Category: Uncategorized

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week

Explicit & Direct Instruction: An Evidence-Informed Guide for Teachers, Edited by Tom Boxer, Series Editor Tom Bennett. This wonderful short book lays out everything you need to know about Direct Instruction, a precise way of teaching that research has shown to be one of the very best approaches to use in a classroom. (Doug Lemov’s admirable Teach Like a Champion uses many techniques of Direct Instruction.) What we found to be most useful in this book was the discussion of how to select the best set of example problems when trying to give students an intuitive foundation for what they are learning.  Real people, after all, must often learn from very limited data-sets, unlike many of the approaches used in artificial intelligence. We also appreciated learning the history of why Direct Instruction has been too long been ignored, and is only now coming into its deserved prominence. Enjoy!

Research Culture: Framework for Advancing Rigorous Research

Check out this new research paper (Barb is amongst the co-authors), on the pressing need to increase the rigor of research in the life and biomedical sciences. There is even more need for educating about the need for rigor in educational research.

Change Can Be Made to Align with Teaching with Scientific Findings

This outstanding article from the New York Times shows how research findings related to phonics have finally made headway in changing and improving how reading is taught to students. And here are followup thoughts on the article from the ever-reliable Dan Willingham. This provides hope for much-needed improvement in the area of math education—as noted below.

Want to Be a Real Social Justice Warrior?  Criticize Reform Math Educators and Curricula

Even with our hard-bitten, curmudgeonly eye towards trends in modern education, we’ve been taken aback to learn of the latest attempts, in our opinion (we pointedly add),  to impede educational advances through the use of lawsuits and intimations of legal action. Those who think that proper science eventually wins often don’t consider how clever use of legal action and the threat of legal action can block the proper back and forth that allows scientific processes to unfold.

A parent, Blain Dillard, who has been sued by a discovery math curriculum vendor MVP, (can you even imagine a curriculum vendor suing a parent for critical comments?) has written a blog post “Surviving a SLAPP Lawsuit: Advice for Education Activists.” Key grafs: “I started this blog with that article because there was simply too much in my head I wanted to communicate and I didn’t think Facebook was conducive for laying out my case in what I thought was a well-presented argument outlining my reasoning.  Little did I know then that my words would eventually be cited in a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) against me, courtesy of Utah-based Mathematics Vision Project (MVP), the math curriculum vendor which provides resources and professional development to my school district (Wake County Public School System, NC), one of the top 15 largest districts in the USA.”

“Without talking directly about my particular lawsuit, I would like to share some advice with the many fellow parents and educators who are using social media or the public square (ie. school board meetings) to fight for the educational futures of students everywhere.  

“In the event you are being effective in your critique, you too may become a target of a SLAPP lawsuit. According to Wikipedia, these are ‘lawsuits that are intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition…’ 

“In the area in which I am an activist – education – the opposition runs in vicious circles and has dollars backing them.  They are often driven by ideology, and may find it more effective to file a SLAPP lawsuit to silence criticism from an individual, versus engaging in debate using publicly available data and peer-reviewed research.”  

Lend a Hand to Parent Who Is Standing Up for Your Rights

→If you’d like to contribute to courageous Blain’s GoFundMe debt payoff, go here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/mvp-lawsuit-debt-payoff. (We donated.) If you’re a parent, remember that Blain is standing up not only for your children’s rights to a good education, but for your rights as a parent to speak out.

Quick Fixes and True Believers

Along those lines, another concerned parent adds “The challenge is people want a quick fix and it’s often embraced at the cost of teaching. There is no magic bullet. Teaching math requires diligence and a solid plan to lay down basic skills that are often thought of as boring topics by adults, but not children! I listen to followers of Jo Boaler and some of the other gurus and I am flabbergasted at the zeal and ‘closed ear’ syndrome—it seems they will die believing what is said is gospel truth.” 

Incidentally, philosopher Eric Hoffer wrote a book about this type of fanaticism, True Believer, [available free on Kindle] based on his observations of national fanaticism during World War II. And of course, followers are often perfect examples of pathological altruists.

In the Front Lines of Scientific Truth

Professor Robert Craigen at the University of Manitoba provides another example of why math education often does not shift as it should in response to solid scientific criticism. He occasionally tweets critical comments related to the poor scientific underpinnings of a surprisingly large percentage of “research” in education, which of course means that he also tweets about Jo Boaler’s work.  Rather than address the scientific issue, Boaler’s response is to tweet back that she has made her lawyer aware of his statements. We can’t help but gasp—What? This is the response of a legitimate researcher? 

Craigen continues: “It is an error to back down when you are certain what you’ve said or done stands up to legal tests and you feel strongly enough about them.  The whole point of threats is to use your fear of litigation as a means to coerce behavior you wouldn’t otherwise do, and once you start backing down you’ve really lost the battle.  SLAPP is indeed a problem and I wish there were solid anti-SLAPP legislation here in Canada, but threats of the same nature begin long before you’re actually hauled before a court — the very suggestion that it might happen may be enough for bad actors to get satisfaction from those who aren’t ready to battle it out.  It’s a form of bullying. (Though, of course, it is you who are accused of being the bully. That’s all part of the game.)

Don’t Miss researchED Philadelphia 2020

If you are interested in meeting fellow educators and parents who are concerned about good teaching in accordance with what cognitive psychology and neuroscience is actually telling us, plan to attend researchED in Philadelphia on October 24th, 2020!

