Episode Details

This week, Kelly & Sean chat with Barbara Oakley, author of the upcoming books Uncommon Sense Teaching and Learn Like a Pro. Together, we talk about everything from learning Russian to the ways that the brain processes information and how teachers can best help students learn.

Barbara Oakley is a professor of engineering, former Russian translater on Soviet fishing trawlers, Antarctic researcher (where she met her husband), author, MOOC creator, and so much more. Kelly and Sean talk to her about the ways that our brain learns and retains knowledge, and how we can use that mechanism to learn how to learn better.

Special Guest: Barbara Oakley.

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Links:

• Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects | Coursera — This course gives you easy access to the invaluable learning techniques used by experts in art, music, literature, math, science, sports, and many other disciplines. We’ll learn about the how the brain uses two very different learning modes and how it encapsulates (“chunks”) information. We’ll also cover illusions of learning, memory techniques, dealing with procrastination, and best practices shown by research to be most effective in helping you master tough subjects.
• Mindshift: Break Through Obstacles to Learning and Discover Your Hidden Potential | Coursera — Mindshift is designed to help boost your career and life in today’s fast-paced learning environment. Whatever your age or stage, Mindshift teaches you essentials such as how to get the most out of online learning and MOOCs, how to seek out and work with mentors, the secrets to avoiding career ruts (and catastrophes) and general ruts in life, and insights such as the value of selective ignorance over general competence. We’ll provide practical insights from science about how to learn and change effectively even in maturity, and we’ll build on what you already know to take your life’s learning in fantastic new directions. This course is designed to show you how to look at what you’re learning, and your place in what’s unfolding in the society around you, so you can be what you want to be, given the real world constraints that life puts on us all. You’ll see that by using certain mental tools and insights, you can learn and do more—far more—than you might have ever dreamed!
• A Mind For Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra) 1, Oakley, Barbara - Amazon.com — In A Mind for Numbers, Dr. Oakley lets us in on the secrets to learning effectively—secrets that even dedicated and successful students wish they’d known earlier. Contrary to popular belief, math requires creative, as well as analytical, thinking. Most people think that there’s only one way to do a problem, when in actuality, there are often a number of different solutions—you just need the creativity to see them.
• Amazon.com: Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kid