Author: barboakley

Cheery Wednesday greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

South Africa, here we come!

Our email is a bit early again this week–that’s because Learning How to Learn is coming to South Africa! Barb and her husband Phil (also known as “the Hero”), will be having dinner in Cape Town with a Learning How to Learner on the evening of November 13th. We’ll be meeting at 6:00 pm, November 13th in the lobby of the Holiday Inn Express at City Center Cape Town–join us there to then hopefully go to dinner with us if you can! (Email Barb if you would like at oakley@oakland.edu–she might be a bit delayed getting back just in that she’s got some long plane rides ahead over the next 36 hours.) Barb will also be a keynote speaker at the Higher Education Learning and Teaching Association of Southern Africa (HELTASA) conference: 17-20 November 2015, Potchefstroom, South Africa. And finally, she’ll be in Durban to speak on November 26th (organized by Henre Benson, benson@casme.org.za). Barb would love to meet you if you happen to be in any of those places!

Mother of Civilization Library

The Mother of Civilization Library is a volunteer organization which sets up work in Indus Valley Sindh, the southern part of Pakistan. Their project is to help and facilitate a libraries program in Sindh by collecting books. If you might have any spare new or used books that you would like to send to the Library program, they’d be thrilled! Your donation could do much to stimulate and encourage the growth of learning, especially among the young generation of needy and destitute students. Please send books to:

Rashid Anees Magsi, Project Manager, Mother of Civilization Library, Street: Sobho Khan Magsi, City: Radhan Station Dadu, Province: Sindh, Postal Code: 76310, Country: Pakistan, Phone: 00923003609982, Email: moc.library@gmail.com

(And yes, we’ve sent some books!)

This week’s reading

This week, we’ve got a heavy duty recommendation for those of you who like in-depth neuroscience. After Phrenology: Neural Reuse and the Interactive Brain, by Michael Anderson, is a deeply thought-provoking read that also provides insight into why metaphors and analogies can be such a powerful tool to help with learning. If you’re looking for a more straightforward introduction to neuroscience, it’s hard to beat Jamie Ward’s The Student’s Guide to Cognitive Neuroscience.

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!

The behind the scenes sizzle in MOOC-making

Barb’s article “Why Virtual Classes Can Be Better than Real Ones” has gotten a lot of interest by “MOOCers and shakers” in industry. Check it out if you want to learn some of the behind the scenes thinking that helped bring you Learning How to Learn.

Special MOOCs

As Barb travels the world, she makes a special point of doing everything she can to meet with deeply knowledgeable, yet fun-filled instructors who have a special passion and insight for making MOOCs. One such instructor is Dr. Jogesh K. Muppala at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Jogesh (who actually coined the “MOOCers and shakers” term we used above), is an instructor with the Full-Stack Web Development Specialization. If this is a subject of interest for you, check out Jogesh’s MOOC!

Nelson Dellis’s Kickstarter Campaign for a Children’s Book to Improve Memory

A few weeks ago, we mentioned four time US memory champion Nelson Dellis. He’s writing and illustrating a children’s picture book for kids ages 5-7 years old that teaches a simple, but powerful, memory technique. Nelson has started a Kickstarter page to fund his book’s printing and publication. Due in part to the powerful support of Learning How to Learners, Nelson’s fund has reached an incredible $11,000 US dollars–far beyond his initial goal of $3,500. His campaign is now winding down into the last few days. All additional monies will go towards printing extra copies of the book that Nelson will be sending out and donating to schools around the country–the more he prints, the more he donates. If you are interested in a copy, just pledge the $25 option and you’ll get a personally signed edition when the book comes out! There are other cool pledging options to help Nelson as well. (And yes, we ourselves purchased a copy ourselves to help support good-hearted Nelson’s wonderful work.)

A great book to help build your ability to focus

We highly recommend Dan Harris’s book 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works–A True Story. If you find yourself having trouble with the “focus” aspect of learning, this book may give you some insights. Plus, it’s a highly entertaining read. 🙂

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!

Discussion Forums

The discussion forum is often a fountain for fascinating conversation. Here you can find a discussion of the difference between the two intriguing, but sometimes confused, topics of “transfer” and “interleaving.”

