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Back to Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects

Learner Reviews & Feedback for Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects by Deep Teaching Solutions

4.8
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90,470 ratings

About the Course

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 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. Using these approaches, no matter what your skill levels in topics you would like to master, you can change your thinking and change your life. If you’re already an expert, this peep under the mental hood will give you ideas for turbocharging successful learning, including counter-intuitive test-taking tips and insights that will help you make the best use of your time on homework and problem sets. If you’re struggling, you’ll see a structured treasure trove of practical techniques that walk you through what you need to do to get on track. If you’ve ever wanted to become better at anything, this course will help serve as your guide. This course can be taken independent of, concurrent with, or prior to, its companion course, Mindshift. (Learning How to Learn is more learning-focused, and Mindshift is more career-focused.) A related course by the same instructors is Uncommon Sense Teaching. To join the fully translated Portuguese version of the course, visit: https://www.coursera.org/learn/aprender To join the fully translated Spanish version of the course, visit: https://www.coursera.org/learn/aprendiendo-a-aprender To join the fully translated Chinese version of the course, visit: https://www.coursera.org/learn/ruhe-xuexi To join the fully translated French version of the course, visit : http://www.coursera.org/learn/apprendre-comment-apprendre...

Top reviews

LB

May 17, 2020

This class really focused on the process of learning. It taught me so much. I even shared ideas with my college and high school student. They were surprised as some concepts were helpful to them also.

OO

Apr 28, 2016

Great course. Took it since it was the most popular MOOC on coursera,. Have started using a few of the techniques and they are very effective. Highly recommended no matter who you are and what you do.

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76 - 100 of 10,000 Reviews for Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects

By Thierry D

Jul 23, 2016

nul de chez nul

By Neeraj K

Mar 18, 2016

waste of time

By kevin b

Sep 29, 2016

I

By Adetutu B

May 22, 2020

I have just finished this course, and I must say that curiosity led me to take the course. 'Learning how to learn... ' I said to myself how do you learn to learn? Having finished the course, I totally agree that everyone needs to 'learn how to learn' If it can be simplified for the young minds, the course should actually be taken in grade school, then I thinks a lot more students will make straight A's. (Just my thought),

The saying goes 'who feel it knows it.' The experience and knowledge of the instructor's Dr. Barbara Oakley and Dr. Terrence Sejnowski coupled with the outline, presentation and video helps (if I may use the language of the course) in interleaving seemingly related and different ideas (using metaphors and analogies) through out this course.

How many things we take for granted? - movements, seeing, hearing, even blinking etc. The enigmatic power of the brain to process so many details within minutes, the power of your thoughts to change your person. Concept mapping, chunking, Procrastination and the Pomodoro technique (this I think we all do without realising there is actually techniques it, cues to procrastination etc.

There is just so much to learn in this short course than can be explained.

I am one of those who used the opportunity of the lock-down, it has opened my eye and I am willing to take more courses. I have also introduced the course to some people young and old to recharge their Brains.

It is difference from what I learnt in all my years through school, university and experience in life.

'The taste is in the pudding' My curiosity is thoroughly satisfied,

I deeply appreciate the instructors, Coursera and all the team members involved in making this course available online, Thank you

By Rajesh K

Jan 13, 2020

Truly incredible course. It was rewarding experience to learn how our brain works. It opens many doors in our life when we know how our brain works, at least we can understand why we have certain kind of feeling. As sometimes we can't understand why we have feeling of discomfort, but it is the brain's signal coming from the subconcious that you have messed up something and now you have to look up where you've goofed up and make it correct. What I have learned is that pain is incredibly powerful tool created by nature. I mean how can know if something bad happened to you if there's no pain(both physical and mental). It's a nature's way of grabing your attention to address that problem so now and next time you be careful and not repeat that mistake. Pain, anger and frustration are really powerful feelings that can do wonders in our life if you acknowledge their existence. It is the path towards the truth. Just like in one of the optional interview we've seen the pain of his grandmother's death due to Alzheimer motivated Nelson Dellis to become memory champion. This course is also helpful for the people who are dealing with Depression, Social Anxiety, PTSD, chronic fear and much more because when they are dealing with those problems it creates a lots of confusion as to why they have certain kind of feeling.

