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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

#71

Post by jamestimmins »

jamestimmins wrote: post #70
baby wrote: post #53

I haven't followed a course on Coursera since the first iteration of Crypto I. I heard that it became really bad, asking you to pay for a lot of courses.

I'd counter this mindset by saying that OF COURSE they ask you to pay. In my experience they've provided extremely high quality educational material, and even while paying its a fantastic deal. I especially liked the algorithms course by Tim Roughgarden. It's one thing to say that their lectures are objectively bad, but quite another to argue that asking for payment in return for a service is itself a bad thing. I pe…

If you're concerned with the quality of the courses prior to paying, I recommend googling for blog posts about different courses, and checking out sites like class-central for student reviews.

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

#72

Post by jamestimmins »

davidgrenier wrote: post #46
b_emery wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you read through the books more slowly, practicing, and recalling the material? Can you elaborate on your process now?

I work several subjects in parallel (three books currently). I go through each chapter twice. Once to understand the material then moving on to another book. When I come back to the former book I go through the chapter again creating Anki cards for anything notable. The sheer amount of material I notice I had completely forgotten on the second reading is astounding. I go through the Anki cards daily, in the morning I…

Can you elaborate on why it's valuable to go through different books in parallel? My goal has always been to do one thing at a time, so the idea that the opposite if beneficial is interesting.

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

#73

Post by pavanred »

cholantesh wrote: post #38
aeorgnoieang wrote: post #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…

From a brief perusal of the article, there doesn't appear to be much point to the sentence you quote. It's irrelevant at best and, yes, rude at worst. I'm a cat owner; if I or any of my cat owning peers were told our homes smelled, we would be embarrassed.

Honest question. If it really smelt, would you still be offended? I am genuinely curious. I watched Bill Burr stand up comedy routine recently and he touches upon a similar topic. Though its comedy, I thought he made a good point - shame is a valid human emotion, why are we as a society so against feeling it, even when it is justified.

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

#74

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

leggomylibro wrote: post #56
baby wrote: post #53

I haven't followed a course on Coursera since the first iteration of Crypto I. I heard that it became really bad, asking you to pay for a lot of courses.

You heard right, it is really bad. REALLY bad. They don't even audit the courses they sell to see if they work. I've seen blatantly missing material, completely bricked dev environments, assignments with rubrics that don't match up with their grading criteria, repositories with several errors in code marked, 'DO NOT EDIT', the list goes on. Rough stuff. Look elsewhere for online courses. Coursera is all about pushing…

I suppose it depends on the course. I have really fond memories of the "Chinese for Beginners" and "More Chinese for Beginners" courses from Peking university I took on Coursera. They managed to engage me, I really enjoyed the teaching style and I learned a lot in relation to the time spent, it was probably the most efficient Chinese learning method I've taken.

Then I went into a course in edX and the website was way better, the platform was miles ahead, the forums were better, the video player was amazing with the ability to change video speed and add subtitles, etc... but I dropped out in like two weeks!

Now this post has motivated me to look again in Coursera and there are two specializations for Chinese that didn't exist before, one from Peking University (with different teachers to the one I remember) and another from Shanghai Jiao Tong... I'm going to choose one and give it a try :)

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

#75

Post by Cyph0n »

leggomylibro wrote: post #54
vira28 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the notes. I did first week and honestly felt it was too slow and somewhat discontinued. I am going to read your notes :)

That's about how I feel about most of Coursera's offerings. Check out some other MOOC providers, there are other players like EdX, Udacity, Udemy. I've had good results with EdX, but my one positive experience with them ('Introduction to Biology - The Secret of Life') is much more anecdotal than my multiple very poor experiences with Coursera. It's gotten me excited about the potential of online classes again, though…

Thanks for the recommendation! I've been interested in getting reviewing some basic biology and never really thought about looking for a MOOC..

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

#76

Post by eli_gottlieb »

sp527 wrote: post #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 enhan…

Actually, I find the course rather helpful. See, I coasted through undergrad and even some of my MSc on just being smart and doing homework and stuff. Deliberate techniques for studying were never anything I learned, and I sure as hell need them now.

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

#77

Post by davidgrenier »

jamestimmins wrote: post #72
davidgrenier wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work several subjects in parallel (three books currently). I go through each chapter twice. Once to understand the material then moving on to another book. When I come back to the former book I go through the chapter again creating Anki cards for anything notable. The sheer amount of material I notice I had completely forgotten on the second reading is astounding. I go through the Anki cards daily, in the morning I…

Can you elaborate on why it's valuable to go through different books in parallel? My goal has always been to do one thing at a time, so the idea that the opposite if beneficial is interesting.

The course emphasizes how memory works, you would think that to remember things you have to write the information well-enough in it so it sticks. But in reality, the information has been there the first time around the issue for the brain is finding the information like locating a product in a large warehouse.

It is the process of recall that makes things stick to memory as opposed to repeated memorization. Working on several subjects at a time spaces out sessions and prevents the illusion that you have access to the knowledge you worked for when in fact you don't.

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

#78

Post by cpsempek »

I find this interesting for two reasons.

I think I recall that not too long ago, the most popular course on coursera was Ng's ML course. It is ironic that people are now more interested in teaching oneself how to learn versus a machine. This change could be attributed to other reasons like change in user demographics, or, market saturation, so that naturally popular courses will change once a large majority moves from one to the next. But I want to believe there is a more interesting phenomenon occurring where reading about abstract notions of learning causes a person to question how they themselves learn, and if the same abstract concepts apply. This is more a whimsical thought, than a serious one.

The second reason this is interesting is it could be surfacing a real issue with the way we have become accustomed to ingesting data. Could it be that we are becoming aware and fearful that the long term effects of suckling the internet's spout of instant gratification is causing serious harm to our ability to "actually learn".

Neither may be the case, but it seems like there is something interesting going on here.

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

#80

Post by glitcher »

pavanred wrote: post #73
cholantesh wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a brief perusal of the article, there doesn't appear to be much point to the sentence you quote. It's irrelevant at best and, yes, rude at worst. I'm a cat owner; if I or any of my cat owning peers were told our homes smelled, we would be embarrassed.

Honest question. If it really smelt, would you still be offended? I am genuinely curious. I watched Bill Burr stand up comedy routine recently and he touches upon a similar topic. Though its comedy, I thought he made a good point - shame is a valid human emotion, why are we as a society so against feeling it, even when it is justified.

Define "valid" human emotion. And after feeling shame or embarrassment, if someone then transitions to feeling offended, is that somehow not a valid emotion?

I can see Bill Burr's angle - just own up to what's yours, be honest about your own shortcomings and move on with life. But everyone handles negative emotions differently, often in spectacularly unproductive and defensive ways. Which might help explain the abundance of stand-up comedian talent in the world today :P

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