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

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

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

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week

Memory Superpowers! An Adventurous Guide to Remembering What You Don’t Want to Forget, by 4-time US Memory Champion Nelson Dellis. This is a wonderful book for youths from about 10-years-old to 14—it’s the kind of rollicking good adventure that your youngster can read aloud to you, so you are learning together as a family about tricks and secrets to remembering everything from the world capitals to the elements of the periodic table to speeches and soliloquies.  Barb’s blurb on the book is: “If there’s ONE BOOK to give your child (or you!) to help with learning, this is the one.” This is a pre-order—get your order in line early for what we suspect will be a sell-out!

Looking for a Fantastic Online School—Look No Further than Stanford OHS! 

Barb had the privilege of presenting a webinar last week for Stanford Online High School, a fully accredited independent school for academically talented students located within Stanford University. It’s a six-year school, serving students in grades 7-12. One of the many great things about this school is that students are placed in course levels by their individual ability, not by grade level alone, and their schedules are individualized. As far as education goes, it’s virtually (ha ha!) impossible to get any better than this wonderful online approach, used by great students from all over the world. If you’ve a youngster who breaks the mold, check out Stanford Online High School.

Redeveloping a Global MOOC to be More Locally Relevant

Barb has worked with many different countries to help bring the ideas of Learning How to Learn to learners internationally with “mother tongue” speakers, using versions of the course that grow from local culture and language.  (See, for example, this Russian version of Learning How to Learn for Youth from Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, and this Spanish version of Learning How to Learn from IE University in Spain.)  Here is a full-fledged paper on the topic, “Redeveloping a Global MOOC to be More Locally Relevant,” by Professor Kenzen Chen of National Chiao Tung University and Barb. If you want a good research project for your university, as well as a great enterprise for learners in your country, you will get fruitful ideas about MOOC redevelopment from Kenzen and Barb’s paper. Incidentally, Kenzen and Barb’s joint efforts in redeveloping Learning How to Learn for Chinese audiences won Taiwan’s “Best MOOC of the Year” award. Also see the paper “Leveraging Multilingual Learning Communities in a Global Environment,” by Orlando Trejo, the Spanish Lead of LHTL, on strategies to foster the participation of Spanish speaking learners, based on the feedback from learners at Spanish LHLT. 

A Plot of Land for a University in Malaga, Spain—Any Takers? 

In a bit of off-beat news for the week, there is a free plot of land available for a university to be constructed in Malaga, Spain.  Malaga has the best-connected airport to UK in the world, a very interesting mix of population along the coast and a great location next to Africa, where new middle classes are now emerging.  It also has a great cultural scene thanks to Museums like the Picasso Museum, (Malaga is the birthplace of the genius). On top of all of that, Malaga has amongst the world’s nicest climates. If you know of an institution with an interest in this, please have them contact Barb’s friend Berta Gonzalez.

Thoughtful Insights about Listening to Audible Books and Mirror Writing

LHTLer Adam Weissman writes to point out: “I love your Learning to Learn books and the course on Coursera. I’m a career changer thanks to you, my wife, and two kids (4 and 1 — I’m 37). I don’t think I’d have had the courage if not for your books (and Sejnowski’s Deep Learning Revolution) to embark on this new journey as a software engineer.

“Though I had been an aspiring novelist/screenwriter (Dostoevsky is my favorite) before the software journey, my day job is still Dog Walker.  I make the most out of my day by listening to several books a week while walking. I’ve heard that Uber drivers, Truckers, and anyone else that does manual labor in isolation does the same thing as me.  Audible in some ways is our only link to preserving an intellectual life. I had even done your Coursera course while walking dogs on my iPhone. When I’m home with the family, it’s impossible to read physical books — especially since the software course accounts for much of that time as well.

“The reason I’m writing today is I recently finished the Walter Isaacson book on Da Vinci. [We reviewed this fine book here.] I try many unconventional approaches to learning, and it occurred to me that there may have been a deeper reason for Da Vinci’s mirror writing.

“My question for you: would mirror writing cause the formation of more neural connections, since you have to mentally decode it. Da Vinci studied optics and understood that images would be flipped as with a camera obscura. He must’ve wondered about how invisible input (information and ideas) would be imprinted. Could mirror writing have been an attempt to get a “double dose” of the input? Or, to eliminate an imaginary step of the brain “right siding up” the information?

“As I do my own brief experiment with mirror writing, I find that looking at it forces me to recall the information in a way that seems to make it stickier since it forces me to decode it. Also, it forces me to be more conscious about what I’m writing.”

There’s evidence from research that thinking in new patterns, as Adam suggests, can be helpful with understanding in fresh ways.  If you have any comments on Adam’s thoughtful email, please go to the discussion forum here. (Just go to the top post in the main discussion forum if the link doesn’t work.)  And, we’d like to add, we suspect that Adam is a hidden jewel waiting to be discovered as a writer!

Misattribution

Our apologies for the misattribution of the wonderful article, “We Teach Our Kids To Be Doormats And Then Wonder Why There Is A ‘Bullying Epidemic’,” which was in the Daily Wire, not Wired. 

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

• Interested in having Barb speak? Reach out here.
• Get the course recommended text, A Mind for Numbers!
• And Learning How to Learn, a book for kids and parents. 

