Author: barboakley

Barbara Oakley, PhD, PE is a Professor of Engineering at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan; Michigan’s Distinguished Professor of the Year; and Coursera’s inaugural “Innovation Instructor.” Her work focuses on the complex relationship between neuroscience and social behavior. Dr. Oakley’s research has been described as “revolutionary” in the Wall Street Journal. She is a New York Times best-selling author who has published in outlets as varied as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. She has won numerous teaching awards, including the American Society of Engineering Education’s Chester F. Carlson Award for technical innovation in engineering education and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers William E. Sayle II Award for Achievement in Education. Together with Terrence Sejnowski, the Francis Crick Professor at the Salk Institute, she co-teaches Coursera – UC San Diego’s “Learning How to Learn,” one of the world’s most popular massive open online courses with over three million registered students, along with a number of other leading MOOCs. Dr. Oakley has adventured widely through her lifetime. She rose from the ranks of Private to Captain in the U.S. Army, during which time she was recognized as a Distinguished Military Scholar. She also worked as a communications expert at the South Pole Station in Antarctica, and has served as a Russian translator on board Soviet trawlers on the Bering Sea. Dr. Oakley is an elected Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.

What Barb Wishes All Employers (and Employees) Knew About Online Learning

Cheery Friday greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

What Barb Wishes All Employers (and Employees) Knew About Online Learning

Here’s a brilliant articlea featured article on Coursera’s blogtitled “What One of Coursera’s Most Popular Instructors Wishes All Employers Knew About Online Learning.” Writer Lee Price managed to synthesize Barb’s rambling thoughts into a pithy “must read” for employers as well as employees. (Click the “heart” if you like it. 🙂 )

Books of the Week

Here’s a wonderful new booka surprise top best-sellercalled Beautiful Brain: The Drawings of Santiago Ramon y Cajal. As the cover description mentions: “At the crossroads of art and science, Beautiful Brain presents Nobel Laureate Santiago Ramón y Cajal’s contributions to neuroscience through his groundbreaking artistic brain imagery.” We would talk more intelligently about the book, but it’s sold out nearly everywhereorder your own copy, (just as we have), now! To tide you over, here is a lovely New York Times article about the book. (Hat tip: Jerónimo Castro, Director of COLFUTURO.) We also recommend Cajal’s Butterflies of the Soul: Science and Art, by neuroscientist Javier DeFelipe.

And if you’re interested in how art improves our ability perceive and understand, we highly recommend Amy Herman’s Visual Intelligence: Sharpen Your Perception, Change Your Life.  (We prefer the hard copy over the e-reader copy, because the images are easier to see on the hard copy.)  This book will definitely improve your powers of observationeven while some of the stories are so compelling that the book’s tough to put down. And yet another excellent, but hard-to-get book on art is Vision and Art: The Biology of Seeing, by Margaret Livingstone.

If you’re interested in an audio book related to art, check out Leonard Shlain’s Leonardo’s Brain: Understanding da Vinci’s Creative Genius. Shlain is one of our favorite writers and thinkers, and if you listen to this fascinating book, you’ll see why.

MOOC of the Week

And speaking of art, we’ve stumbled across an intriguing new MOOC called “Art of the MOOC: Public Art and Pedagogy,” by Pedro Lasch and Nato Thompson of Duke University.  We believe that MOOCs are a phenomenal new form of art, even as they form fantastic teaching tools. So we couldn’t resist the opportunity to sign up for this MOOC, which begins on March 13th.

Interview with Dhawal Shah of Class Central

Dhawal Shah, founder of Class Central, is interviewed in this great “what’s going on behind the scenes” interview with Quincy Larson. Quincy, incidentally, is the founder of Free Code Camp, an open source community of 500,000+ people who learn to code together and build projects for nonprofits.

Inequality in Education

Here is a thought-provoking article about a pocket of inequality in American society in substantive need of improvementthat of the American university system and its treatment of adjunct professors and graduate students.

