Author: barboakley

Hello, Learning How to Learners!

We hope you’re having a great week! All is going well in Learning How to Learn–you are currently joined with some 220,000 learners in this On Demand version of the course, which shows how popular and useful learning how to learn can be!

Help with writing

If you’ve been thinking about doing final project, or you have trouble with the writing process on your job or in your studies, you might want to watch this bonus interview with top writing coach Daphne Gray-Grant. This is one of the most popular bonus interviews on Learning How to Learn, and there’s a good reason for that.

Help with anxiety, depression, and PTSD

A popular and inspiring post about anxiety, depression, and PTSD from the previous session-based version of Learning How to Learn has been moved into the On Demand version of the course. If you face any of those challenges, you may wish to read the wonderful posting, which can now be found here.

A great upcoming MOOC

If you want even more inspiration, you might wish to sign up for the upcoming MOOC A Life of Happiness and Fulfillment, by Barb’s friend, “Dr. Happy-Smarts” (also known as Prof. Raj Raghunathan) of the Indian School of Business. The course is full of great information and has many guest lectures by some of the most important researchers in psychology, including Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Dan Ariely, and Barbara Fredrickson.

A cool summer camp

Lastly, we’ve become aware of a unique summer enrichment opportunity, Adventures of the Mind, for talented teens to help inspire them to broaden their passions by introducing them to a faculty of accomplished adult achievers that include Nobel prize winners, MacArthur geniuses, Pulitzer prize winners, best-selling novelists, and tech titans. Scholarships are available for qualifying students. The curriculum focuses on decision making and financial literacy using chess and poker. Students can apply directly and educators can nominate here.

Happy learning, and good luck with your next module!

Barb Oakley, Terry Sejnowski, and the Learning How to Learn Team

CHEERY GREETINGS!

It’s exciting seeing the incredible progress people are making in Learning How to Learn. For example, in this very week, there are some 28,000 of you from all around the world actively working on the modules. Wow! Now’s the time to pull up the next video with your many fellow learners and enjoy!

Barb is in the Southeastern US right now. If you happen to be in North Carolina, stop by and visit with her at the fantastic Western Region Education Service Alliance in Candler, North Carolina on May 19th (there are two free sessions, the first from 10:00 am – noon, and the second from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm). Barb will then go on to Charlotte, North Carolina, to speak for the world class Charlotte Area Science Network on May 21st. She would LOVE to meet you, so feel free to stop by!

We hope you’re getting a lot from the MOOC–please let us let us know your thoughts on the discussion forums!

If you’re wondering what to do next, MOOC-wise, be sure to head to our friends at Class Central, where MOOCs are analyzed to help you see what’s best.

In the meantime, as always, happy learning!

Barb Oakley, Terry Sejnowski, and the Learning How to Learn Team

CHEERY GREETINGS!

All is going well in the online land of Learning How to Learn, and we just wanted to share our weekly update.

In a tradition he began in the first session of Learning How to Learn, Senior Mentor Cristian Artoni has created an amazing Hall of Fame for Learning How to Learn, which features many of the terrific projects people have done for the previous session-based versions of the course. Now, in On Demand, join our Facebook group and post your masterpiece here.

Here’s an article we really like by Charlie Martin about it never being too late to learn code.

Discussion forums form the backbone of the course. You’ll find fascinating insights there–and you’ll also have a great opportunity to ask questions and share insights. So be sure to check the forums out, whether you’re beginning the course, or just about to finish!

A Mind for Numbers is now available in a Spanish edition: Abre Tu Mente A Los Numeros. Feel free to leave a review of the book on whichever website you purchased the book from (all proceeds go to help Barb’s daughter in medical school).

Thanks so much for joining us in the course–happy learning!

Barb Oakley, Terry Sejnowski, and the Learning How to Learn Team

CHEERY GREETINGS!

We wanted to give you a little update on Learning How to Learn. It turns out that our course is Coursera’s most popular On Demand MOOC—we’re nearing million total students signed up from over 200 countries around the world! So where ever you are at in the course, we’re hoping you’re enjoying the materials!

• NEW BONUS INTERVIEWS Yesterday we posted two new bonus interviews–including this newest one with Nelson Dellis, 4 time USA memory champion. Discover how you, too, can help advance research into memory by taking the Dart Neuroscience Memory Challenge.