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

(Some of you may have experienced problems with direct links to the books. That should be fixed now―if you still experience problems, please let us know.)[Hat tip: Campbell.]

Book of the Week

The Longevity Diet, by Valter Longo. This book provides an intriguing set of hypotheses about how to extend life, and reset bodily systems, using intermittent fasting.  Longo is the real deal―a well-known researcher at UCLA who has studied this issue for years. Along with making an excellent case for intermittent fasting, Longo also recommends a more vegetarian-oriented diet that includes some fish. What we wouldn’t give to see Valter Longo and Michael Eades (of Protein Power Diet), in a debate!

MOOC of the Week

Here’s another great review of a great course by Pat Bowden of Online Learning Success: Sheep in the Land of Fire and Ice. What’s not to love about sheep in Iceland and the broad applicability of this learning? Enjoy! 

A Shoutout to Mark Fisher Fitness, New York City

Barb would like to give a gigantic shoutout of appreciation to the staff of Mark Fisher Fitness. She just received their (somewhat delayed) card of appreciation, signed by loads of staff members, reading “Where do we even begin?!? Our magical staff of unicorns recently finished your course ‘Learning How to Learn’ and WE LOVED IT.  We can’t wait to use our new habits in 2020 🙂 YOU’RE A QUEEN! Ting + Team MFF.” If you’re into fitness (which of course, LHTLers know is important), and live in New York City, you couldn’t do better than find kindred spirits at Mark Fisher!

An Entertaining Video on Memorizing Prime Numbers

4-time US memory champion Nelson Dellis is back with another wonderfully entertaining video on memorizing prime numbers.  Even if you don’t intend to memorize any prime numbers, you’ll get useful (and entertaining) tips from Nelson on how to think about numbers. 

How to Improve Students’ Executive Function

Here is a lovely article, “Disrupting the Myth about ‘Mediocre’ Students,” by neuroscientist Martha Burns. Her description of Mr. Stevens’ approach to teaching gives both teachers and parents insight into how to develop kids’ abilities to focus and learn better.  We were also intrigued to learn through this article of Reading Assistant Plus, through which students independently read aloud to a computer, and a virtual tutor gives real-time corrective feedback. This is one of the killer app AI applications in education that Terry talked about in the New York Times!

An Interesting Take on Bullying

This wonderful article in Daily Wire [corrected attribution], “We Teach Our Kids To Be Doormats And Then Wonder Why There Is A ‘Bullying Epidemic’,” provides a provocative, contrary take on bullying, and why it has apparently increased so dramatically over the years.  It seems current approaches to bullying may well be yet another case of pathological altruism.

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

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

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

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

This week, we’ll focus on K12, especially math. Next week, it’s back to our usual broad-ranging programming.

Book of the Month

Teach Like a Champion 2.0: 62 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College, by Doug Lemov, Joaquin Hernandez, and Jennifer Kim. It’s no wonder Lemov’s book has long been a runaway best seller in the world of teaching and beyond. It is, quite simply, the best comprehensive book on K-12 teaching we’ve ever read, with some of its lessons being worthwhile for instructors of any kind, whether in academia or business.

Lemov took an unusual approach to researching this book. He and his team took hundreds of hours of video of outstanding teachers in action so as to carefully watch and deconstruct their magic. In this way, Lemov is able to get a new perspective on almost everything imaginable about good teaching―ranging from the when, where, and why of giving little encouraging nods, to getting students enthralled in material, to the how to have that star quality that automatically captures students’ attention.  (Hint―it involves what they call the military drill sergeant’s “command voice.”)

Barb can’t help but reflect on her many engineering and math professors who could have learned so much by reading Lemov’s book. In fact, one thing she finds interesting about learning and education is that academia, business, and K12 are often so dissociated from one another, even though each could benefit from the cross-pollination between different professions. Barb is often asked “So, what is your specialty in education?”  Her answer? “Academia and business and K12, because all three inform one another.” Her background as a professor of engineering gives her a fresh perspective that helps her see the difference between the fantastic in education―like Lemov’s book―versus the fad.

Groupthink in K12 Reform Math Education

Barb recently received an email from a LHTLer asking: “My question is about this week’s email newsletter about math reform. As a high school math teacher (20 years) I am now getting gifted certified and find myself at a crossroads. It seems that all of the curriculum that I have been exposed to for my classroom does not use the methods proposed by you and Make It Stick. Saxon Math does seem to use retrieval practice, interleaving, and spacing. However, it is vilified online and disappeared from my public school circles. I used the books in high school and like them. … I have been feeling like I have been in an echo chamber. After doing LHTL and reading Make It Stick and Powerful Teaching, I was convinced that any program that incorporated retrieval practice, interleaving, and spacing and taught the content would be solid for kids.

“With my limited experience, the only curriculum that did that was Saxon Math. I was just confused how the three principles above are gaining wider recognition but that is not reflected in curriculum materials that I am seeing in the market.”

Barb’s answer was along these lines:

“I’ve heard great things about Saxon math from people I trust. It may not at first seem relevant, but here is a wonderful article about how Alzheimer’s research was thwarted for decades by those on high with other vested interests.  This kind of thing happens fairly often through many different areas in society, including, or perhaps most especially, in education.  Also of interest is Mancur Olson’s classic, The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities. The book’s thesis is that the longer a society enjoys political stability, it becomes more likely to develop powerful special-interest lobbies. These lobbies make it less efficient economically. (A simplified explanation is in this retrospective paper.) 