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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A terrific new math program for kids—Smartick

Cheery Friday greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Books of the Week

As you know, we’re big fans of biographies. And we’ve got an exceptional one to tout: Cleopatra: A Life, by Stacy Schiff. Great biographies give a sense of what might have been happening behind the scenes in important times in history. While giving a sense of the person, they also give a great feel for the place and time. Read Schiff’s book and savor a trip back to the tumultuous times when the Roman and Egyptian worlds collided. Stacy Schiff herself read the audio version of the book.

If you’d like to get a sense of a very different place and time, we strongly recommend The Little House on the Prairie series, by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  These books tell about the true story of young Laura growing up during US pioneer days in the late 1800s and early 1900s. These books aren’t just kids’ booksBarb’s husband Phil, (a tough motorcyclist!), has been enthralled by these books for years. There’s a reason why these books have sold millions worldwide.  If you’d like to start with just one, we recommend The Little House on the Prairie. Incidentally, these are great books also to read aloud with your family. (And there’s an Audible version, also.)

How to Help Your Child Excel in Mathand Have a Great Career

Speaking of family, when her daughters were growing up, Barb wanted them to be “free range” kids who largely directed themselves in whatever they wanted to learn or do outside school.  There was one rule: that Barb herself got to pick one single activity that her girls had to do, whether they liked it or not. That single activity was 20 minutes or so of extra math practice on most days. Barb has found that many school systems, at least in Western countries, place so much emphasis on understanding of math that they don’t work to also build the procedural fluencythat is, in chunkingthat research shows is essential in acquiring expertise in any subject.  So Barb placed her daughters in Kumon math, which emphasizes a brief period of daily practice in the solid fundamentals.  Cut to the chasenow, twenty-five years later, Barb (and her husband Phil’s!) two daughters went from initially disliking and not being good at math, to great career success as a doctor and journalist.

The reason we’re sharing this story is because we’ve found a modern day, much-improved version of the math program Barb used with her girls.  This new program is Smartick.  The founder of Smartick, engineer Daniel González de Vega, was inspired to begin his world-class company when he discovered that the methods being used to teach math were not helpful for his sister.  Now, many years later, Smartick works with leading researchers to ensure their approach is not only sound, but supplies the best possible approaches to building your child’s intuition about math.

Barb believes that one of the greatest gifts you can give your child is a an open future where all doors are open, career-wiseand the best way to do that is to ensure your child has a solid foundation in math.  We’re big believers in Smartick’s system, and we think that if you check out their free 15 day trial, you’ll become believers, also. (And no, we don’t benefit by promoting Smartick.) So if you have a child, whether he or she is already a superstar in math, or is struggling with math, give Smartick a try.

Interview on “Daily Bits”

Here’s a nice interview with Barb about learning and her upcoming book Mindshift on “Daily Bits Of,” a website devoted to giving you daily bits to help your learning.

Online Courses through Amazon

Our perceptive friends at Class Central are always on top of the latest trends in online learning.  A recent move of interest is that edX is making a few of their courses available on Amazon for certificate purchase.  As Class Central notes in their overview article, “Amazon has over 7,000 ‘educational courses’ that can be purchased on their site.”

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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Big Magic/MOOC Job/LHTL in French/Procrastination

Cheery Friday greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Month

We’ve already got the month’s best book lined up for you: Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear. This is a #1 New York Times best seller by Elizabeth Gilbert—yes, that Elizabeth Gilbert, who wrote Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia, the worldwide bestseller now in its tenth anniversary edition. We loved Big Magic—if you’re feeling at a loss, wondering if you can ever accomplish anything creatively worthwhile in your life, this book is for you Oh, and did we mention that Gilbert’s way with words is magical, too? [Hat tip for this wonderful recommendation to James Stahlman, Executive Administrator at Coursera.]