A Surprise Book Recommendation for Teachers—and for Everyone

Barb was recently asked for her best recommendation for a book for teachers. She recommended the book Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson, by S. C. Gwynne. Jackson was everybody’s idea of a complete incompetent—his students, who often disliked him intensely, enjoyed making fun of him. Yet unbelievably, this “incompetent” became one of history’s greatest military leaders—adored by his men and able to pull victory from seemingly certain defeat time and time again.

Teachers can sometimes too quickly make assessments of their students’ abilities, unaware of hidden depths of character. And we are sometimes too quick to judge ourselves as well as others. Rebel Yell gives insight into the wondrous surprises that can lie within the human spirit. And if you’re feeling up for it, get S. C. Gwynne’s previous fantastic book, Empire of the Summer Moon, about the Comanche empire. This book speaks magnificently to the fact that different eras in history call for learning different skills. The change in the skillsets needed even during a single lifetime can be immense—and the 21st century hasn’t been the only time of rapid change. (Cynthia and Quanah Parker’s stories are incredible!)

Class Central

As you might have guessed if you’ve been following Learning How to Learn for a while, we’re big fans of Class Central, the best “one stop shop” to discover more about MOOCs on any subject you might be interested in. Feel free to check out Class Central’s offerings—and to leave a review of Learning How to Learn. 🙂

Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

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

Cheery Holiday greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

It’s a wonderful holiday season here as we approach the end of 2015! We’ve had a great time learning together with you as the year has rolled by. One thing we’re beginning to appreciate all the more is that learning shares a surprising amount with exercise. Sometimes a little nudging inspiration helps keep you going (hence our weekly emails!). Speaking of both exercise and learning, here’s a terrific article in the New York Times about how exercise keeps your brain young.

Learning How to Learn’s Best Book of 2015

It’s time to share with you our recommendation for the very best book of 2015. It’s the outstanding Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari. Sweeping, thoughtful insights don’t come much better than this book, which has changed how we think about issues we’ve long thought important. Thank you to Learning How to Learner Marinda Nel for the recommendation—we learn so much from our learners!

Learning How to Learn makes #1—three times!

Last week we observed that Learning How to Learn was ranked the #1 most popular free online course for professionals by Business Insider. This week we’ve discovered that Learning How to Learn is now not only Coursera’s #1 course, we’re also listed as the #1 Most Popular MOOC of All Time by “Online Course Report.” Thank you for your inspiration, and for spreading the word about learning!

Happy learning, always!

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

Cheery Holiday greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

It’s a wonderful holiday season here as we approach the end of 2015! We’ve had a great time learning together with you as the year has rolled by. One thing we’re beginning to appreciate all the more is that learning shares a surprising amount with exercise. Sometimes a little nudging inspiration helps keep you going (hence our weekly emails!). Speaking of both exercise and learning, here’s a terrific article in the New York Times about how exercise keeps your brain young.

Learning How to Learn’s Best Book of 2015

It’s time to share with you our recommendation for the very best book of 2015. It’s the outstanding Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari. Sweeping, thoughtful insights don’t come much better than this book, which has changed how we think about issues we’ve long thought important. Thank you to Learning How to Learner Marinda Nel for the recommendation—we learn so much from our learners!

Learning How to Learn makes #1—three times!

Last week we observed that Learning How to Learn was ranked the #1 most popular free online course for professionals by Business Insider. This week we’ve discovered that Learning How to Learn is now not only Coursera’s #1 course, we’re also listed as the #1 Most Popular MOOC of All Time by “Online Course Report.” Thank you for your inspiration, and for spreading the word about learning!

Happy learning, always!

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

Cheery Friday greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Do You Have a Poor Working Memory? It Can Be an Asset!

A poor working memory can actually help you attain critical “aha” type insights more easily—read this illuminating article: “The Reason Smart People Sometimes Struggle with “Aha” Moments.”

Odds and Ends: A cool productivity tool and a nice article about MOOC trends

We like learning about anything that helps with productivity (so we have more time for diffuse mode relaxation 🙂 ). A new Windows-based tool we’ve fallen in love with is called “Breevy.” It allows you to easily insert phrases you have to retype all the time into whatever document you might like—emails, a Google doc, Word. On another topic, here’s a nice article about “MOOC Trends in 2015: Rise of Self Paced Courses.”

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. There’s a particular call for translation into Punjabi and Tswana (both languages were just added for us to be able to use them on the GTC), as well as into Indonesian (Barb was just in Jakarta!).