• BARB OAKLEY WOULD LOVE TO MEET YOU! Barb will be speaking in Los Angeles at the UCLA Healthy Campus Initiative Symposium tomorrow (April 30th) and she’d love to meet you if you’re there. On May 7th, she’ll be speaking at Harvard about the behind-the-scenes creative process that helped launch Learning How to Learn. Please feel free to join her!

• A MIND FOR NUMBERS: INTERNATIONALLY POPULAR Thanks to your strong interest, A Mind for Numbers has become a New York Times science bestseller. Remember, it’s actually a very general book about learning that can help strengthen and reinforce your knowledge of the material. So get a copy to mark up, either digitally or by hand. Internationally, the Korean edition is available now, and Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Turkish, Polish, German, Spanish, and Portuguese translations are coming soon.

• ENHANCE YOUR STATUS Many learners—even distinguished professionals—have found that featuring their Verified Certificates in their resumes or on their LinkedIn profiles enhances their professional credibility. If you are looking to build your career, or to impress managers or academic admissions officers, a Verified Certificate is the way to go.

Thanks for learning how to learn!

Barb Oakley, Terry Sejnowski, and the Learning How to Learn Team

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Hopefully your past week has gone beautifully, and you’ll have a little time this weekend to learn. Learning something new helps keep your mind in great shape!

Here is an inspiring article by our friend Benny Lewis about how language learning can help with all sorts of learning. Benny’s bonus interview on learning a new language is one of the most popular bonus videos in Learning How to Learn. You might be surprised to discover that language learning improves your ability to learn in math and science!

Don’t forget–A Mind for Numbers, the recommended book to help you solidify the main ideas in the course, is available not only in English, but also in Korean and Spanish. Chinese (simplified and complex), German, Polish, Japanese, Turkish, Russian, and Portuguese translations are all coming soon.

And if you’d like to help translate Learning How to Learn into your native language, or a language you’re comfortable with, please just go here to get started. You can learn even more about learning as you think through a video translation. We’re looking for a volunteer female from Brazil who might be willing to produce audio tapes that we could use to dub Barb’s voice on the videos. Please contact Barb at oakley@oakland.edu if you might be able to do this.

In the meantime, as always, happy learning!

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

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

In a tradition he began in the first session of Learning How to Learn, Senior Mentor Cristian Artoni has created an amazing Hall of Fame. It features many of the terrific projects people have done for the previous session-based versions of the course. Now, in the on demand platform, join our Facebook group and post your masterpiece here. Or simply go there to post any article or thought that may improve your learning by teaching others how to learn.

And speaking of projects, if you ever have trouble writing up a project or report for work or school, please watch writing coach Daphne Gray-Grant’s wonderful bonus interview, here. We’re always hearing praise for Daphne’s ideas—as Daphne knows, writing is learning!

Notice the great new feature in the discussion forums—if you look over to the right of each post, you can not only see how many replies there are, but you can also see how many have viewed the post. Some posts have been viewed well over a thousand times, with fascinating questions and discussions, such as those related to Raymond C’s posting “Chunking for Physics vs Chunking for History.”

If you haven’t posted yet in the discussion forums, give it a try—and enjoy browsing the fascinating comments. If you have posted, go back to check the comments—and feel free to make more comments yourself!

Barb’s finally home after 2.5 months travelling in the US to spread the message of Learning How to Learn. Next up—Italy, where she’ll sneak in every second she can outside the IEEE-EMBS conference to learn more about the language and culture of this fascinating country.

Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

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

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

We hope you have a fun and enjoyable weekend of learning ahead! Things have been going GREAT on Learning How to Learn! It’s time to give you a quick snapshot on how many people share your joy in learning. Altogether, we have 941,222 students who have enrolled for Learning How to Learn. We’re heading for a record breaking 1 million by the end of this summer! Talk about energy–this is really fantastic!

Barb will be in Milan, Italy, speaking on Learning How to Learn at the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Conference (Room Amber 8) 12:45-14:15 on Friday, August 28th. If you happen to be near Milan, stop by and say hello! After the talk, we’ll gather together for a class meetup–Barb will be very excited to meet you!

We always appreciate your reviews. Our course is one of the most reviewed MOOCs on the wonderful MOOC review site Class Central. You can also leave reviews for Barb’s and Terry’s teaching on RateMyProfessors.com.

And most appreciated of all, (Barb loves the written word!) please feel free to leave a review of A Mind for Numbers, the course supplemental text, either at Amazon or other sites. If you liked what you’ve learned, this is a great way to let us know.