Recruiting for Instructional Design Positions with MOOC Development Experience

VisionCor is recruiting for several Instructional Design positions with MOOC Development experience. This is a virtual contract opportunity with a client in the technology field. The contract will be at least 6 months long and will require the candidates to have developed MOOCs. One sample will be needed as well. If you fulfil the requirements and are looking for a job, please contact one of the two following individuals:

· Katie Barlow – kbarlow@visioncor.com 704/366-7979

· Carol Valencia – cvalencia@visioncor.com 704-819-0108

Learning How to Learn in French – Apprendre comment apprendre

Nicole Charest is the French Lead of Learning How to Learn (LHTL). Nicole likes to introduce herself as a busy retired agronomist and as a passionate and creative learner. Nicole is doctor in agricultural science and also has a M.Sc. in Creative Studies – Creativity and Change Leadership. When considering study, work, volunteer or personal project opportunities, she always considered these three core questions: ‘Will I learn, could I make a difference, is it coherent with my humanist values?’ So, leading a dedicated team aiming at creating a functional French version of LHTL sounds like the perfect fit! This team will work in collaboration with the Global Translator Community (GTC), a community of Coursera learners and translators. We believe that our goal of achieving a fully functional French version of LHTL would however be facilitated by the creation and the coordination of a dedicated team. If you would like to join the LHTL French Language team, please fill out our application form. Cette invitation à joindre notre équipe est pour vous si vous souhaitez que les apprentissages d’Apprendre comment apprendre soient accessibles à tous et toutes au sein de la francophonie. Ces apprentissages peuvent faire toute une différence dans la vie de chacun et chacune et ce sans égard à l’âge, les intérêts ou les secteurs d’activités et ce, particulièrement dans notre monde de plus en plus complexe et en perpétuel changement.

Handy Tips for Procrastinators

Check out this great forum post by David Peel with a list of handy tips for procrastinators. (Hat tip, Senior Mentor Linda Walker.) For even more information, check out Brian Tracy’s procrastination classic Eat That Frog! 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time.

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

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Book of the month—the extraordinary When Cultures Collide: Leading Across Cultures

Cheery Friday greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Month

Our book of the month this month is the extraordinary When Cultures Collide: Leading Across Cultures, by Richard D. Lewis.  Lewis is a polymath who speaks 10 European and 2 Asiatic languages. He has worked with many of the world’s leading industrial and financial companies to help them understand local sensibilities and negotiating strategies. In but one example of his expertise, he has served as tutor to Empress Michiko and other members of the Japanese Imperial Family.

Lewis’s book will give you a profound understanding of how the “you” that seems so right and so solidly a part of the way the world should rightly work is deeply shaped by the culture you grew up in. Even the way you learn can be affected by your cultural upbringing.

When Cultures Collide is one of the top ten books we’ve ever read—even its slightly out-of-date nature lends insight as it reveals the thin layer that current events places over culture. Highly recommended! (Our thanks for the recommendation to Näriman Dästpak, our Learning How to Learn Persian Lead.)

If you are interested in or working with other cultures, other highly rated books on intercultural interactions include:

Learning Chemistry in  Year

Here’s a wonderful article by our friend Alistair McConville about how, as a virtual science phobe, he decided to tackle chemistry in a year “Taking GCSE chemistry in a year? I must be mad.” Among the many important ideas of this article is that it can be invaluable for a teacher to occasionally step into the role of student.

Barb’s new website!

Barb is very happy to unveil her brand new website at www.barbaraoakley.com. On this website, you’ll find not only a trove related to Barb’s writing and books—you’ll also find all the past “Cheery Friday” emails.  Some perceptive followers have noticed that  the November 24th, 2016 email was missing from your inbox.  This email was sent, but due to the magical imps of the internet that were operating on that Thanksgiving (Barb’s birthday!), the email was somehow never delivered.  To read this elusive email just go to www.barbaraoakley.com and have fun looking around the website.  While you’re there, feel free to sign up on Barb’s email list for occasional extra insights.

Barb’s website was created by Bookswarm, a digital agency dedicated to delivering projects for those in the world of books—and MOOCs.  If you are a publisher, author, or you work at all in relation to online materials, we highly recommend Bookswarm as a friendly, highly competent agency to help you put your best digital foot forward in a cost-effective way.  If you’ve been planning on a website design or redesign, reach out to Bookswarm today!