“Probably one of the luckiest things to happen to me was to spend about a year working for the Soviets as a translator.  It can be impossible to believe that everyone around you can be wrong about major and obvious issues. But I saw with Soviet indoctrination how that kind of thing can easily happen.  I think we’re seeing some of that phenomenon playing out now in US school systems, where teachers are trained to believe only certain approaches work with math, and any other approach will destroy students’ creativity and ability. It doesn’t matter what evidence you might show to the contrary—teachers can’t help but feel that the beliefs of most other teachers, as well as guiding administrative bodies, just couldn’t be wrong. In this way, US reform math has become akin to the Soviet’s Chernobyl—just ignore or hide the evidence of the unfolding disaster and the problems disappear. Except that other countries reveal the underlying problem. The research underpinnings of some US K12 math programs have reached the level of farce.” 

“I put our own two daughters in Kumon mathematics starting at age three.  According to reform math educators, Kumon is a terrible program, because it ensures kids get plenty of practice.  The result? Our older daughter, who really struggled with math, just finished her medical residency at Stanford. Our younger daughter, for whom math came easily, became an artist—but she’s now getting her masters in statistics.  Kumon was great for them. A more up-to-date and powerful online program nowadays is Smartick.  I suspect Saxon will be terrific, even for your gifted students. You can always supplement if you feel they need more.”

The upshot of Barb’s discussion?

If you feel something is lacking in current approaches to teaching math, you are not alone. Read great books like Teach Like a Champion, Powerful Teaching, and Make It Stick, (not to mention Learning How to Learn) and meet with groups like ResearchEd, which has local conferences around the world.  You’ll find there is another world much more solidly grounded on science. And if you are a teacher, principal or superintendent who is trying to do great things for your students and teachers, please look towards those resources. You’ll find much to help you in your quest to go beyond trendy, ineffectual fads and truly make a difference.

Why is the U.S. K-12 education on a math-science death march and what can we do about it?

This fantastic video by Ze’ev Wurman, Senior Fellow, American Principles Project, explains the sleight of hand and subterfuge behind the development of  Common Core Math, and its disastrous effect on math education in the USA. As Jason Zimba, a key author of the Common Core noted “The standards are ‘for the colleges most kids go to, but not for the colleges most parents aspire to … [they are] not for STEM … [and] not for selective colleges.”

Basically, Zimba is admitting that if you let your child proceed under Common Core without additional external support (which only wealthier families can afford), you are setting your child up for lower quality schools, and allowing them to be unprepared for a career in STEM. (The video link jumps right to Ze’ev’s critical discussion of Boaler’s work.)

Why Has Jo Boaler’s Research Been Attacked?

This insightful posting by mathematician Robert Craigen provides further insight into how reform mathematics is increasingly being built on a house of cards. As Craigen notes: “Why do many mathematicians ‘attack’ [Boaler’s] research? I am familiar with the work of Bishop and Milgram, who several years ago presented a clear and carefully argued critique of the design and analysis of her well-known Railside experiment, upon which many of her educational propositions are based. In response, Dr. Boaler accused Bishop and Milgram of making a personal attack, and — to my knowledge; I stand to be corrected — has never responded to any of the numerous individual points of their critique, preferring to litigate it in campus tribunals and the court of public opinion.” Interestingly, education research has a rich history of sharing school-level data that contains no personally identifiable information. Not in Boaler’s case, however. We can’t help but consequently point towards the paper “Willingness to Share Research Data Is Related to the Strength of the Evidence and the Quality of Reporting of Statistical Results,” which found that researchers appear to be particularly unwilling to share data when they feel a reanalysis is more likely to lead to contrasting conclusions. 

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

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

• Get the course recommended text, A Mind for Numbers!
• And Learning How to Learn!
• 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

The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine, by Serhii Plokhy. It’s all too easy, in reading books on history, to focus on the areas of the world that currently have large populations. Russia, for example, overshadows Ukraine by more than a factor of three, population-wise (145 versus 42 million), meaning Russia gets the vast majority of coverage in books and press. But this kind of “large pop” reading can give a misleading sense of the conflicting interests of the groups involved, and can give short shrift to important current issues and past events. For example, the Cossacks were an important group through much of Russian history, but with the brief descriptions of many excellent Russian-centered history books (for example, Peter the Great, Barb’s favorite biography), it’s still hard to piece together who the Cossacks were, and what they stood for.  The Gates of Europe explains Cossacks, and far more, so that the reader can truly understand the important historical linkages between Greece, Byzantium, Europe, and Asia.  With Ukraine topping headlines today, it can be helpful to get a good overview of this country’s fascinating history, and to understand its past and present relationship with central European countries as well as Russia.  Plokhy has written an extraordinary book—highly recommended. 

Barb in Philadelphia Speaking for IKEA 

Barb will be at IKEA in Philadelphia on March 24th keynoting at their global co-worker engagement event “Talent Focus Week.” This year’s theme is “Think beyond. Live to learn. Stay curious.” IKEA is yet another great company focusing on the value of learning. 

