Neuroscientists have made enormous strides in understanding the brain and how we learn, but little of that insight has filtered down to the way teachers teach. Uncommon Sense Teaching applies this research to the classroom for teachers, parents, and anyone interested in improving education. Topics include: strategies for keeping students motivated and engaged, especially with online learning... Read more »| Barbara Oakley
Cheery Friday—whenever it shows up in your inbox, from Coursera’s mighty email servers to you! Greetings from sunny Tokyo! And (drumroll) our Book of the Week is! Mental Models: How understanding the mind can transform how you work and learn, by Jim Heal & Rebekah Berlin. I had the good fortune to meet Dr. Jim... Read more »| Barbara Oakley
Mindshift reveals how we can overcome stereotypes and preconceived ideas about what is possible for us to learn and become. At a time when we are constantly being asked to retrain and reinvent ourselves to adapt to new technologies and changing industries, this book shows us how we can uncover and develop talents we didn’t... Read more »| Barbara Oakley
Cheery Friday! Free full version of Learning How to Learn Great news! For those of you—and we know there are thousands!—who are encouraging your students, colleagues, and friends to take Learning How to Learn, there’s now a direct link to a free version of the course (certificate not included). If you’re an instructor and want... Read more »| Barbara Oakley
Cheery Friday! Book of the Month: Anyone Can Play Music by Josh Turknett I’m tickled to share a gem of a book with you—Anyone Can Play Music by neurologist and musician Josh Turknett. What makes this book special is how brilliantly Josh connects cutting-edge neuroscience with practical learning strategies. He explains how our automatic learning... Read more »| Barbara Oakley
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 —... Read more »| Barbara Oakley
I love to bring fresh perspectives into my books by applying knowledge and experience from many different disciplines, as well as from “real world” experiences. Although I’m now a professor of engineering, I’ve also worked in lots of different places and doing very different things: serving as a Russian translator on Soviet trawlers up in... Read more »| Barbara Oakley
Cheery Friday Greetings from Barb Oakley! Book of the Year: Reforming Lessons If you want a powerful, uplifting read about how to turn a struggling education system around — despite the drag of “well-meaning” but harmful inertia — pick up Nick Gibb and Robert Peal’s Reforming Lessons: Why English Schools Have Improved Since 2010 and... Read more »| Barbara Oakley
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... Read more » The post A Mind for Numbers—Back to School Sale appeared first on Barbara Oakley.| Barbara Oakley
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,... Read more »| Barbara Oakley
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 like... Read more »| Barbara Oakley
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 mathematician John Mighton (cofounder of JUMP Math),... Read more »| Barbara Oakley
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 Paradox: Why Our... Read more »| Barbara Oakley
Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners! Thrilling News! Our very own Terry Sejnowski has started a (free) Substack: “ Brains and AI.” In his first three posts, Terry explores the convergence of artificial intelligence and neuroscience, offering rare insight into how advances in each field are accelerating progress in the other. With his... Read more »| Barbara Oakley
Whether you are a student struggling to fulfill a math or science requirement, or you are embarking on a career change that requires a new skill set, A Mind for Numbers offers the tools you need to get a better grasp of that intimidating material. Engineering professor Barbara Oakley knows firsthand how it feels to... Read more »| Barbara Oakley