Failure to replicate Dweck’s “Mindset” Theory

Mindset theory posits that praise for intelligence can dramatically lower students’ cognitive performance, and that children’s cognitive ability and school grades depend heavily on whether they believe basic ability is malleable. This theory, and Carol Dweck’s associated book Mindset, have been popular for years, although there has been some perceptive pushback from the edges.  However, just out is a major study, “Does mindset affect children’s ability, school achievement, or response to challenge? Three failures to replicate,” by Yue Li & Timothy C. Bates, with the following conclusions: “Praise for intelligence failed to harm post- challenge cognitive performance. Children’s mindsets had no relationship to their IQ or to their school grades. Finally believing ability to be malleable had not association with improvement of grades across the year. We conclude that the belief that basic ability is fixed is harmless, and that implicit theories of intelligence play no significant role in development of cognitive ability, response to challenge, or educational attainment.”

These kinds of findings that upend “settled” science lead inevitably to major defensive turf wars by those with a strong vested interest in having the science remain settled.  Sit back and enjoy your popcorn as the battles begin!

Ivy League MOOC Collection

Here’s a great collection of Ivy League MOOCs by Class Central.  And from the University of Michigan, we’ve been hearing good things about the course “Finance for Everyone: Smart Tools for Decision-Making”  with Gautam Kaul. The University of Michigan, incidentally, is betting big on MOOCs—putting over 200 of their on-campus courses into MOOC form. Barb visited U of M’s MOOC-making studios—there’s no question but what they are doing a good job behind-the-scenes in working to produce top-notch courses.

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

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Important New MOOC on Hong Kong Cinema Jan 20, 2017

Cheery Friday greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week

This week’s book recommendation is The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It . . . Every Time, by Maria Konnikova. No matter how tough and smart you think you are, there are ways that grifters and swindlers can slip past your defenses and hurt you. This book provides insight by telling stories of how scamming can occur—often using some of our best traits, such as our empathetic kindness. This recommendation comes to us from Senior Mentor (and Amharic Lead) Marta Pulley, who notes some similarities to Barb’s book Cold-Blooded Kindness, a science-based study of a seemingly empathetic killer. Incidentally, Barb is just finishing the audio version of Cialdini’s masterpiece Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, (which we mentioned last week and which is also mentioned in The Confidence Game). Influence also gives great insight into how to avoid being manipulated—which is important if you truly want to help others!

Important New MOOC on Hong Kong Cinema

We have to tell you about a very exciting new MOOC, Hong Kong Cinema through a Global Lens, beginning on February 7th. We’re huuuuge Jackie Chan fans—and, as it turns out, the entire first week of the MOOC is devoted to Jackie’s work. This wonderful MOOC, instructed by our friend Gina Marchetti, Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature at University of Hong Kong, and her world-class colleagues, considers “how the local and the global intersect to make Hong Kong cinema an integral part of popular culture around the world as well as a leading force in the development of world cinematic art.” Don’t miss it!

Jackie Chan’s Autobiographywith Competition from the Terminator

While we’re mentioning Jackie Chan, don’t miss his autobiography I Am Jackie Chan: My Life in Action. It’s an inspiring loser-to-champion story that’s one of our favorite autobiographies ever. Okay, well, we also really loved the inspiration and practical (and sometimes fiendishly clever) guidance on achievement in Arnold Schwarzenegger’sTotal Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story.

The Craft of Building Books that Matter

Here’s an insightful blog post by “bookitect” David Moldawer about book packaging. David writes of the craft of building books that matter. In his post, he speaks of our MOOC Learning How to Learn, its underlying “backbone” book, A Mind for Numbers, and Barb’s upcoming Mindshift. This post is especially because it provides critical insight about the selection of book titles.

