. Objective Reality and the Uses of Religion in a Secular World.”  As Popova so eloquently makes clear, the challenge of integrating a worldview with a way of life has drawn in some of the world’s greatest thinkers.

Where Did Language Come From?

A major unanswered question in science is how language evolved.  Watch this fast-paced video that summarizes MIT linguist Shigeru Miyagawa’s intriguing hypothesis about the origins of language. Shigeru has also long been one of the key players in open access online learning—he’s a man to watch.

The Learning Zone—An Interesting Website for Teachers and Students about Learning

LHTLer Massimo Curatella pointed us towards this intriguing website, where teachers can ask questions about learning to a great variety of experts in education, psychology, and neuroscientist.  Check it out! (We love the site’s tongue-in-cheek subtitle: I’m a Scientist, Get me out of here!)

Online Learning Course of the Week

We’ve been enjoying Idahosa Ness’s course The Flow of Portuguese, which teaches the basic sound and flow of Portuguese through bits of music. Everything is lovingly put together so that you learn chunk by tiny chunk. If you’ve been trying to get a bit of a feel for Portuguese, this is the perfect course for you.  It’s a different enough approach that you can take this course even if you’re learning another language, such as Spanish, through other more conventional methods.  To get a feel for Idahosa’s funny take on life and language learning, take a look at his video rapping in 8 languages—although he doesn’t actually speak 8 languages…

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

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Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week

This week’s book recommendation is Scott Berkun’s Confessions of a Public Speaker.  We’ve read a fair number of books about various aspects of public speaking, and Scott’s book ranks among the best. He goes into the nitty-gritty of travel, preparation, and what it feels like to be on stage, plus tips on calming down about verbal flubs and the like. Teachers will find much useful insight. Highly recommended!

Cognitive Training Helps Your Brain

Here’s some encouraging news from research—“Cognitive Training Helps Regain a Younger-working Brain.”  This also lends support to the idea that using your cognitive abilities to continue to challenge your brain, even as you grow older, is a healthy thing to do! [Hat tip, LHTLer brandonrox10.]

Escaping the Ivory Tower

Due to the number of requests, Oakland University filmed Barb’s talk on how to escape the ivory tower and have a bigger impact if you are a college professor.  (A pdf of the Powerpoints is here.) You’ll find an offbeat summary of Barb’s approach to her work, along with many ideas about how you can move beyond the “publish or perish” and grantsmanship of typical faculty life.

Professional development for home educators

Julie Bogart, founder of Brave Writer, leads a homeschool coaching community called The Homeschool Alliance. “Grad school for home school” – the Alliance offers monthly webinars, articles, audio lectures, and community discussion as well as a library of resources focused on natural learning, family dynamics, and subject areas. Membership includes a free 7-day trial. (Barb will be a happy guest lecturer this fall!)

Great Summary of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Arthur Worsley has done a terrific book crunch of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which has long been a great favorite of LHTLers.  Enjoy!

Craft an Autonomous Education with the Mentorbox Podcast

MentorBox has devised a great way to allow you to have the author of a book help lead you through the key points of that book—their  online video platform and thoughtful curation of quintessential non-fiction reads is very worthwhile. Check out the MentorBox podcast for behind-the-book talks with prolific authors who represent the best in entrepreneurship, business success, and wellness.

Take Part in the Global Student Voice Film Festival

Students around the world are challenged to make short videos using the theme, “In Another’s Shoes,” with the top videos to be showcased at ISTE 2018 in Chicago. The rules related to sources and citations are designed to help teach digital citizenship issues, too, so read them carefully. More at: studentvoice.org.

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

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Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week

We happened to pick up Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft’s Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone, by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. To be honest, we weren’t expecting much (we read a lot of books that never make the cut for our Cheery Friday newsletter). We were astonished to find a CEO who is the real deal as far as caring both for his customers and the employees of his company.  Satya’s empathy for others, growing in part from his children’s physical and learning challenges, have given him a sui generis approach to running a company. Satya’s book is a wonderfully inspiring read about the difference a great company, with great leadership, can make in people’s lives. Also includes interesting perspectives on quantum computing and artificial intelligence. Highly recommended!

Motivating the Unmotivated Student

Here’s a short article by Barb in Insight Magazine, the leading magazine for independent schools, on motivated unmotivated students. (Yes, Barb was often a very unmotivated student when she was a kid….)

