Cheery Weekend Greetings from Learning How to Learn! Nov 22, 2015

Cheery Weekend greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

The Inspiration Behind Learning How to Learn

Here’s an interview with Barb “Формула успеха: как математика помогает людям жит.” (Okay, so the interview’s in Russian.) The interview provides additional background about the book A Mind for Numbers—which formed the basis for the MOOC Learning How to Learn. A fun fact is that A Mind for Numbers was inspired when one of Barb’s engineering students asked Barb how she’d managed to initiate a shift from linguist to engineer at the ripe age of 26, after she’d left the Army. The book tells the story. What’s truly inspiring is how inspiring students themselves can be!

Good Books About Learning

If you’re trying to keep up your reading about learning, one of the best of the recent books about learning is Make It Stick, by Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel. This insightful book was co-authored by some of the most influential researchers around. Another book is How We Learn, by New York Times reporter Benedict Carey. Enjoy!

If You are Using the Coursera App

If you’re using the Coursera app, please update to the most recent version—it will help prevent problems if you might be submitting a quiz.

Mind Wandering—the Good, the Bad, and the MOOC-relevant

Here’s an article about the importance of mind-wandering and aspects of the “diffuse mode”: “Why We Should Stop Worrying about Our Wandering Minds.” This article contrasts in an intriguing way with Julie Sedivy’s wonderful Nautilus article “Can a Wandering Mind Make You Neurotic?” (And here’s Barb’s recent Nautilus article “Why Virtual Classes Can Be Better Than Real Ones.” MOOCs are often best built with short videos that don’t bog down when our minds wander.)

Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

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