Process Instead of Goals

In Learning How to Learn, we emphasized the importance of process over product. Here’s a great article by writer James Clear, Forget About Setting Goals. Focus on This Instead, that emphasizes precisely the importance of process.

Books on Analytical Thinking and Problem Solving

Learning How to Learner Joshua Anthony was looking for a good book on analytical thinking and problem solving. We recommended Polya’s classic How to Solve It, which Joshua found a bit narrow for his needs. Instead, he found another book he wished to recommend to Learning How to Learners: Keeping Up with the Quants: Your Guide to Understanding and Using Analytics. Joshua highly recommends it as a book for students “looking to retrain and reinvent themselves to be more analytical in their thinking.”

Thomas Maier Transplant Fund

And speaking of truly helping others, a little boy, Thomas Maier, who lives several miles from Barb’s home, was born with a congenital heart defect called Tetralogy of Fallot. Thomas can remain alive if he’s able to receive a heart-lung transplant. The family is fighting to help Thomas survive to be able receive the transplant. If you’d like to help (we donated $100), please go 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 from Learning How to Learn! Oct 21, 2016

Cheery Friday greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week

Many of you have written or posted in the past about problems with anxiety, depression, and guilt—common problems in this day and age. We’d like to recommend one of the greatest books around in dealing with these challenges: Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, by Dr. David Burns. These cognitive therapy approaches have been soundly proven by science. You can have a profound effect on your feelings just by reading and doing the active exercises in the book. That’s probably why Feeling Good has been a best-seller for nearly a decade.

Barb’s talk at McMaster University

Check out Barb’s very different perspectives about how to attract women in STEM, along with many other topics in discussion with the inimitable Dean Ishwar Puri at McMaster University. Thirteen thousand viewers joined live—this popular talk keeps drawing more and more.

The Counterintuitive Guru

Many of you know that we greatly admire Watanabe Manabu’s international perspectives on learning. Don’t miss his latest post on “Why We Should NOT Learn from Other Countries’ Education.” This brief, perceptive article is one of the best we’ve read in a long time.

Enhancing parent’s help in getting schoolwork in on time—and in school fundraising!

Here’s something we think looks intriguing—a new platform, Schoolze, that enhances parental engagement with schools. It’s all gamified so that both parents and children can become more engaged with the school and with educational work. Schoolze is designed to save time (4-6 hours weekly) for teachers, and it also provides a great new paradigm as a school fundraiser. Here’s a demo for classroom productivity—Schoolze has modules for PTAs, schools, and districts as well.

MOOC of the Week

Senior Mentor Linda Walker points us to an intriguing new MOOC: The Art and Science of Memory: 5 Keys to Learning. Professor of psychology Simon Moss, along with two-time World Memory Champion Jonas von Essen provide insight into five memory techniques. This sounds like a practical course that’s also grounded in good research—check it out!

A System versus a Goal

Our mentor Steven Cooke has been discussing process versus product with learners—he’s also provided a link to James Clear’s excellent article in Life Hacker—”Get More Done By Focusing on Systems Instead of Goals.”

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 from Learning How to Learn! Oct 14, 2016

Cheery Friday greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Improving Your Memory: Our recommended Books, and Podcast, of the Week

We love Josh Foer’s great book Moonwalking with Einstein, about Foer’s dive into the world of memory competitions. But somehow we never realized that there are even deeper, yet still simple, ways to use the memory palace technique. Barb was lucky enough to do an interview with memory expert Dr. Anthony Metivier. Check out “Learning How To Learn: On Altruism and Memory With Barbara Oakley,” where our discussion romps not only through memory improvement techniques—but also how to best help others.

Barb has been reading Anthony’s books, which she highly recommends—they describe in depth key ideas, like how to ensure your memory image is moving. Even if you are simply interested in generally improving your memory, you’ll still learn a lot from either of Anthony’s books, below. These are very different from Benny Lewis’s great books on language learning, which we recommended a few weeks ago. And they are highly recommended!