Internet is such an incredibly powerful tool if it is used smartly. I can't believe we have access to such a high quality material for free. Thank you Barbara Oakley ma'am, Terry Sejnowski sir, Coursera team and all the people who are associated with this course.

By Jacques K

Jul 5, 2019

Exceptional course. I work on personal development now for 13 years, have for example read from scott h young a decade ago - and now he is interviewed here and mentioned. Great to see one of my "teachers" featured here.

I have a bachelors and masters degree, recently got some more hard certifications (AWS cloud architect and developer) and needed a way to even learn more and more efficiently in the future both for work / career and personal life.

iI want to learn davinci resolve video cutting, improve in photography, photoshop. lightroom.

As mentioned, i have been working towards personal dvelopment for 13 years, read though about 50 books and 1000 pages of blog posts, but never retained much info - now i have the tools to retain that info, test myself on it, and use spaced repetition to retain it for a decade. Discuss it with my wife to even more deepen the knowledge. Use pomodoro and other techniques to really do my courses 100 percent and not loose interest after 10%.

Thanks Barbara and Terence for this great course which is a lifechanger for me even after i already gained so much knowledge in my past 38 years on this earth.

This course should be mandatory in every school education all of the world as it explains the PROCESS of learning and not just focused on the PRODUCT. I wish, i knew about this course when i was 15 or even 20 years only (now that i am 38).

By Valentin L

Feb 9, 2020

A very comprehensive course on the subject of learning. I have used the research-backed methods taught in this course to improve my learning and not only did I gain a better understanding of the material I was studying but as an adult/lifelong learner, I use the techniques in this course to retain a lot more of my daily reading on various subjects.

I also strongly recommend (to everyone not just Math/Science majors) reading Dr. Barbara Oakley's "A Mind for Numbers" - which is a very useful complementary text for the course.

By Greg Y

Jul 15, 2022

A very helpful course, with good content and good presenation. Well worth the time spent working through the lessions. Thanks for spending the time and effort to create the course, Barabara and Terry!

By Sharmi S

Jan 10, 2018

This course was really good. I learnt alot about learning. I wished I took something like this before starting university. But now it also helps me to learn new things and I finally don't feel stupid.

By Alexander D

Jun 2, 2022

Thhiiss course is really helpfull and brings a lot off bennefit to any student who wants to develope her or his brain capacities.

Thanks a lot to authors! I will recomend it to every person I know!

By Emil M

Aug 31, 2015

There were some interesting insights coinciding with my own experience of learning (I have learnt 8 languages by myself). Particularly the part about chunking was a really good one. On the other hand, Week 4 focusing on how to pass a test in my opinion jumbled the previous material up - passing a test doesn't mean knowledge, it means ability to pass a test. Half of the questions used in the final Quiz shows that this course itself has tried not to develop chunks they were recommending but to make students memorize the content of the video without checking whether or not the content was actually understood and "chunked" into real knowledge.

So, a better name for this course would be "Learning how to learn academically". As for me, I appreciate non-academical knowledge. Kids master their native language without getting the ability to teach it - and this is the true knowledge even though in the farewell video prof. Sejnowski equalized the ability to teach to the knowledge.

By olga d

Dec 4, 2016

This course targets mostly students audience, but not people with the aim of self-development, who passed their academic study long time ago. Therefore, information concerning learning process somehow too much basic, but at the same time can be quite useful if you are not aware of all these facts. What didn't also suit me is a lack of structure and a bit confusing videos explaining different concepts of brain structure and functioning, that seemed too much scientific in the frame of this course. But what really hit my interest is enthralling optional interviews with different scientists and just talented people. They were really motivating and inspiring!

By Luis G d l F

Jul 25, 2019

Very good material for high school, college or university students. Not enough for more serious applications such as business people or researchers. Course challenges / Things nor properly addressed:

- Relationship of Learning to emotions and meaning. - Skills depvelopment vs Academic learning - What drugs / supplements are good to improve learning, besides doing exercise. - More info about subconscious, emotions and their impact on learning. - Please do not include links you need to pay / subscribe (NYT)

Thks for all.

By Marcos P

Jun 17, 2019

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.

By Jack M

Sep 12, 2017

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.

By Matthew B

Jan 12, 2019

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.