A Comprehensive Review of Spaced Repetition—And a Pointer Toward Our Favorite Flashcard App

If you are looking for an in-depth review of spaced repetition, you could hardly do better than Gwern Branwen’s lengthy post on the topic here. We were led to this Gwern’s posting by David Handel, founder of our favorite flashcard app, IDoRecall. David is a medical doctor who used flashcards to help him graduate #1 in his medical school class. IDoRecall is David’s effort to give all students an even easier way to use that successful strategy. 

Two Tsunamis About to Hit Higher Education

As this interesting article by the Texas Public Policy Foundation notes that the Department of Education released post graduate earnings and debt data broken down by college program — “which will have a revolutionary impact on higher education. Students (and policymakers) can now get accurate information about how much recent graduates earned by college and degree (e.g., a Bachelor’s in Physics from Ohio State University).”  Even more important, though, is that students and parents will at last be able to make informed choices about degrees and careers. “For years we’ve asked students to make one of life’s most important decisions essentially blindfolded. We’ve told them a college degree is the surest path to success but have given them little guidance on where to go to college or what major to choose once they get there. As a result, too many students leave with a mountain of debt and a credential that isn’t worth much on the labor market. The new data will help equip students — and their parents — with the information necessary to avoid these costly mistakes in several ways.”

Find Your Marigold

We’ve long enjoyed Jennifer Gonzalez’s blog The Cult of Pedagogy, and it’s well past time we should point you towards her wonderful work.  Gonzalez’s post “Find Your Marigold” is written for new teachers, but it actually could apply to virtually any career. After reading her wonderful article, we can at last seriously and legitimately ask—“What type of plant are you?” 

An Angry Parent Fights Back

Here is a fictional video-poem about a fictional night before fictional students took a fictional final exam in a fictional MVP math class in fictional Wake County, NC. More about Blain Dillard’s story 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

• Interested in having Barb speak? Reach out here.
• Get the course recommended text, A Mind for Numbers!
• And Learning How to Learn, a book for kids and parents.

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week

The Power of Bad: How the Negativity Effect Rules Us and How We Can Rule It, by John Tierney and Roy Baumeister. Unlike many optimists, Barb has always been the kind of person who anxiously anticipates possible bad outcomes. Since she’s a contrarian, however, she faces life with a relentlessly positive attitude that not only belies, but helps her overcome those anxious feelings.  Teirney and Baumeister’s wonderful book helps give a scientific perspective about why people can often focus on the negatives in their lives, even when positives abound. What we really like about this book is that it gives concrete strategies for overcoming negativity and moving forward in a positive way, whether in relationships, work, or life in general. Highly recommended—also a good book for audio listening.

Barb in Columbus, Ohio March 5th speaking for Nationwide

Barb will be happy to be in Ohio in March, discussing innovative learning with Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, one of the largest U.S. insurance and financial services in the country. Nationwide is keenly interested in upskilling and reskilling their employees—here is an article about the $160 million dollar investment Nationwide is making in their associates’ learning.  Key grafs: “All workers will receive training in what the company is calling “digital literacy” — knowledge that Nationwide believes each worker should have when it comes to technology and innovation… Workers who participate will get increases in their bonuses…

“On top of that, Nationwide has identified about 7,000 jobs, including those in call centers and underwriting, that are threatened by automation. Those workers will get the opportunity to be retrained in what the company believes will be the jobs of the future. Those include cybersecurity and data analytics… Nationwide wants to keep workers….‘These are people who know our culture and proved their commitment to us…’”

Nationwide is an unusually forward-looking company—kudos!

Two Minute Neuroscience

We stumbled onto a wonderful YouTube channel by neuroscientist Marc Dingman filled with short (yes, two minute) videos about how the brain works.  We’ve been enjoying the website in bits and pieces for weeks—if you have any curiosity about how the brain works, you’ll really like these videos!

Barb to Accept an Honoris Causa Doctorate from Universidad Francisco Marroquín

Barb will be in Guatemala City, Guatemala on May 9th to accept an Honoris Causa Doctorate in social sciences from one of the most beautiful and intriguing universities in the world—Universidad Francisco Marroquín.

How to Detect Bias in Education-Related Reporting

Think reporters are playing fair when they report on education-related issues?  Think again—here’s a useful description of commonly used reporter tricks to mislead the public about teachers and schools, especially charter schools, and subliminally defend the educational establishment. (One can imagine a similar article about the reporter bias in support of the traditional face-to-face education and against online learning.)

Why Math Is the Key to a More Equitable Society

This article in the Globe and Mail by John Mighton makes powerful observations about a new program, Jump Math, that has proven itself in rigorous research studies. Mighton notes:

“Research in cognitive science also suggests there are more and less efficient ways to learn math. Lessons that cause ‘cognitive overload’ by pushing learners too far outside of their comfort zone, or that fail to provide consistent feedback and support (called ‘scaffolding’) for learners, can be highly inefficient.

“Teachers are sometimes blamed for poor results in math, but in my opinion they are not ultimately responsible for these problems. I believe teachers should be commended for helping their students as much as they do, especially when the resources and methods of instruction that they are required to use are not typically designed to close the gap between 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

• Interested in having Barb speak? Reach out here.
• Get the course recommended text, A Mind for Numbers!
• And Learning How to Learn, a book for kids and parents. 