Better Memory through Exercise

In keeping with this week’s memory theme, here’s a worthwhile article from the Daily Mail—the title says it all “How exercise makes your brain grow bigger: People who are fit found to have better memories and less chance of developing Alzheimer’s disease.”

Specialization of the Week from McMaster University in Ontario (Where Barb Will Be Speaking!)

We’ve had highly recommended to us the “Finance for Everyone Specialization,” by Arshad Ahmad of McMaster University (Coursera). Learning the language of finance and understanding the flow of money will allow you to better interact with the world, and to be more informed about key social issues. This specialization is apparently one of Coursera’s very best, so it’s well worth checking out.

And don’t forget that Barb will be speaking at McMaster on October 18th—she’d be thrilled to see you there!

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 from Learning How to Learn! Oct 7, 2016

Cheery Friday greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

An Important Book on Embracing Risk In Schools

While Barb was in England visiting Bedales School earlier this year, she had the opportunity to meet Mike Fairclough, the Headmaster of West Rise Junior School, which won TES’s Primary School of the Year for 2015 in the UK. Mike has written a very important book, Playing With Fire: Embracing Risk and Danger in Schools, (the Kindle version is here, and a UK link is here, while a superb article in the Guardian about Mike’s work is here.) Barb’s blurb for the book sums her thoughts: “This is a very important, very necessary, and very beautiful book for all parents educators around the world to treasure. Read it and rediscover the best of your childhood—and how to bring it to children everywhere.”

Barb Speaking in Hamilton, Ontario, and in Lansing, Michigan

“Broaden Your Passion! Encouraging Women in STEM” is the title of Barb’s discussion with Dean Ishwar Puri of the Faculty of Engineering of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Tuesday, October 18, 2016. Go here if you’d like to learn more and register. What’s the talk about? Well, research reveals that women and men develop with equal, often outstanding, abilities at math and science. However one of women’s advantages is that they can have a developmental edge over men when it comes to verbal abilities. The result? When women hear the ubiquitous advice to “follow their passions,” they sometimes turn towards their undeniable strengths outside STEM. Barb and Dean Puri will be exploring these and related issues. (And on a lighter note, you may also hear Barb’s story of the squirt gun and the KGB.)

On October 15th at 1:00 pm, Barb will be giving the keynote in Lansing for the American Association of Physics Teachers – Michigan Section, in Lansing, Michigan. Just pop the organizer, Laurence Tarini, an email at laurence.tarini@gmail.com if you would like to attend.

Science-based Education

We’re friends of the Evolution Institute, a non-profit science-based think tank. The Institute is launching a crowdfunding campaign to raise funds for the construction of a new school, informed by science but friendly to the spirit, to help improve learning in an economically disadvantaged community in East Tampa, Florida that is experiencing very low school pass rates. If you’d like to contribute to the school’s construction, please go here to Indiegogo to lend a hand. (We donated $25.)

Incidentally, a great book that describes the background thinking behind the Institution’s work is David Sloan Wilson’s Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin’s Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives. This book does for evolution what the best-selling Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, (another of our favorites), did for economics.

A Great Instructor on Video- and Film-Making: Ashley Kennedy

We’ve been taking Ashley Kennedy’s first-rate course on Lynda.com that helps beginners get started with the video-editing program Adobe Premiere Pro. If you’re interested in any aspect of video- or film-making, or the history of film, check out Ashley’s superb courses.

A Beautifully Done Cartoon on the Neuroscience of Learning

We love the magazine Nautilus because we feel they have some of the best writing and most creative articles around. Their most recent issue was a fascinating one on learning. Here’s one of the best of the many perceptive articles: “The Genius of Learning,” by cartoonist Lauren R. Weinstein.

We would beg to differ with an implied premise in the article that practice isn’t that important in learning—but overall, we think the graphical explanation of “Genius Award” winner Danielle Basset’s research is absolutely fantastic. This is one of the most interesting approaches to writing and illustrating that we’ve seen in years. Let us hope that Lauren rapidly finishes her graphic novel How to Draw a Nose—we’ll be first in line to buy it!