Barb’s Interview with Jonathan Levi on “Becoming a SuperLearner”

Barb is now an admirer of Jonathan Levi after their broad-ranging, fun episode together: “Understanding Learning and How It Works.” Looks down the webpage to see descriptions of the different segments of our lengthy discussion, so you can jump to what you find most interesting.  Great insights on learning don’t just come from a university setting–insightful “lay people” like Jonathan can synthesize fresh ideas and insights that are often more helpful than the findings of any academic paper.  

Video Tips from Memory Champion Nelson Dellis on Setting Goals

Nelson has just returned from the successful Kilimanjaro trip that he organized. He summitted for the second time! Nelson’s not only a memory expert, and a champion climber, but he’s also obviously terrific at setting and achieving goals.  Here’s a video he put together for you on setting goals in 2018. Enjoy!

The Effects of Collective Bargaining in the Public Sector

Since we’re interested in all matters teaching and learning related, we couldn’t help but notice this article on the “The Effects of Collective Bargaining in the Public Sector,” by Jonathan H. Adler, the Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law at Case Western. As the article notes: “Using data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we demonstrate that collective bargaining leads to sizable reductions in measured cognitive and non-cognitive skills among young adults. Taken together, our results suggest laws that support collective bargaining for teachers have adverse long-term labor market consequences for students.”

Monthly MOOC Watch from Class Central

This month’s Class Central analysis gives a sense of providers’ varying approaches to monetizing to keep alive and healthy in the competitive MOOC-space.

Just Plain Fun Stuff

Ever wondered what your upstairs’ neighbors are doing that is making all that noise?  Find 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

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Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week

This week, we opted for some light reading with Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, by Mason Currey. This is basically a compendium of workaholic work habits of a number of famous writers and artists.  Since we’re sort of workaholics ourselves, it was an intriguing glimpse into the psyches of kindred spirits.  In one way, the book was a little unsatisfying, because most of the descriptions of people work habits were very short.  On the other hand, the brevity of the entries is part of what made it such an intriguing book—Currey breezed through the lives of dozens of creative people in a way that allowed us to quickly glean key ideas from a lot of different people.  It was gratifying to learn, for example, that many writers are bothered by noise, just as we are.  We’ve seen reference to Daily Rituals in so many books that we figured it was time to read the book ourselves, and we’re glad we did.

Audible version available here. (This is a nice book for listening. Two free audiobooks may be possible through this link.)

Can You Lend Us Your Insight Into Future Courses You Might Like to Take?

We are considering the creation of new MOOCs based on a neuroscientific foundation, as with the Learning How to Learn MOOC. If you might like such courses, please take a moment to fill out this short survey and let us know what you think.

What’s Next After Accomplishing a Big Project or Learning Goal?

Scott Young has written an excellent blog post on the strange feelings that can arise with successful completion of a learning goal or project—and how best to move forward.

Universities Must Adapt to a Fast-changing World

This thought-provoking article, “Who are the right partners for professional skills?” by Chris Fellingham, describes Coursera’s shift to encompass more usable skills—and the need for universities to be able to learn to keep up with the changes in today’s fast-paced society.  “Education Bubble” explains why necessary changes are not ooccurring in academia—increasing detrimental effects as the academic bubble pops.

A Library of Free Videos Made by and for Teachers and Students

Next Vista For Learning provides a library of free videos made by and for teachers and students—there are over 2,000 videos on a wide variety of learning-related topics.  Check it out! [Hat tip Mike Petty.]

A Review of Double Your Learning Power

It can provide worthwhile perspectives to look back on the past, at how today’s neuroscientific insights provide solid support for seemingly old-fashioned recommendations for learning.  This nice comparative review by James Bowen of the 1986 book Double Your Learning Power, by Geoffrey A. Dudley, illuminates how much we knew then–and how what we know now helps us understand even better why the recommendations of yore were valuable.

Barb Keynoting in Cortland, New York, May 22-25, 2018

Don’t forget, Barb will be keynoting at the Cortland, New York SUNY Conference on Instruction and Technology May 22 – 25, 2018. She’ll also be giving a workshop on using Camtasia to help move yourself slowly and easily in the online world (just as she did!). She’ll set aside plenty of time during the course of the conference to chat with Learning How to Learners. To get on the conference mailing list, sign up 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

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Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Month (Yes, a second one)

We’re embarrassed to admit that, despite all of the hullabaloo over the past decade, we had never previously gotten around to reading The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable—a no-holds-barred vivisection of so-called experts. Taleb doesn’t shy away from naming names, including Nobel Prize winners and the head of the Fed, and describing exactly how their financial guidance is, in some ways, more harmful than that of a cab driver.  