This Week’s Reading (and Gaming!) Recommendations

As Learning How to Learners know, metaphor and analogy can improve our ability to grasp difficult ideas in math and science. But they also underpin the greatest literature, both fiction and non-fiction. If you want to be bowled over by extraordinary metaphor in fiction, it would be hard to do better than Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses. (Truth be told, Barb’s a huge fan of Cormac McCarthy. One of the highlights of her decade was spending the day together in Santa Fe with him—he’s as unpretentious and kind a person as you could possibly imagine.) In non-fiction, Laura Hillenbrand’s Seabiscuit, about one of the greatest racehorses in history, has some of the best writing this side of the solar system. As you might have guessed, Barb is a big fan of horses—her “gamification” effort to help kids have fun while they learn about horses has become a classic board game: Herd Your Horses.

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!

Think You’re Math Phobic—or Do You Love Numbers? Either Way, Try this Friendly Course

Senior Mentor Susan Fitzgerald has brought this intriguing-looking course, “Fun with Prime Numbers,” to our attention. (Okay, so maybe the name shares a bit in common with the popular television show “The Big Bang Theory” and Sheldon’s ostensible show-within-a-show “Fun with Flags.”) The MOOC’s instructor, Tetsushi Ito, looks like a marvelously friendly professor who understands how to make seemingly arcane material fun and relevant. Watch the promotional video at the top of the page and you’ll see what we mean. We’ve signed up ourselves—the course starts on January 16th.

Transcripts for All Regular Course Videos are Now Available!

Many of you have requested neatly formatted transcripts of each of the regular course videos. Thanks to the talents and hard work of learner Marta Pulley, and the uploading wizardry of Senior Mentor Vindra Khanai, these scripts are now available. Just look to the right of the discussion sections under each video, and you’ll see pdfs of the scripts, along with Powerpoints and other related materials to help you better grasp the materials. (And of course, the supplemental course book, A Mind for Numbers, goes into more depth.)

This Week’s Reading Recommendations—A Couple of All Time Favorites

Speaking of books, this week, we’d like to suggest Daniel Kahneman’s masterful Thinking, Fast and Slow. This is one of the greatest books of psychology we’ve ever read—fully worthy of its long-time best-seller status. Kahneman’s slow thinking is analogous to our focused mode. But his fast thinking is more related to knee-jerk, emotional responses, rather than the “not focused on anything in particular” neural resting states of what we term the diffuse mode in Learning How to Learn. More directly related to Learning How to Learn’s focused and diffuse modes is the great classic of creativity literature, Edward de Bono’s Lateral Thinking. Read both brilliant books to enjoy two contrasting views on how to “chunk” key aspects of brain function.

The Power of Chunking!

And since we’re on the topic of chunking, check out this wonderful mashup of riveting dance scenes. Imagine the gradual, tiny-chunk-by-tiny-chunk growth of mastery that produced those magnificent moves. A vast repertoire of chunks underlies all forms of expertise, whether in dance, sports, language, math, or science. Chunked expertise, as Barb’s seemingly befuddled younger daughter reveals in week 3 of Learning How to Learn, even underlies the ability to back up a car.

Do you think that these extraordinary masters of dance can necessarily explain aloud how they perform each of their magnificent moves? Might thinking about explanations actually interfere with their ability to move so effortlessly? In the same way, do you think that children demonstrate more expertise with math if they can explain every step of their answers? Reach Katharine Beals and Barry Garelick’s terrific, counter-intuitive article “Explaining Your Math: Unnecessary at Best, Encumbering at Worst,” in The Atlantic to find out.

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!

Book of the Month

Our top book this month is Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives, by Tim Harford. We love this book, which speaks to the extraordinary power of serendipity and seeming sloppiness. One of our favorite writers, Adam Grant, summed Messy up this way: “Utterly fascinating. Tim Harford shows that if you want to be creative and resilient, you need a little more disorder in your world.” Adam’s own terrific complementary book is Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World.

Barb at DevLearn

Barb will be at one of her favorite conferences—DevLearn, in Las Vegas, on November 14-16th. Unlike many more academically-focused conferences, DevLearn is eminently practical and has marvelous sessions and pre-conference workshops. Along with giving her own talk (check out the 45 second video), Barb will be taking the pre-conference workshops on the Adobe Creative Cloud Suite and on Mastering the Visualization of Storyboarding for eLearning. We must always keep learning, after all!