Incidentally, Barb’s article “How I Rewired My Brain to Become Fluent in Math,” was one of the most popular articles in Nautilus last week.

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 from Learning How to Learn! Sep 30, 2016

Cheery Friday greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

A Great New Language Hacking Series!

As you all know, we’re great fans of Benny “The Irish Polyglot” Lewis—we love his insights into how to speed up, and keep up, your language learning. (You can find his bonus interview in our MOOC at the end of week 1.) Benny’s book Fluent in 3 Months tells the wonderful story of how he went from a loser in language learning to a world-class expert–and how you can follow in his footsteps.

Now Benny has written four books to help you quickly get started speaking in a new language. Check out the following brand new guides—we’ve had a chance to look at them, and they’re really good.

Barb at McMaster University

Barb will be giving the opening keynote at the Learning Technologies Symposium 2016, at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario on October 18. She’ll speak on how we learn at 9:30 am (featuring highlights from the MOOC—and more), and then give a talk called “Lessons from a Basement Studio” at 1:30 pm, which is a no-holds-barred description of how to make a MOOC. Her final talk of the day will be at 3:30 pm on women, STEM, and broadening your passions. There will be many other worthwhile talks—this is a super symposium you don’t want to miss if you live in Ontario, Michigan, or New York State. Barb hopes to see you there!

Class Central Career Guides

Our friends at Class Central have just published their first guide to help you quickly figure out which online course is right for you. Their first guide, The Best Intro to Programming Courses for Data Science is the first part in a six-piece series that recommends the best MOOCs for launching yourself into the data science industry. Check it out!

A Udemy Course by A Learning How to Learner

And speaking of online courses related to programming, here is an interesting course developed by Learning How to Learner Sylvain Leroux: “Yes I know the Bash & Linux command line tools! Learn the foundations & develop the core skills on real-world examples.”

Sylvain has a very pleasant French accent to his English—as you grow used to it, you’ll see that he uses the same approach we use in Learning How to Learn to convey ideas through metaphors and humor. If you’d like to know a little bit about Sylvain’s back story, you can read about it here.

Video Games Improve Reading and Math

Here’s an intriguing article about a “brain warm up” game that was developed at Yale University. The computer-based system improves student performance in reading and math. As Dr. Bruce Wexler notes: “The program increases focus, self-control, and memory—cognitive skills essential for learning.”

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

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

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Cheery Friday Greetings from Learning How to Learn! Sep 23, 2016

Cheery Friday greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Help with Barb’s new book: Mindshift

Barb’s new book Mindshift is a companion to Learning How to Learn. (Mindshift is one of Penguin-Random House’s lead titles for spring—pre-orders warmly appreciated!) The book romps around the world exploring how people broaden their passions and fall in love with new ways of learning and thinking. Oh yes, and Barb explains the story of how Learning How to Learn was made. Barb would like to request your help—Mindshift features a listing of MOOC providers from the US and many other countries. If you might comment on this list in the discussion forum here, and suggest any additions, enhancements, improvements, or corrections, it would be much appreciated.

MOOC of the Week

We’ve heard great things about the MOOC Data Analysis and Statistical Inference, by Mine Çetinkaya-Runde from Duke University-Coursera. It’s not only a great MOOC if you want to learn statistics, but apparently it’s also a wonderful example of how a great MOOC is made. (And speaking of how to make watchable MOOCs, here’s a reference to our own paper “Creating a Sticky MOOC,” which appeared in the Online Learning Journal.)

A Very Nice Learning How to Learn Infographic

Adi Rajan has created a lovely Learning how to learn infographic of key ideas from the course—use it to enjoy, and spread those ideas to others. (Hat tip, Marta Pulley.)

Reminders about How We Learn Well

In her article The Psychology of Social Media: Can We Leverage It For Learning?, Saga Briggs explains why social media is so addictive and how teachers (or students!) might apply the same principles to learning-. Don’t miss the 10 points at the end of the article! (Hat tip, Linda Walker)

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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