Advance Your Career in Teaching. Master strategies and tools to effectively reach and teach students based on leading edge insights

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Barbara Oakley +3 more instructors

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Uncommon Sense Teaching SpecializationDeep Teaching Solutions

Skills you will gain

About this Specialization

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The Uncommon Sense Teaching Specialization is a foundational program that prepares you to teach based on leading-edge insights from neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and movie-making. Your instructors have real-world experience in teaching some of the world’s most popular courses, and they bring their background from academia and beyond, including perspectives that could be obtained only from decades of teaching at virtually every level, personal experience with neurodiversity, adventure from the Bering Sea to the South Pole Station in Antarctica, and much more. This specialization gives invaluable insight for: Teachers—K12, higher ed, adult learning, vocational trainers College students training to be teachers Professors and others who train teachers how to teach Industry trainers Coaches Tutors Parents, caregivers, and homeschoolers The Uncommon Sense Teaching Specialization provides a pathway for you to bring your teaching skillset to a higher level by helping you gain the knowledge and skills to level up your career or strengthen your teaching foundation—whoever you might be teaching. You can take either MOOC 0 or MOOC 1 first, and enjoy MOOC 2 after MOOC 1. Enjoy! Uncommon Sense Teaching Specialization MOOC 0: Teaching Online MOOC 1: Uncommon Sense Teaching MOOC 2: Uncommon Sense Teaching, Part 2

Applied Learning Project

By the end of this specialization, you'll be able to:

Use the animations and illustrations provided in the specialization to develop best practices training sessions for your fellow teachers, and also help your students to learn more deeply and effectively. You'll be a star with the latest insights on learning!
Make or tweak a working lesson plan using the “Learn It – Link It” lesson plans guideline and blank template provided in the specialization. You can use this lesson plan to help remind you of key best practices as you are teaching.
Teach online either "live" or via video with confidence that your methods are not only helping students pay attention, but that you are also helping them to more easily grasp the key ideas.
Use techniques from movie-making to help motivate and inspire students, as well as to encourage your students shift and lift their very identity as learners.

Shareable Certificate

Earn a Certificate upon completion

100% online courses

Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.

Coursera Labs

Includes hands on learning projects.

Learn more about Coursera Labs

Flexible Schedule

Set and maintain flexible deadlines.

Beginner Level

Approximately 3 months to complete

Suggested pace of 4 hours/week

English

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Shareable Certificate

Earn a Certificate upon completion

100% online courses

Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.

Coursera Labs

Includes hands on learning projects.

Learn more about Coursera Labs

Flexible Schedule

Set and maintain flexible deadlines.

Beginner Level

Approximately 3 months to complete

Suggested pace of 4 hours/week

English

Could your company benefit from training employees on in-demand skills?

Try Coursera for Business

See how employees at top companies are mastering in-demand skills

Learn more about Coursera for Business

How the Specialization Works

Take Courses

A Coursera Specialization is a series of courses that helps you master a skill. To begin, enroll in the Specialization directly, or review its courses and choose the one you'd like to start with. When you subscribe to a course that is part of a Specialization, you’re automatically subscribed to the full Specialization. It’s okay to complete just one course — you can pause your learning or end your subscription at any time. Visit your learner dashboard to track your course enrollments and your progress.

Hands-on Project

Every Specialization includes a hands-on project. You'll need to successfully finish the project(s) to complete the Specialization and earn your certificate. If the Specialization includes a separate course for the hands-on project, you'll need to finish each of the other courses before you can start it.

Earn a Certificate

When you finish every course and complete the hands-on project, you'll earn a Certificate that you can share with prospective employers and your professional network.

There are 3 Courses in this Specialization

Course1

Course 1

Uncommon Sense Teaching

4.9

stars

484 ratings

Do your students spend too much (or too little) time learning, with disappointing results? Do they procrastinate in their study because it’s boring and they’re easily distracted? Are you working to make your teaching even more inclusive? Uncommon Sense Teaching will give you practical new insights that will help you solve these goals and challenges, and many more.

This is like no other course on teaching—it weaves late-breaking insights from neuroscience with personal insights from the classroom to provide unexpected, yet practical, new approaches. You’ll discover how to bring out the best from all your students in today’s diverse teaching environment, where students often have a wide range of abilities. Uncommon Sense Teaching will take your teaching to a higher level for whatever subjects you teach, whether math, physics, literature, dance, art, or anything else; and whether you are teaching K-12, university, business, vocational, or at home. Join us today to move into the new era of education!

Course2

Course 2

Uncommon Sense Teaching: Part 2, Building Community and Habits of Learning

4.9

stars

80 ratings

In Part 2 of Uncommon Sense Teaching: Building Community and Habits of Learning, you will explore the following areas more deeply—helping you to connect with the latest insights into research and have fun while you are doing it!

• The hidden strengths of neurodiversity: Dyslexia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism, and other syndromes that relate to learning • The value of forgetting • How to use habits formed by the procedural system to help you with classroom management • Judicious use of rewards to motivate students (too many rewards can de-motivate) • How to avoid educational fads • The power of lesson plans This is like no other course on teaching—it weaves late-breaking insights from neuroscience with personal insights from the classroom to provide unexpected, yet practical, new approaches. You’ll discover how to bring out the best from all your students in today’s diverse teaching environment, where students often have a wide range of abilities. Uncommon Sense Teaching will take your teaching to a higher level for whatever subjects you teach, whether math, physics, literature, dance, art, or anything else; and whether you are teaching K-12, university, business, vocational, or at home. Join us today to move into the new era of education!