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Month

Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, by David Epstein. Range has been recommended to us by a number of LHTLers, and now that we’ve finally read this marvelous book, we can see why. It lays out, in clear and convincing detail, why being a narrowly-focused expert may seem like the way to go in your life and career—but it actually makes you less capable of creativity, not to mention more narrow-minded. As Epstein notes “I dove into work showing that highly credentialed experts can become so narrow-minded that they actually get worse with experience, even while becoming more confident—a dangerous combination.”  

Key graf: “‘Eminent physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson styled it this way: we need both focused frogs and visionary birds. ‘Birds fly high in the air and survey broad vistas of mathematics out to the far horizon,’ Dyson wrote in 2009. ‘They delight in concepts that unify our thinking and bring together diverse problems from different parts of the landscape. Frogs live in the mud below and see only the flowers that grow nearby. They delight in the details of particular objects, and they solve problems one at a time.’ As a mathematician, Dyson labeled himself a frog, but contended, ‘It is stupid to claim that birds are better than frogs because they see farther, or that frogs are better than birds because they see deeper.’ The world, he wrote, is both broad and deep. “We need birds and frogs working together to explore it.’ Dyson’s concern was that science is increasingly overflowing with frogs, trained only in a narrow specialty and unable to change as science itself does.”

Epstein makes the case that even those without any advanced education can sometimes think more clearly, and make more intelligent insights about intractable problems than the so-called experts.  Read this marvelous book to discover why. (This is also a good book for audio listening.)

The Unexpected Impact of the MOOC Hype

Here’s another interesting article from our friends at Class Central—the BEST source of information about the online courses you want and need. As Dhawal begins: “While listening to [an] episode on TikTok (one of the world’s fastest-growing apps), I learned that the founders of Musical.ly (later merged into TikTok) started out as a MOOC competitor… Here is how the story goes…”

The Developing Bilingual Brain

This video from the recent EnlightEd conference in Madrid showcases the work of Pat Khul, Bezos Family Foundation Endowed Chair, Co-Director of the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences UW, and an expert in bilingual brain development. The panel discussion following Pat’s talk helps place the work in context.

And Speaking of an Additional Language—Does “Dutch Courage” Help?

There has long been a popular belief that alcohol improves foreign language abilities. But is it true? This study by experimental psychologist Fritz Renner and colleagues studied precisely that phenomenon. The results? “Participants who consumed alcohol had significantly better observer-ratings for their Dutch language, specifically better pronunciation, compared with those who did not consume alcohol… Alcohol consumption may have beneficial effects on the pronunciation of a foreign language in people who have recently learned that language.” We’ll raise a glass of wine to that finding! [Hat tip: José Fernando Gallego Nicholls]

Chess, Chunking, and Writing

This interesting post by writing teacher John MacGuire, based on David Robson’s The Intelligence Trap, describes the counterintuitive connection between chess and writing.  Key graf: “what De Groot discovered about chess playing is true about all complex skills, including writing. Expert chess players see the board more simply than the rest of us, who are dumb-founded by the infinite number of moves possible. Likewise, students who have taken a Readable Writing course see writing a lot more simply than others. They see patterns and can work with them.”

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

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

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

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

As a result of interest in our recent email alluding to limits and problems with teaching mathematics using reform approaches, in this week’s email, we’ll focus solely on math.  Next week, back to our usual wide-ranging (hint hint) discussions.

Book of the Week

Infinite Powers: How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe, by Steven Strogatz. Strogatz is a wonderful writer, and Infinite Powers is a wonderful book about the beauty of calculus. But we hasten to add that you don’t need to know any calculus to enjoy Strogatz’s work. The book begins with a quip that the physicist Richard Feynman made to the novelist Herman Wouk when they were discussing the Manhattan Project. “Wouk was doing research for a big novel he hoped to write about World War II, and he went to Caltech to interview physicists who had worked on the bomb, one of whom was Feynman. After the interview, as they were parting, Feynman asked Wouk if he knew calculus. No, Wouk admitted, he didn’t. ‘You had better learn it,’ said Feynman. ‘It’s the language God talks.’”

So Wouk went on to try—and fail—to learn calculus.  Strogatz continues “It shouldn’t be necessary to endure what Herman Wouk did to learn about this landmark in human history. Calculus is one of humankind’s most inspiring collective achievements. It isn’t necessary to learn how to do calculus to appreciate it, just as it isn’t necessary to learn how to prepare fine cuisine to enjoy eating it. I’m going to try to explain everything we’ll need with the help of pictures, metaphors, and anecdotes. I’ll also walk us through some of the finest equations and proofs ever created, because how could we visit a gallery without seeing its masterpieces? As for Herman Wouk, he is 103 years old as of this writing. I don’t know if he’s learned calculus yet, but if not, this one’s for you, Mr. Wouk.”

This is a timeless book that puts all of calculus into a grand, beautifully written perspective that you’ll enjoy whether you’re a physicist or an English teacher.  Enjoy! 

Math Reform in Need of Dramatic Reform

Our recent email describing problems with reform approaches to teaching mathematics prompted an outpouring of shared parental concern on precisely that topic. Here, for example, is a carefully curated archive of materials critical of Jo Boaler and the highly questionable approaches she, and reform mathematics educators, espouse. It also contains a thoughtful analysis of why these problematic approaches are pursued, despite the obvious challenges they cause for students—particularly disadvantaged students. 