Have a wonderful weekend–we appreciate everything you do to help bring learning into your life, and the lives of your friends and family.

Happy learning!

Barb Oakley, Terry Sejnowski, and the hardworking Learning How to Learn Mentor Team

Cheery Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Quizlet

Some of our wonderful Learning How to Learners have put together a Quizlet to help you in learning the key ideas of our course. Go here if you’d like to learn via Quizlet, and to help your fellow learners by adding new concepts!

Finding the Best Credentials

Our friends at Class Central are always working to enhance people’s careers through MOOCs. In fact, MOOC-based credentials like Coursera Specializations have the potential to allow millions of people to enhance their careers through high-quality skill-building. But for most learners and employers, the value of earning these credentials is uncertain–it is a chicken-and-egg problem of reputation and results. To help address this issue, Class Central just launched a fantastic new initiative where users can view these credentials and read user reviews from others who are actually enrolled in these programs, to help them decide if that credential is right for them. Visit Class Central’s Credentials page to learn more.

Barb is coming to Singapore and Asia!

In the latter part of October, Barb will be coming to Singapore and elsewhere Asia. (Hong Kong and Beijing are confirmed and Indonesia and Philippines might be in the pipeline!) If you might like her to speak for your educational institution or organization to play a part in spreading the joy of learning how to learn, please contact Vernie Leow at Adam Khoo Learning Technologies Group, vernie@akltg.com.

Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

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

PS

Barb will be in Milan, Italy, speaking on Learning How to Learn at the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Conference (Room Amber 8) 12:45-14:15 on Friday, August 28th. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to go into the session unless you register for the day. But right after the session, at about 14:30, Barb will go down to the conference registration area so she can meet up with anyone who is there and we can go outside and sit in the lovely Italian sunshine and talk all about learning!

Cheery Friday Greetings to Our Learning How to Learners!

If you’d like to gain perspective on why Learning How to Learn is such a meaningful course for people, read this blog post, “How I lost 24 pounds in 12 weeks amidst severe personal turmoil without dieting or going to the gym,” by writer Roy Huff. (And then perhaps give him one of the greatest honors one can give a writer—get one of his books. We did. 🙂 )

Transforming yourself

One of the nicest, smartest “life improvement” experts out there is Brian Johnson. Brian has an extraordinary list of books he has reviewed and synthesized—it’s rare to find someone who reads so carefully, and who can distill the essence so that we can all benefit. Barb had a chance to chat with Brian recently—their freewheeling discussion is here—listen in!

Do You Have Russian Friends?

A Mind for Numbers is now out in Russian as Думай как математик! As the publishers at Alpina point out: “Каждый из нас стремится стать лучше: больше помнить, развивать воображение и творческие способности, меньше поддаваться прокрастинации. Книга «Думай как математик» посвящена именно этим вопросам и способам развития своего мышления.”

Help with Translating Learning How to Learn

The number of languages Learning How to Learn has captions for is growing rapidly! If you’d like to help with translating Learning How to Learn into your favorite language, please sign up for the Coursera Global Translator Community (GTC). Once you’re signed up with a Transifex account, just make sure you’re logged in to Transifex and you should then be able to find the translation project for Learning How to Learn here. If you have a problem, just email Barb at oakley@oakland.edu.

Transforming Higher Education

David Goldberg is working to transform higher education in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). Barb was recently on Dave’s show on “Big Beacon Radio – Transforming Higher Education” talking about how STEM can move forward by taking advantage of the power of MOOCs. Listen to the show here (or on iTunes, here).

Meanwhile, have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

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

Cheery Weekend Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Just a few short notes for this week. First off, your course supplemental text, A Mind for Numbers, made the Business Insider list of “7 books that will train your brain to overachieve.” It’s on the list with some of the world’s most beloved books—read and enjoy, if you haven’t already!

Barb will be the keynote speaker for the 2016 On Course National Conference on April 8, 2016, in Anaheim, California. Here’s a conference overview, and click here to register for the conference itself. On Course is one of Barb’s favorite conferences on learning—if you’re a professor or teacher, you’ll find it invaluable. Plus, Barb would love to meet you there—we’ll plan to have a class meetup sometime during the conference.

And if you are trying to improve your ability to speak new language, don’t forget to watch Benny “the Irish Polyglot” in his bonus video interview for Learning How to Learn. Benny was an engineer who thought he couldn’t learn languages—he changed his approach, and found new freedom to learn! Benny’s emails are always chock full of good information about language learning, so feel free to subscribe.

Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

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