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“Learning How to Learn,” the most popular course on Coursera

nytimes.com

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Re: “Learning How to Learn,” the most popular course on Coursera

#3

Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14936265 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15084059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15068785 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14930203 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14928598

zero comments. We do get a lot of resubmissions but if there wasn’t a previous discussion, we just wasted our time clicking those links.

Re: “Learning How to Learn,” the most popular course on Coursera

#6
The very first sentence:

> The studio for what is arguably the world’s most successful online course is tucked into a corner of Barb and Phil Oakley’s basement, a converted TV room that smells faintly of cat urine.

I feel embarrassed on the Oakley's behalf. But I'm not a cat owner so maybe a room in one's home smelling (however faintly) of cat urine isn't particularly embarrassing.

Am I unreasonable in thinking that the author is an asshole?

Re: “Learning How to Learn,” the most popular course on Coursera

#9
Took the course. A lot of it is cruft and motivation for the underlying core ideas. The techniques suggested are things many people are already familiar with: recall, deliberate practice, interleaving, spaced repetition, Einstellung, Pomodoro, Feynman Method, Cornell notes or similar (to force recall), exercise regularly, sleep well, focus on concepts not facts (chunking), etc. A composite of these dramatically enhances the learning process.

I can post some of the notes I took on the course if anyone is genuinely curious. The key premise of the course is that the brute force approach people usually take to learning is highly inefficient and ultimately ineffective (you'll forget).

EDIT: Notes https://pastebin.com/JNbGxvpQ

Re: “Learning How to Learn,” the most popular course on Coursera

#10

Is this any good? I've had it in my list of things to check out for a while but I suspect it might just be TED-talk pop-psych voodoo stuff.

No, it's really good. They back up their statements with neuroscience research and give you practical implementation tips.
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