Course3

Course 3

Uncommon Sense Teaching: Teaching Online

4.9

stars

13 ratings

In Uncommon Sense Teaching: TEACHING ONLINE we’d like to help you to move toward fresh approaches to online teaching that build on the latest insights from scientific research. We’ll use insights from movie-making—not to mention from odd visual tricks in Barb’s kitchen—to see how students learn, both independently and together. We all know, for example, that social learning is valuable in helping students grapple with tough concepts as well as in making learning more fun. But if you understand what is happening in the brain during social learning, you can also understand why certain approaches commonly used in online learning, such as discussion forums, can sometimes pose a challenge. As you will see, we can use insights from neuroscience not only to motivate our students, but to help them change their very identity.

Our course is designed for university professors, vocational instructors, K-12 teachers, coaches, business trainers, parents, and in fact, anyone who is trying to teach concepts or skills online. We're not just talking about traditional academic materials—if you’ve ever considered teaching a course on Udemy, putting up a video series on YouTube, or launching your own educational blog, this course is also for you. An essential and exciting point is that students can learn even BETTER online than they can in the traditional face-to-face classroom. That’s whether you’re teaching synchronously—that is, live, via a platform like Zoom; or you’re teaching asynchronously—that is, any time—by having videos and other teaching materials accessible to students whenever they want. You can take this course independently from the other two "Uncommon Sense Teaching" courses in this specialization—some of the neuroscience- and cognitive-psychology-based insights we’ll mention here in simple ways are explored more deeply in those other courses. So feel free to take the other two courses in the specialization in conjunction with or after this course. If you’ve already taken the other two courses, you’ll find that this course reviews and extends the practical insights from neuroscience you’ve already received in unexpected new directions. And you’ll find even deeper insights we haven’t covered before. In TEACHING ONLINE you'll be joining a trio of experienced online instructors who have taught millions in some of the world's most popular online courses. One of our deepest goals for this course is to help YOU to teach others to improve their ability to reach and teach students. We’ve loaded the animations and visuals we've developed for this course online in PowerPoints (licensed under Creative Commons) in the assets under the videos, as well as in the resources section. You can rework these PowerPoints as you wish to reteach this material to your colleagues and students. Your sharing and resharing of this material is one of the best things you can do to help us all move teaching and learning forward to a visionary future. YOU are the foundation—children, adults, and society as a whole can leap ahead because of your desire to learn and spread these new ideas!

Instructors

Offered by

Deep Teaching Solutions

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the refund policy?
If you subscribed, you get a 7-day free trial during which you can cancel at no penalty. After that, we don’t give refunds, but you can cancel your subscription at any time. See our full refund policy.
Can I just enroll in a single course?
Yes! To get started, click the course card that interests you and enroll. You can enroll and complete the course to earn a shareable certificate, or you can audit it to view the course materials for free. When you subscribe to a course that is part of a Specialization, you’re automatically subscribed to the full Specialization. Visit your learner dashboard to track your progress.
Is financial aid available?
Yes. In select learning programs, you can apply for financial aid or a scholarship if you can’t afford the enrollment fee. If fin aid or scholarship is available for your learning program selection, you’ll find a link to apply on the description page.
Can I take the course for free?
When you enroll in the course, you get access to all of the courses in the Specialization, and you earn a certificate when you complete the work. If you only want to read and view the course content, you can audit the course for free. If you cannot afford the fee, you can apply for financial aid.
Is this course really 100% online? Do I need to attend any classes in person?
This course is completely online, so there’s no need to show up to a classroom in person. You can access your lectures, readings and assignments anytime and anywhere via the web or your mobile device.
How long does it take to complete the Specialization?
Approximately three months, although you can expedite your way through the specialization in one month with dedicated attention.
What background knowledge is necessary?
We will build your teaching from the ground up. Whatever your experience level in teaching, you will find new and helpful ideas.
Do I need to take the courses in a specific order?
You can take Uncommon Sense Teaching or Uncommon Sense Teaching Online in either order. You should take Uncommon Sense Teaching: Part 2, Building Community and Habits of Learning after taking Uncommon Sense Teaching.
Will I earn university credit for completing the Specialization?
Although you will not earn university credit for completing the Specialization, you may be able to obtain continuing education credits by following the instructions within each of the courses. You will find that this Specialization will give you background information that can help provide a solid foundation for any career involving teaching that you may wish to undertake.
What will I be able to do upon completing the Specialization?
After taking this Specialization, you will be able to more confidently and competently teach individual students, small classes or large classes—either traditional face-to-face or online. We will teach you how to use topics such as retrieval practice, spaced repetition, and carefully curated collaborative approaches that allow students to become better self-learners.

More questions? Visit the Learner Help Center.

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Uncommon Sense Teaching Specialization

Skills you will gain

About this Specialization

Applied Learning Project