By Brandon M

Mar 10, 2020

The irony here is that the "Learn how to learn" course teaches nothing. What's worse, it has vague references to dubious, and likely apocryphal tales of late geniuses and how they supposedly solved problems. So instead of teaching science based learning techniques, it is teaching folk tales of the "secretes" of geniuses.

Don't waste your time. This is an embarrassment. I have come to expect far better from Coursera than this.

By ECE A

Dec 29, 2021

Unfortunately I could not find what I was looking for in this course. It was mostly boring and motivating to watch. The language level was decent, I was able to understand almost everything although I am not a native speaker. I could not finish this course since it was boring most of the time and repated itself.

By Horia C

Jun 13, 2016

This is definitely a course for someone that has finished a higher degree. if you've done that, there's a very big change that you already know about 90%-95% of the techniques presented in thous course.

By Vasili K

Oct 5, 2020

Water over water. Just selling the books and personalities.

By Manisha B

Nov 29, 2020

I didn’t get my certificate even after completion

By Sofia A B

Mar 30, 2020

Learning How to Learn has rekindled my passion of teaching and preparing students for tests. As a teacher of Academic English and Test Preparation, motivating students and understanding which methods would work better for them have been quite a struggle. Thanks to this course, I now have more knowledge to share with my learners and also to apply in my own learning path.

This course starts with an explanation of the human brain and thinking patterns, without boring you, yet including the nitty-gritty of the foundations of learning. The analogies used in the videos and by the wonderful teachers in this course have helped me understand complex brain processes in a simplified, comprehensible manner.

The videos include the physiology of the brain and the relevance of sleeping and exercise in forming new learning opportunities for our brain. There are also tons of tips and suggestions in preparing for tests, acquiring new knowledge and retaining information. As the teachers explain, especially Ms. Barb Oakley, thinking you only have certain strengths and weaknesses leads you to thinking that way and not taking any measures to learn what you are not good at – which should be quite the opposite. The teachers guide you step by step through the ideal learning process.

By Elroy L B J

Jun 7, 2020

I wish I had known this before entering College or University. Most of the content feels like common sense in a way that we all knew this and that were the steps that we had to take to learn better. However, this course reinforces the information so well with logic, explanation and passion such that now, there are no excuses I can make to deny that procrastination is something I can understand and avoid. Learning is certainly up to an individual's willpower to consciously plan your schedule, break down goals, stick to your goals, and most importantly, be consistent by taking a day-by-day approach. Never forget to look at the big picture; conversely, don't focus on the product. Enjoy and trust the process. Simply reading a new passage today can go a long way if you step back and realise how far you can go, or you have gone, just by completing 1 simple pomodoro today. Thank you Professors for the enjoyable learning experience. The first step I am taking is to reinforce my learning from this course onto my learning for my academics. Thank you Coursera for making this course free and accessible.

By Diego M

Jan 23, 2021

The course a life-changing and a must! It took me It took me around 1 week and a half to complete it with an average work of 2 hours per day. As a 17-year-old student, residing in a developing country, the knowledge you get is gold, especially for this stage of life. The lectures are effective, fun, and simple to understand. Barbara and Barb are also really kind and transmit much peace. The assignments are very easy if you pay attention to the videos, in this case, I would recommend that they were more challenging or creative to improve the experience. The additional resources are great for people who wanna deepen their knowledge. The information is based on solid, and professional research made by Ph.D. Professors and scientists from American Universities. What is most important, is that the knowledge you get is applicable for every educational area of your life, not only for academic purposes. I will be forever thankful to Barbara Oakley, Barb Oakley, Terry Sejnowski, the LHTL Team, and Coursera for this opportunity. Greetings from Paraguay!

By Sonja L

Jan 1, 2019

As a chronic procrastinator, I usually get work done in the most stressful way possible because I've never found the motivation to get past all the excuses I make for not starting earlier, even after researching so many study techniques and hacks. This course has been amazing in explaining the reasons that commonly praised techniques work in terms of how our brain actually functions. For example, I have heard that revising at longer intervals will help you remember more information. In contrast, Barbara Oakley explains that spaced repetition will consolidate information from your short-term memory into your long-term memory, as the information won't be considered unimportant and erased from your neural networks. Knowing why these techniques work really motivates me to actually use them.I learnt so many new approaches to studying and life in general in LHTL. I highly recommend it as a way to boost productivity, minimise stress and feel better about the process of studying as something to look forward to, now that there's a framework behind it!