This is one of those books that we love because it confirms our own previous experiences with regards experts, particularly academic experts. As Taleb puts it, “Black Swan events are largely caused by people using measures way over their heads, instilling false confidence based on bogus results.”  Once you’re indoctrinated with a certain methodology, as for example, the value of the Gaussian curve, it’s hard to see when that curve gives dangerously misleading information.

Diversity Training Increases Bias

Which brings us to diversity.  We’re keen proponents of diversity, but we can’t help observing that today’s campus diversity officer seems to be acquiring a role similar to that of the political commissar in the old Soviet Union, (we have had a lot of personal experience with political commissars). We are very aware of how efforts to promote diversity can backfire, promoting rather than reducing racial prejudice and gender biases. And indeed, a recent Harvard study has found exactly that—many diversity programs at both universities and businesses actually lead to increased bias and a reduction in diversity.

An excellent book that describes how broad-ranging and well-meaning, but ultimately harmful, programs can be instituted at great expense is Timothy Wilson’s wonderful Redirect: Changing the Stories We Live By. Of course, many of these types of programs arise from pathologies of altruism.  To learn more about this area, take a look at our book, Pathological Altruism, and our Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences article “Concepts and implications of altruism bias and pathological altruism.” If you really want to help others, it’s important to understand how misdirected helping can hurt.

Getting Your Ham Radio License

Given the fact that black swans are inevitable, it is great for society worldwide to have a reservoir of amateurs who are comfortable working with the world of radios. When disasters happen—and they inevitably will—it’s a good thing to have people who can communicate at a distance.

As it happens, Barb’s younger daughter is currently studying for her Technician Ham Radio licence, and she stumbled across this excellent book by Michael Burnette, (AF7KB): The Fast Track to Your Technician Class Ham Radio License. If you’ve been thinking of taking the plunge into talking to people around the world on amateur radio, get this book to help you get started!

Barb’s Upcoming Talk: Having a Greater Impact

• Rochester, Michigan Jan 24: Barb will be speaking on the vitally important topic of how a professor, and a university, can have greater impact in today’s world. Her talk “Escaping the Ivory Tower: How to Grow Your Public Impact” will be on Wednesday, January 24th from 3:00 pm  to 4:30 p.m., at Oakland University, 242 Elliott Hall in Rochester, Michigan. RSVP to Leanne DeVreugd at ldevreug@oakland.edu.

Barb’s February talks include keynotes at:

• All Hands Meeting, Microsoft Western Europe, Monaco, Feb 6
• Amos Fetzer and Alice Fetzer Memorial Lecture, Nebraska Wesleyan, Omaha, Nebraska, Feb 9
• Middle College National Consortium Annual Conference, Newport, California, Feb 13
• Doha, Qatar, Texas A&M University at Qatar Feb 19-22

If you happen to be in any of those areas and can make a talk, Barb would love to meet 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

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Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Month

We’ve long been major fans of Dan Pink. His latest book When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing lives up to Dan’s fantastic writing record. Right from the start, we were riveted to read of a ship sunk on a sunny afternoon within sight of shore—with over a thousand lives lost. How did it happen?  You’ll have to read When to see, but the book’s title gives an important clue. We love Dan Pink’s work because he’s one of the best writers around at combining practically useful insights from science with compelling stories that are hard to put down. (And as a result of Dan’s book, Barb plans to take tango lessons with her husband!)

Alzheimer’s Charity Climb for Memory

Our long-time friend 4-time US Memory Champion Nelson Dellis has organized a Kilimanjaro climb  for his Alzheimer’s charity Climb For Memory. He leaves next week with 17 climbers. The charity aims to raise awareness and funds for Alzheimer’s research through organized mountain climbs around the world. If you would  like to support Nelson in his efforts, you can make a tax-deductible donation here. (This is a great cause. We gave $100—please feel free to give whatever you can.)

MOOC of the Week

We’ve been greatly enjoying the MOOC-like videos of “Masterclass.com,” a San Francisco-based online education platform where you can find classes given by some of the world’s leading experts in those topics.  Now, for example, we’ve been watching the videos of film director Ron Howard and photographer Annie Leibovitz. Annie has wonderful suggestions for photography exercises—we’ve found ourselves looking in new ways at what’s happening around us. There are many other classes taught by top-notch talents in topics that can sometimes be hard to find any ordinary nearby university: electronic music production, filmmaking, film scoring, writing for television, comedy (by Steve Martin, whose autobiography we loved!) What’s not to like about learning what Christina Aguilera, for example, has to say about singing, or Stephen Curry talking about basketball?  We find the videos to, in some ways, be more intimate and informative than a television show or a book. Highly recommended.

