Learner Reviews & Feedback for Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects by McMaster University

Informative, but not ground-breaking. A nice place to start if you're not sure Coursera is for you.

Very nice explanation

What was helpful to me was: the discussion on spaced repetition, which boosted my confidence in applications like Duolingo and Memrise, and helped me discover Anki. The pomodoro technique is nice to know about, though I have rarely used it so far. I think I was already at the point where I don't need an actual pomodoro timer to get into that mindset. The best two things I probably got from the course was changing my way of thinking from focusing on product to focusing on process (though not always possible of course), and using recall to test myself on what I know rather than reading things over and over and just hoping it's gone in.

What I didn't like about the course was the presentation style, the pace, the content density (very low in my opinion), the irrelevant information, the hand-wavey explanations, and so on. The absolute worst of it was the full recommendation for using analogies but with no attempt on explaining how to make *good* anaologies. This is key. Most analogies I come across are misleading for all aspects of a thing but their very narrow scope, and sometimes the thing itself too (after all, you usually make them when you're first learning about a thing, unless you're teaching) and so without knowing how to make good anaologies while they are good for memory they are on average bad for understanding, and I don't think that can be stressed enough.

This is a really very theoretical course, not really sure how much I can use this in real life. Let's see.

Based on the reviews I read, my expectations for this course were pretty high. However, the course ended up being very basic and I didn't learn any new learning technique. I think that for most people who have Googled study methods at least once, they will already be familiar with most (if not all) of the methods introduced in the course. The material may be useful for someone totally new to studying, but even then I would not recommend taking it. You can learn just as much is less time watching YouTube videos or reading brief guides on procrastination and learning techniques.

The quality of the course was also disappointing. The volume in each video jumped up and down across lessons or when different speakers took the lead. I am surprised to see there's so much hype around this course despite its simplistic content and poor quality. I've taken more than a dozen courses at Coursera so far and this one doesn't even come close to the best ones I took.

I'd recommend finding something better to invest your time on.

It really didn't help, and all the test questions and answers were jumbled and hard to understand. And i found it extremely difficult to follow along with the videos which just made my quizzes that much harder. It's a good course and all, just not organized and everything the people were saying sounded exactly like the last one. Good idea and concept just not well prepared.

Some interesting information is presented that could be potentially helpful to students, teachers, & curriculum developers. However, there is little of practical value beyond a few simple statements, e.g. "Spread out your studying over several days." Or "Trying to remember is better than re-reading." Additionally, the course does not practise or model what it preaches.

Most of the information I learned was either already known to me or not that effective. I prefer more exercises and practical methods that would teach me discipline and let me implement the methods I've learned. The tests after each material are good and helpful for remembering the information; however, they are not practical to implement the methods themselves

The content is nice -- a few useful techniques with some scientific foundations, but why Barbara after EACH video reminds us her name, and this strange arrows with very unpleasant sound in the start of the videos about chunking -- why? There are a lot of things I can not understand in the production part, but overall course is worth taking in 1.5x+ speed.

I found difficult to navigate within the course and the style of the course is not very modern. I felt difficult to follow the whole program, which might be also linked to my level of English that might not have been good enough, considering the technical vocabulary used in the program. However some interesting and very concrete tips to learn

This will be an excellent course for undergrads and high school students but not much in depth knowledge and learning strategy for higher levels of education.

Teachers show mastery on their subject matter , though their presentation style is not genuine and naturally animated, to the point that it may feel boring.

Interesting enough if you do not have any previous experience with the techniques.

You learn about the 2 different modes of Learning - Focused & Diffuse.

Learn more by Remembering/Recalling, Testing yourself, learning from mistakes and using metaphors or analogies to understand concepts.

it has a lot of nice information about the brain and ways of study, but this whole course is a way of procrastinating.

I feel like it could have been summed up really much better into written text and finished at a much faster rate.

Too school focused, I wish there was a version to help people that aren't being tested. I thought it would have more information about how to find useful information instead of just remembering what was presented to you.

While the instructors may be well versed in their fields, I felt the course took too long to get to the meat of the issue. I suppose I wanted a faster-paced course without a lot of hand-holding.

this is a good course but if you think better and deeply you will understand that deep inside you your self know this things but maybe you did not do in daily life.

Didn't learn as much as expected about learning how to learn. Maybe my expectations were too high.

Really basic, with some interesting stuff but could be reduced to a third of the time...

Very basic and useful only for the students in high school... not for professionals.

Boring techniques for remembering.

Nothing related to learning or understanding.

i think the coming classes will be great more than that ... but it's good

The interview at the end was the best part of this course.

extremely easy and sparse content.

I want it to be more exciting.

superb course I ever had