Cheery Friday e-mails
Every Friday I send a “Cheery Friday” email chock full of insights about learning and changing to a million registered learners from the massive open online course (“MOOC”) Learning How to Learn. To receive these emails, just register for the course here (it’s free, and registration takes only a few seconds). “See” you on Friday!
SmarterHumans.ai
Cheery Friday! (Emailing four million people at once is a bit like boarding a jumbo jet: not everyone gets on at the same time, so your Friday might arrive on Saturday, Sunday, or Monday….) I’ve been working on something I’m especially excited about: SmarterHumans.ai. It’s a new platform designed around a deceptively simple goal — helping us actual …
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A Mind for Numbers—Back to School Sale
Cheery Friday Greetings from Barb Oakley! Back to School Deal: A Steal for the Science- and Math-Shy! Heads up! A Mind for Numbers—my classic guide to learning math and science more effectively (even if you’ve sworn those subjects hate you)—is on Kindle sale this weekend only for just $1.99. That’s less than the price of a gas station coffee. Whet …
More >Making Math Click!
Cheery Friday Greetings from Barb Oakley! 📣 Our New Course, “Making Math Click” Is Live! This is the big day: our new MOOC, Making Math Click: Understand Math without Fear, has officially launched! I can’t tell you how excited I am about this course—it’s a labor of love that combines the best of what neuroscience, education, and storytelling can o …
More >Teaching Isn’t Just a Belief—it’s a Science!
Cheery Friday Greetings from Barb Oakley! Teaching Isn’t Just a Belief—it’s a Science! A fantastic new piece from Jim Hewitt and Nidhi Sachdeva reminds us that teaching should be grounded in evidence, not opinion. Drawing on insights from Douglas Carnine’s classic work, the article challenges us to shift from “I believe” to “the data shows”—just l …
More >Making Math Click: Understand Math Without Fear!
Cheery Friday Greetings from Barb Oakley! Something Big Is Coming: Making Math Click: Understand Math Without Fear! We’ve been quietly building something we think you’ll love: Making Math Click: Understand Math without Fear, our brand-new MOOC designed to help learners truly understand—and maybe even enjoy—math. Together with Canadian mathematicia …
More >Why IQ Scores Are Dropping
Cheery Friday Greetings from Barb Oakley! Why IQ Scores Are Dropping: A New Neuroscientific Explanation for a 50-Year Mystery What if I told you that well-meaning Western educational reforms and our smartphone habits might actually be making us less intelligent? New research suggests that’s exactly what’s happening. Our new chapter, “The Memory P …
More >A Revolution in Teaching: And We’re Just Getting Started
Cheery Friday Greetings from Barb Oakley! A Revolution in Teaching: And We’re Just Getting Started Coursera celebrated Teacher Appreciation Day this week by recognizing a few of their instructors—and, yes, I was surprised (and slightly surreal-ed) to find myself leading the list. What stood out, though, was what this moment reflects. For a long ti …
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Uncommon Sense Teaching – Audio!
Cheery Friday Greetings from Barb Oakley! Double the Learning Fun! Uncommon Sense Teaching on Sale at Audible Exciting news to share in this week’s Cheery Friday! Audible is running a “Buy One, Get One” sale from now to February 24, and Uncommon Sense Teaching is included in the promotion! During this sale, Audible members can grab two audiobooks …
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The Nvidia Way
Cheery Friday Greetings from Barb Oakley! Book Pick: The Nvidia Way by Tae Kim If ever there was a guide to turning sheer grit into groundbreaking greatness, The Nvidia Way is it! This exhilarating book dives into the story of Nvidia, the company that has become a crown jewel in the AI revolution. Tech writer Tae Kim has penned a modern classic of …
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A Personal Odyssey
Cheery Friday Greetings from Barb Oakley! Book of the Month A Personal Odyssey, by Thomas Sowell. This fascinating autobiography provides a compelling look at the life and intellectual development of one of America’s most important and incisive thinkers. Sowell traces his remarkable journey from poverty in the Jim Crow South to becoming a renowned …
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