Steve Hollister, an engineer with two master’s degrees in engineering from the University of Michigan who has written over a million lines of code over the past 45 years while growing his successful business, provides an additional helpful view on these issues. Steve writes: 

“I saw two worlds in education for my son who just graduated from college: Kindergarten through 8th grade (K-8), and high school/college. K-8 was all about low expectation full inclusion equity and natural learning ideas. We were told that ‘kids will learn when they are ready.’

“In middle school (7th and 8th grades), things began to change as parents realized that their kids would not be ready for any advanced math and language placement, let alone honors or AP classes, in high school. This was not just a problem with different ideas of learning. It had to do with specific curriculum contents and skills. The low K-8 state test proficiency expectations gave way to the much higher AP/IB expectations. 

“In high school (and college) everything changed and was driven by reality. All the classes my son took were traditional and students completely ignored yearly state Common Core testing results. Life was all about GPA, PSAT, SAT/ACT, AP tests, and extra-curricular activities. I have yet to understand how these two opposite worlds of educational thought exist without public conflict. 

“In high school, students have choice and are separated by willingness and ability, but in K-8, there is no choice in full inclusion, age-tracking academic classes. When I was young, I got to calculus in high school with no help from my parents. But nowadays, my ‘math brain’ son had to have help from us from kindergarten through sixth grade, and all of his STEM-prepared friends had to have the same help outside of school.”

The Deeply Troubled Palo Alto Unified School District

You may (or may not) be surprised to learn that the Palo Alto Unified School District, practically in the shadow of Stanford, is at ground zero of the math wars. This essay, “Why Have American Schools Failed in Closing the Achievement Gap? A Case Study of California’s Palo Alto School District,” provides a description of how, no matter how bad test scores get, reform educators simply dig deeper.  Ultimately, only the advantaged have the resources to pay for the supplemental tutoring needed as a result of current reform approaches to teaching math. As the essay notes: “the rock-bottom test scores of the economically disadvantaged students have never significantly improved over the past decades. This shows that the progressive education model, though boasting ‘higher-order thinking,’ ‘conceptual understanding,’ ‘teamwork,’ or ‘child-centered education,’ deceitfully, devastatingly, and tragically failed these students who relied exclusively on school education.” 

If you share similar problems at your school district, or have any advice or thoughts to share on these challenges, please feel free to share them on the discussion forum here (remember to be logged in to Coursera to access—you can also reach the discussion forum through the general discussion forum tab inside the course).

The Bright Light of the La Ronge Indian Band Schools in Saskatchewan

On the other hand, Liz Barrett, First Nations Outreach & Teacher Support for JUMP Math, BC, SK, YT, NWT and NU, writes that “I continue to believe that one day people will see the light. In my communities across Canada we are focused on mental math fluency and supporting outstanding teaching—so math games have taken on new meaning. I just had to share this video of some wonderful work being done by the La Ronge Indian Band schools in Saskatchewan led by Julius Park and Tammy Robinson. ( Simon Bird is the Ed director.)”

“I am invigorated by the schools in Saskatchewan and am heading back to work with the Standing Buffalo school, led by Eric Honetschlager next month – as a community, they are focused and working hard to ensure math is no longer an accepted  ‘disability’ for any of their students. They are working hard to empower teachers and students to develop a love of all things mathematical. The students and teachers are just wonderful. The Catholic school district of Moose Jaw is also rocking away! It would be wonderful to have a Canadian Math Bee—where by Gr 3 all kids would know the basic math facts and be proud of that!

“Today I am heading off to work in the Yukon this week. My multiplication tables packs are in along with my thermal sleeping bag in case I get stuck on the drive from Whitehorse to Watson lake!”

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

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

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

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Month

Think Like a Rocket Scientist: Simple Strategies You Can Use to Make Giant Leaps in Work and Life, by Ozan Varol. Varol really was a rocket scientist—he served as a member of the operations team for NASA’s 2003 Mars Exploration Rover project; which sent two rovers to examine the Martian surface. But, in a tribute to his wide-ranging intellect, Varol is now tenured law professor at Lewis & Clark Law School. Think Like a Rocket Scientist is a wonderful book—a sort of vade mecum of critical thinking, whether in business, learning, or life. Varol has an unparalleled ability to weave together the brilliant thoughts of others into a coherent narrative that is greater than the sum of its parts.  A counterintuitive thinker, Varol often surprises: you’ll learn about how to act under conditions of uncertainty; how to think big, but carefully; how moving fast and breaking things doesn’t work well for rocket science or many other situations; how success can cause failure, and many other mental frameworks and strategies.

Think Like a Rocket Scientist is a book to savor. Those who pre-order the book can get digital access to it within 7 days through a service called Netgalley. That means they can start reading it now, months before the book is released to the public. Pre-orders also come with the bonuses listed on this page. All you have to do is forward your receipt to rocket@ozanvarol.com. Also a great book for audio listening. (Two free audiobooks may be possible through this link.)

Which are the Best Coursera courses?

Here’s a wonderful compendium of the top ten Coursera courses, compiled by the ever-reliable Class Central.  We’re thrilled to see that all three of our courses, Learning How to Learn, Learning How to Learn for Youth, and Mindshift, made the list!

