Engineering professor and bestselling author Barbara Oakley, PhD, with neuroscientist Terrence Sejnowski, PhD, bring us a handbook for Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All your Time Studying. This guide is all you need to tackle your least favorite subject in school or take on that class you’ve been dreading. The authors, also co-instructors of the wildly popular online courses “A Mind for Numbers” and “Mindshift,” share techniques that train our brains to take on the hard stuff. Written for students from grade school to high school, Learning How to Learn breaks down the science of how our brains process and recall information and reveals how to make the most of our studying time.

00:15   Barbara Oakley, author of Learning How to Learn

00:30   Book aimed at the younger set but valuable for all ages

00:55   Oakley teaches the world’s most popular MOOC (massive open online course)

02:05   Shares her story of being a “lopsided learner”

02:30   Liked books but hated math; chalked it up to not having “the math gene”

03:20   Joins Army to study Russian at the Defense Language Institute

03:30   Becomes a Signal Core Officer with no experience in technology

04:50   Learns remedial algebra and eventually becomes a professor of electrical engineering

05:20   “It’s really possible to change your brain!”

06:20   Becoming proficient in video games can improve attention and focus

08:00   Video games (approved by FDA for older adults) improves metabolism

09:20   Small short-term memory improves creativity

11:20   Poor working memory forces us to simplify and compress information

12:45   Taking breaks from learning

13:15   Procrastination common worldwide

13:40   Having to learn something unpleasant activates pain center of the brain

14:00   Using the “Pomodoro” study technique to alternate learning with rewards

15:00   Learning modes: focus vs. diffuse

17:00   Learning new things keeps mind supple and open

17:55   Reading means we always have something to talk about, a way to find commonalities

18:20   Oakley lunches with Cormac McCarthy (Pulitzer author, genius, and true polymath)

19:20   Learning more gives us overlays for what we already know

19:55   Some anxiety accompanying test-taking can be helpful

20:25   Two reasons tests can cause anxiety

22:15   How to move material from the page to our brains (long-term memory)

22:35   The key to good test performance: active practice (recall from our own brains)

24:00   Oakley defines “active learning”

26:00   What’s the best kind of recall practice?

27:15   “Picture Walk”: paging through chapter subheadings & pictures to get a framework

29:30   Forty percent of our brain is visual

30:15   Westerners tend to struggle with math; Easterners tend to struggle with language

30:45   Practice using a variety of methods to build up neural circuits

31:35   Are there any shortcuts to practicing?

33:00   “Eat your frogs first,” a test-taking strategy for attacking hardest problems

36:50   Not getting enough sleep will negate all other efforts to learn

38:15   Sleeping allows brain cells to shrink and have toxins washed away

39:15   Recommendation: Coursera (100% online learning from the world’s best universities and companies); AKA: “MOOCs” – massive open online courses 

BUY Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens

For free online learning in almost any subject, check out Coursera.

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