Learning How to Overcome a Phobia

Nearly 20 million Americans have a phobia, with hundreds of millions more worldwide.  This moving article “A New Yorker Faces His Phobia, One Stroke at a Time,” reporter N. R. Kleinfield describes how, just as you learn to be afraid of the object of your phobia, you can learn new patterns that help you “unlearn” the phobia. Do you have a phobia that’s keeping you from doing what you want to do?  Check out online resources—you’ll be surprised at what’s available to help!

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

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

We received an awesome Christmas gift—How to Traumatize Your Children: 7 Proven Methods to Help You Screw Up Your Kids Deliberately and with Skill. By making fun, (in hilarious fashion) of common parental foibles, it also helps us keep in mind what good parenting really entails.  Barb passed this to her pediatrician daughter—the book is now an even bigger hit, making the rounds with her fellow pediatrician-residents.

Barb Speaking in San Francisco at the World’s Fair Nano!

Barb will be giving a talk about the future of education at World’s Fair Nano on Saturday, March 10th, 2018.  Unlike many upbeat but vague talks about the future of “XXX,” this one will unwrap the specifics of her and Terry’s exciting new project, designed for global impact in many languages.  Register here. (Barb plans to stay after her talk to shake hands and meet you!)

The Peg Method—and The Art of Memory

Our friend, 4-time US Memory Champion Nelson Dellis is back with another great memory tips video, this one on the Peg Method.  (The Peg Method is another way of memorizing that’s quite different from, but complementary to, the Memory Palace Technique.)

You may also wish to check out Nelson’s Art of Memory, a Memory training app that offers Memory tutorials, training tools, system generators, and memory games to help you improve your memory. Pre-orders are still being taken and the final version of the software will be going live very soon.

Data Exchange Network

DataCircle is a data exchange network where you can find, buy, sell and exchange datasets easily. It is great for researchers, educators and students—there are more than 50 dataset categories. To learn more, go to DataCircle.io. It’s worth noting that DataCircle is dedicated to helping the open communities—there is a free tier to use, share, and exchange free data assets.

Before a Test or Interview, Be Sure to Exercise

This article cites a study which has found that just ten minutes of aerobic exercise does a lot to improve cognitive function. So next time you find yourself dragging when you are trying to complete a difficult cognitive task, or you’re about to take a test or meet for an important interview, get some exercise to pep yourself up!

Thirty Years In, the Bennett Hypothesis is More Important than Ever

Jenna Robinson’s cogent article shows that the Bennett hypothesis—that is, that federal aid makes tuition higher—is more important than ever. Oddly enough, federal student aid allows universities to blithely raise prices without feeling the consequences of reduced demand or lower-quality students. “The price of college tuition and fees has risen 1,335 percent since 1978: much faster than inflation and faster even than medical care (704 percent) and housing (511 percent).”  To learn more about this problem, read Benjamin Ginsberg’s important, The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All-Administrative University and Why It Matters.

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

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

We very much enjoyed Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil, an eye-opening book on the world of olive oil.  We had a sense that olive oils were often mislabeled, but this book really opened our eyes about how “extra virgin first cold-pressed olive oil” is often anything but—and regulatory bodies worldwide generally avoid doing much about it.  Author Tom Mueller covers far more in his enlightening book—the health benefits of real, fresh olive oil; the growing international marketplace, the history of the oil in athletics, religion, and perfumes; not to mention the sheer beauty of olive trees.

You’ve probably been aware of the importance of both exercise and a healthy diet.  But you may not know that exercise coupled with a healthy diet has a bigger impact on our health, and our ability to learn, than either exercise or a healthy diet alone. But which diet is best? As Extra Virginity describes, the Mediterranean diet, with olive oil as a key component, is an excellent choice for healthy eating. Interestingly, there has long been a “food desert” hypothesis that poor individuals do not have access to reasonably priced healthy food, which is why their diets are so unhealthy.  This hypothesis has been essentially disproven in a recent massive analysis (described here) of 35,000 supermarkets covering 40% of the US.  Unhealthy eating, sad to say, is often a choice. So read this book to help you do your part in making healthier (and tastier!) choices!

