Uncommon Sense Teaching: The MOOC!

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Today is a very special announcement—we have just launched the new Coursera MOOC Uncommon Sense Teaching!  This MOOC is ideal for instructors of all kinds: K12 teachers, professors, parents, business trainers, and instructional designers, as well as those who are simply interested in how we learn.  

Uncommon Sense Teaching also provides valuable, evidence-based professional development training for your school or district. This information is especially important given the compelling need for effective teaching as students and teachers begin to recover from the educational disarray left by COVID. 

Here are some of the critical areas covered we cover:

• Teaching and learning inclusively in diverse classrooms

• Scaffolding, differentiation, and active learning

• The two major pathways the brain uses for learning—declarative and procedural

• Why and how to teach through both pathways

• How to promote neural consolidation for long-term retention

• The value of metaphor in helping with learning

• Why both explicit instruction and active learning are necessary

• The perils—and advantages—of multi-tasking

• How to handle procrastination

• Broadening the desire for lifelong learning

• Motivating students in the classroom

• Testing for fairness and success

• And much more!

We’ve also filled the course is filled with gifs and imagery (they are in the PowerPoint resources under each video), that you can use to make your own presentations about any aspect of the material. For those of you who have been waiting for clear, cogent, neuroscientifically-based insight into how to teach so that students truly understand and learn, the wait is over.  And, as always when it comes to our Learning How to Learn crew, we have fun while we’re at it! (Don’t miss our promotional video!) 

Course Hero’s Education Summit

As a reminder, we’re fans of Course Hero and its ability to help level the playing field for students.  

Now you have the opportunity to learn more about the latest in teaching and learning by attending Course Hero’s free Education Summit: What Matters Now? on July 28th through 30th. (Here is a video vignette from Barb with a key teaching insight. Notice how Barb’s forehead is sweat-covered in the 98-degree studio!)  

Barb will be giving the opening keynote for the conference—”Sparking A Curious Mind: Learning How to Learn in Today’s World” Wed Jul 28, 9:20 AM – 9:50 AM PDT.  She’ll also be giving an extended workshop for instructors on Friday.  We’ll see you at the Summit!

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

• The critically acclaimed Uncommon Sense Teaching!
• The newest on learning: Learn Like a Pro!
• The recommended text, A Mind for Numbers!
• And Learning How to Learn, a book for kids and parents.