Presentation and Question-answering Session with Barb and Corporate Learning Guru Nick Van Dam

Want to ask questions about learning in corporate settings?  Here’s your chance! Once you’ve registered for the webinar, please send your questions in advance to Corporate.Learning@ie.edu. The webinar will be held January 30th, 9:00 AM Eastern time, 3:00 PM Madrid time. Barb will give a roughly thirty minute presentation about learning, following a brief introduction by Nick Van Dam, IE Board of Directors, Chief Learning Officer, Chief Center Learning Innovation and Professor L&D at IE University, and founder of e-Learning for Kids (NGO). (And one of the nicest people around!) And then—it’s on to answering questions!

Remember that you’ve got to register to be able to get into the platform and enjoy the session!

The Best MOOC on Physical Exercise Around—Perfect for Getting Into Shape for the New Year!

New Year, new you? Having trouble meeting your resolution for a healthier you? What if you only needed 1 minute to get fit? Join world-renowned exercise physiologists Martin Gibala and Stuart Phillips of McMaster University in their wonderful MOOC Hacking Exercise for Health as they share insight and evidence into the surprising new science of cardio fitness and strength-building—and then provide you with hacks to get fit and strong (and healthy!) virtually anywhere and in less time than you ever thought possible. This is a reminder email, because this is one of our favorite MOOCs—enjoy!

Smartick Is Great for Helping Kids Learn Math—Do You Have a Recommendation for a Similar Program for Reading?

A LHTLer writes: “Thank you for the impact you’ve made on me (and my family)! You recommended Smartick several months ago in your Cheery Greetings Friday email. We enrolled both of our daughters in the program (4- and 7-years-old, respectively) with a year-long subscription. Both of them have blossomed with it. My wife and I were wondering if you are aware of any similar machine-learning/AI driven programs? Specifically, anything related to reading and comprehension?”

If you might have any thoughts or advice, please post in the discussion forum here.

EdX is Creating a New Pathway to Undergraduate Online Degrees—the MicroBachelors

MicroBachelors are new, stackable courses offered by universities through the edX platform that can be taken as a stand-alone credential or counted toward a full degree. “Two institutions began MicroBachelors programs this week: an Information Technology Career Framework offered by Western Governors University and a Computer Science Fundamentals program offered by New York University…. At around $166 per credit, this salad bar-style degree, with programs taught by multiple institutions, could potentially be a cost-effective option for students…. The institution plans to award students transcripts so they can transfer their credit to other institutions if they choose to….”

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

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

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

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week

No One Cares About Crazy People: The Chaos and Heartbreak of Mental Health in America by Ron Powers. Both of Powers’ sons were afflicted with schizophrenia, which fueled his desire to begin sorting out and writing about why there is such chaos in the US regarding treatment for those who clearly cannot care for themselves.  The essence of the problem lies with lies anosognosia, which, as Powers writes, is “the false conviction within a person that nothing is wrong with his mind. It stems from a physiological by-product of psychosis, and accompanies about 50 percent of schizophrenia occurrences and 40 percent of bipolar cases. Anosognosia disrupts the parietal lobe’s capacity to interpret sensory information from around the body.” No One Cares details how virtually every ideology—left, right, and libertarian—has contributed to the disastrous set of policies for mental health that have increasingly unleashed heartbreak and chaos both for US families caring for the mentally ill, and US society as a whole.  (It’s interesting to watch, however, as Powers attributes simple lack of knowledge as causing the mistakes of his favored political party, but outright malevolence as causing the mistakes of the political party he dislikes. A more dispassionate observer might draw different conclusions.) A worthwhile book on a vitally important, but all-too-neglected problem. Also good for audio listening.

How to Finish an Online Course

Here’s a fine article by Pat Bowden of Online Learning Success not only on how to choose a MOOC, but on how to be successful at finishing it.  Enjoy!

A First Rate Overview of the World of MOOCs

Don’t miss this review of MOOC stats and trends from Class Central. The numbers involved are quite boggling!

Future of Learning 2020 Conference, Bangalore, India 

‘Learning to Learn, Unlearn and Relearn: Flourishing in the Age of Disruptions and Innovation’ will be held on January 3-4 at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. Barb will be speaking via web, and there will be goodly time for your questions. So don’t miss it if you’ve the chance to attend!

Study Finds Athletes Have Healthier Brains Than Others

Here is an article relating yet more evidence that exercise is beneficial for cognition. The main ideas are that “…athletes were found to have much more pronounced responses to sound than non-athletes and lower levels of background ‘static.’  Similarly, both musicians and people capable of speaking more than one language have also been found to process incoming sound signals more efficiently. But…these groups of people appear to achieve this by turning up the sound in their brains, whereas athletes appear to be turning down or quieting the background noise in their minds.”

The Dark Side of Neuroplasticity

Is learning and changing the brain always good?  Is it possible to take drugs that will help reopen the rapid-learning mechanisms we used as children to, for example, learn to speak a new language quickly and without an accent? The deeper you go into this episode of the podcast Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the more interesting it gets.  

Smaller Class Size Doesn’t Always Benefit Students

This article describes the counterintuitive findings that reducing class size may not be so important: “…class size effects are more likely to be detected in countries with limited school resources where teacher quality is lower on average.” In other words, quality teaching may be the real key for helping students–there may be better outcomes for students through improving the pool of teachers than through mandated class-size limits. 

Ever Wondered Whether to Dabble in Simple Video Creation as Backup Materials for Your Class?

Here’s one of the nicest introductions to screencasting for absolute novices that we’ve seen.

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

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

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