Barb Speaking on “Escaping the Ivory Tower: How to Grow Your Public Impact” January 24th, 2018

Barb will be giving a rare speech on a vitally important topic—how a professor, and a university, can have a greater impact in today’s world. Her talk “Escaping the Ivory Tower: How to Grow Your Public Impact” will cover how to break into popular book publishing (writing a proposal, getting a literary agent, what to focus on); outreach to and the impact of media such as newspapers, radio, television, and blogs; the pluses and minuses of using social media; getting into MOOC-making; and the career and institutional impact of MOOCs and online videos.  There will be plenty of time after the presentation for discussion. If you are a professor or doctoral student looking to have a greater public impact, or if you work with an academic institution that is looking to further its outreach, it’s worth flying to Michigan for this one-of-a-kind, career-changing event. (If you already live in Michigan, you’re in luck!)  The talk will be at Oakland University, 242 Elliott Hall in Rochester, Michigan on Wed Jan 24, 2018, from 3:00 pm to 4:30 p.m. RSVP to Leanne DeVreugd at ldevreug@oakland.edu.  

Finding Your First Coding Job—If You Come from a Zero Coding Background

LaunchCode is a nonprofit that educates people who come from diverse, non-computer science backgrounds and helps them find their first coding job. If you’re peeking in the career window, wondering what coders do and whether it’s something you could also do, check out LaunchCode’s “Hello Coding!” course.

The Age of Outrage: What the current political climate is doing to our country and our universities

This deeply insightful essay is an edited version of Jonathan Haidt’s Wriston Lecture for the Manhattan Institute.  Universities play an unbelievably important role in introducing students to new, often uncomfortable, ideas.  Haidt’s essay describes how universities (MOOCs play a role in this as well), are failing in their civic duties—and how universities can get back on track. We’ve pre-ordered The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure, by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, which will explore these vital ideas in greater depth.

Study of 10th Grade Biology in India

Inspired by our book A Mind for Numbers, Tanvi Jagtap has come up with a great website set of flashcard tools to make studying easy for 10th-grade biology students in India. Tanvi is now working on raising crowdfunding for the website to increase its scope. You can contribute to the funding for this innovative new website here.

The 15 best books these popular authors read in 2017

Here’s a listing from LinkedIn of top books read by some of LinkedIn’s top essayists and authors (including Barb). If you’re looking for a variety of reading ideas, check it out!

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

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!

Books of the Week

As LHTLers know, we love biographies!  This week, we reread Jack Weatherford’s monumental Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, which is one of our top two biographies of all time (our other top favorite biography is Robert Massie’s Peter the Great: His Life and World).  Coupled with the Genghis Khan biography, we read Weatherford’s sister volume, The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire, which gave great insight into how the Great Khan’s children and descendants affected his legacy. If you like either history or biography–or would like to give these types of books a try, you couldn’t do better than to dig into these titles!

Hit Lit! Top Ten Books & Learning Tools of 2017 for Learning How to Learners!

Here are the books and tools that LHTLers have found to be most useful this year (not counting our own A Mind for Numbers and Mindshift, which of course ranked at the top!)

• TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking

• The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results

• My First Book About the Brain (Dover Children’s Science Books)

• 3M Peltor Optime 105 Over the Head Earmuff, Ear Protectors

• Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

• Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

• Visual Intelligence: Sharpen Your Perception, Change Your Life

• Ego Is the Enemy

• Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life

Schools that Don’t Teach

Here’s a disquieting article from the New York Times about the shocking percentages of children in California who lack even the most basic literacy skills. It’s all too easy to focus on the most interesting aspects of what’s folding in education, particularly higher education, while neglecting the vital fact that basic literacy is of paramount importance. (If you’re able to read books and do the assignments on MOOCs, count yourself lucky with your education, and take advantage of it!)

Nearly 5 Million Americans Default on Student Loans

This perceptive Wall Street Journal article by Josh Mitchell shows the increasing personal costs of largely face-to-face education. Sadly, while most universities embrace exorbitant infrastructure spending, few are willing to invest in low cost, high value online learning.   

MOOC of the Week

And on a happier note, we’ve heard great things about The Modern and the Postmodern, by Professor Michael Roth of Wesleyan University.  This course examines how the idea of “the modern” develops at the end of the 18th century in European philosophy and literature, and how being modern (or progressive, or hip) became one of the crucial criteria for understanding and evaluating cultural change.