Help in discovering “Super-learners” Scott Young is an intrepid “Marco Polo of Learning.” (We featured him in the bonus interview at the end of week 2 of Learning How to Learn). Scott is looking for superlearners—people who have completed, interesting, aggressive self-education projects in the past. If you fall into this category, please email Scott at personal@scotthyoung.com.

Learning How to Learn trending on front page of Reddit

If you’d like to read one of the most thorough and careful summaries of the key ideas of Learning How to Learn that we’ve ever seen, please check out this excellent post on Reddit, which apparently rode to the top in popularity.

Exercise and Learning

Here’s a very readable article from Quartz about the importance of exercise in learning, and in top mental performance: “A neuroscientist says there’s a powerful benefit to exercise that is rarely discussed.” (Hat tip, Manuel Ataíde). Of course, Terry reinforced that point in week four of Learning How to Learn, in the video “How to Become a Better Learner.” An excellent book by a developmental molecular biologist that expands on the value of exercise, and many other ways to get the most value from our brain,s is John Medina’s Brain Rules.

MOOC of the Week

We’ve discovered a new MOOC platform, World Science U, that is putting forth exceptionally high quality science courses. These kinds of courses can be difficult to do well, but physicist Brian Green is doing a fantastic job spearheading just the kind of approach that suits how our brains best learn.. (Incidentally, we loved Green’s book The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory), Check this new MOOC platform out, especially if you have always wanted to learn about subjects like relativity, but never thought you could. .

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!

Learning Styles Hurt Learning

Our very own Terry Sejnowski hosts Professor Beth Rogowsky as she gives an outstanding analysis of how “Learning Styles Hurt Learning.” Beth’s own research on this is here: “Matching learning style to instructional method: Effects on comprehension.” The important book on learning that Beth alludes to in the discussion is Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning, by Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel. Another terrific discussion of the challenges with learning styles can be found in Dan Willingham’s excellent book Why Don’t Students Like School?

Happy viewing and reading!

Nelson Dellis’ MIND SHOW

Many of you know that we’re fans of four time US Memory Champion Nelson Dellis. Barb was recently on Nelson’s podcast “MIND SHOW,’ sharing stories about Antarctica, how the MOOC Learning How to Learn came to be, and insider hints about Barb’s new book Mindshift: Break Through Obstacles to Learning and Discover Your Hidden Potential, which is one of Penguin’s lead titles for Spring, 2017 (pre-order now!)

If you would like to join Nelson in his efforts to support research on memory, please take the Extreme Memory Challenge.

Your Brain and Law School

Barb’s old friend from the outstanding UPenn Neuroscience Boot Camp, Professor Marybeth Herald from the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, has written a five-star-rated book on how to be successful in law school: Your Brain and Law School. As one reviewer notes: “I believe that [law] students who read this book will have a significant advantage over those students who don’t. Law professors should read this book, too. It will teach them a few things about how they should be teaching their students.” Professor Herald also writes a blog on similar topics called Your Brain, Law School, and Law Practice at Ms. JD.

The Spanish Platform of Learning How to Learn—Aprendiendo a aprender

Don’t forget to tell your Spanish-speaking friends, colleagues and relatives, that there is an Spanish version of the course: Aprendiendo a aprender. Even the quizzes and web pages are in Spanish. Here’s an article by El Mundo reporter Berta González de Vega, “De odiar las matemáticas a doctora ingeniera: la profe más popular de Coursera” that describes the background of the course better than any article we’ve ever seen in English.

And of course, A Mind for Numbers, the recommended course supplemental text, is also available in Spanish: Abre Tu Mente A Los Numeros.

A Pomodoro Type Timer called “Forest”

Learning How to Learner Brad Bruenell has written a great forum post about a Pomodoro type timer called “Forest.” Brad writes: “This app is especially helpful for people like me who get distracted by their smartphone when trying to focus. The app works by “planting a tree” when you start a timer and rewarding you with a fully grown tree at the end of the timer. However, you will kill the tree if you leave the app while the timer is active, forcing you to leave your phone alone. The app keeps track of all the trees you grow and it’s gratifying seeing all the trees you grow over time. Hope this helps some of you like its helped me!” Check out Brad’s post–and a link to the app, 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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