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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

#101
post #96
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…

Sorry, you are just familiar if you already are curious about the subject (like I am). I assure you that the normal human beings don't know about it at all.

Yea didn't phrase that correctly. What I really meant was it's largely the standard stuff you come across if you spend a handful of hours browsing on the subject. But there is a convenience in having it all in one place and extra assurance in seeing it validated with actual research (Dr. Oakley is especially good at collating relevant academic papers/articles).

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

#102
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the most popular course on Coursera because it's ~3 hours of lectures and ~3 hours of study and it seems to be advertised for everyone who logs on to Coursera. Andrew Ng's Course is 11 weeks and it's about ~5 hours a week and on top of that you'd really want to be quite able at High School Maths and have some programming background.

Easiness of the course is could be a big factor in it's popularity. A simpler explanation :).

I liked siens comment for the detail though.

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

#103

Am I the only one who thinks this is a cynical ploy to tap into the anxieties people have about not being successful?

I took the course. I love learning and have been learning new things for decades and thought my techniques were pretty good. I'm a very fast learner. The course helped me more than I was expecting and my learning speed and ability to memorize noticeably improved. Especially with the foreign language I'm studying. And the theories around how the brain works were interesting. You're probably being a little cynical. ;-)

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

#104

For those who read her book and did the course, is there anything in the course that isn't covered by the book? what's the advantage of the course over the book? As a side note, I have found that the most powerful technique for me is recalling.

If you just wanted the information, you could stick with the book since it goes into greater depth about the learning method.

The one thing I really like about the course were the interviews where the interviewees (such as Cal Newport and the 1 year MIT degree guy) went into great depth on their focus methods.

I also liked the assignments since the scorers gave helpful feedback although I don't know what it's like now with the changes coursera has gone through since I took this class.

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

#105
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…

Chunking is most definitely not "focus on concept not facts."

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

#106

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.

This is a zero-bullshit course. I completed it in about a week an a half (definitely not a lot of work) and it's drastically changed the way I look at learning and my perspective about the difficulty of earning new skills. My pace on reading programming books for instance has gone down such that it takes about 2-3 times it would normally take to go through the material, however the difference is unmistakable with res…

Can confirm. I'm a fast learner, and this course made noticeable improvements in my learning speed and ability to memorize.

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

#107
I'll report in too. I took the course and thought it was excellent. I love learning and have been learning new things for decades and thought my techniques were pretty good. I'm a very fast learner. The course helped me more than I was expecting and my learning speed and ability to memorize noticeably improved. Especially with the foreign language I'm studying. And the theories around how the brain works were interesting. And it's a pretty short course.

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

#109
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…

Chunking is most definitely not "focus on concept not facts."

Yes, that was misstated. What I meant was that chunking is a realization of the principle of focusing on concepts instead of facts since chunks are the residual output of knowledge acquisition that actually sticks in the long term.
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