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

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 Year

[EMBARRASSING REVELATION (added August 21, 2021):

Walker’s book, as it turns out, is riddled with inaccuracies and misrepresentations, as described in this outstanding analysis by Alexey Guzey (himself an early student of Learning How to Learn). As Wikipedia notes: “Walker failed to disclose that numerous meta-analyses involving over 4 million adults found the lowest mortality was associated with 7 hours of sleep, and that the increased risk of death associated with sleeping more than 7 hours was significantly greater than the risk of sleeping less than 7 hours as defined by a J-shaped curve.” As Guzey concludes: “…imagine that a 20-year-old who naturally needs to sleep for 7 hours a night, reads Why We Sleep, gets scared, and decides to spend the full 8 hours in bed every day. Then, assuming that they live until 75, they will waste more than 20,000 hours or more than 2 years of their life, with uncertain long-term side-effects.”  But there’s far, far more, including evidence for misrepresentation of the institution where Walker received his doctorate (the institution Walker had claimed apparently doesn’t issue doctorates), plagiarism, and, well, just making stuff up if it supports what Walker wants to say.  (Here is Walker’s response to some of the criticism.)

And we were also sad to learn of retraction and problematic research by Dan Ariely, who has studied, of all things, honesty.  Many companies (including some online learning platforms), ask students to sign integrity statements before beginning quizzes.  This approach has often arisen due to Ariely’s research.  Unfortunately, there’s good evidence that Ariely’s data for this research was cooked.  

Now if only Jo Boaler’s problematic research involving mathematics education—which is being used as the shaky foundation that underpins reform mathematics approaches—would be held by Stanford, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and other educational organizations to the level of scrutiny and consequent opprobrium that Walker and Ariely have received.

And we were also sad to learn of retraction and problematic research by Dan Ariely, who has studied, of all things, honesty.  Many companies (including some online learning platforms), ask students to sign integrity statements before beginning quizzes.  This approach has often arisen due to Ariely’s research.  Unfortunately, there’s good evidence that Ariely’s data for this research was cooked.  

Now if only Jo Boaler’s problematic research involving mathematics education—which is being used as the shaky foundation that underpins reform mathematics approaches—would be held by Stanford, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and other educational organizations to the level of scrutiny and consequent opprobrium that Walker and Ariely have received.]

Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams,  is one of the most important books we have ever read.  If you read one book to help you with your learning (and life) this year, we think it should be Why We Sleep.

It seems that every question we’ve ever wondered about related to sleep is covered by author Matthew Walker’s masterful discussion of sleep. Walker is the Director of UC Berkeley’s Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab, so he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to snoozing.  Yet Walker is also a masterful writer, full of witty, insightful metaphors that give an in-depth understanding of how and why we need to sleep.  We’d always known that sleep was a vital part of learning–Walker’s book tells why sleep is so important.  Walker shares sleep-related insights by the dozen along the way, such as tips and tricks to help you fall asleep more quickly, why sleeping pills are much less innocuous than you think, and why a tiny percentage of the population needs only 4 hours or so of sleep a night–(and why you’re probably not one of those people). Do not miss this book.  [Hat tip, super-MOOCer Ronny De Winter.]

Helping students build optimal sleep habits

And this article from always insightful Judy Willis at the npj Science of Learning Community gives some great tips on building good sleep habits in young adults.   
Reading Information Aloud to Yourself Improves Memory

You might think you’re just wasting time if you take the time to read aloud whatever you are trying to learn.  Nope–this worthwhile article relates how reading aloud can help reinforce ideas in memory.

The Latest Survey on MOOC-takers from Class Central

It’s worthwhile to take a step back to try to quantify what typical MOOC users are like.  Class Central does exactly that in their latest survey: “Class Central Learner Survey (2017): MOOC Users Highly Educated, Have Experienced Career Benefits”

Making Prescription Medicines Affordable in the United States

Our friend Guruprasad Madhavan of the US National Academy of Sciences co-authored the nuanced, insightful report Making Medicines Affordable, on the challenge of creating affordable drugs. Guru notes on his blog, The Barefoot Engineer: “At a time when total medical expenditures are rapidly approaching 20 percent of the gross domestic product, our report concluded that ‘consumer access to effective and affordable medicines is an imperative for public health, social equity, and economic development; however, this imperative is not being adequately served by the biopharmaceutical sector.’”

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

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