Learning How to Learn: The Most Popular MOOC of All Time

When MOOCs (Mas­sive Open Online Cours­es) first start­ed mak­ing head­lines in 2012, we read sto­ries about thou­sands of peo­ple enrolling in cours­es on Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence and Com­put­er Sci­ence. Since then, the MOOC providers have dou­bled down on pro­mot­ing tech­ni­cal and util­i­tar­i­an courses–courses that will get stu­dents jobs, and even­tu­al­ly make the MOOC providers mon­ey. Peruse this list of the 50 most pop­u­lar MOOCs of all time, and you’ll seen plen­ty of mar­ket-ori­ent­ed cours­es top­ping the list–e.g., #4) Intro­duc­tion to Finance #3) R Pro­gram­ming, and #2) Machine Learn­ing. But what’s the most pop­u­lar course? Some­thing not entire­ly career-focused. Some­thing not imme­di­ate­ly mon­e­ti­z­able. Some­thing that can ben­e­fit us all. Ladies and gen­tle­men, the #1 course, Learn­ing How to Learn: Pow­er­ful men­tal tools to help you mas­ter tough sub­jects.

Cre­at­ed by Bar­bara Oak­ley (Uni­ver­si­ty of Oak­land) and Ter­ry Sejnows­ki (the Salk Insti­tute), Learn­ing How to Learn uses neu­ro­science to fine-tune our abil­i­ty to learn. And the course is being offered again, start­ing today, through Cours­era. You can enroll here (the course is free) and read what ground the course will cov­er below.

This course gives you easy access to the invalu­able learn­ing tech­niques used by experts in art, music, lit­er­a­ture, math, sci­ence, sports, and many oth­er dis­ci­plines. We’ll learn about the how the brain uses two very dif­fer­ent learn­ing modes and how it encap­su­lates (“chunks”) infor­ma­tion. We’ll also cov­er illu­sions of learn­ing, mem­o­ry tech­niques, deal­ing with pro­cras­ti­na­tion, and best prac­tices shown by research to be most effec­tive in help­ing you mas­ter tough sub­jects. Using these approach­es, no mat­ter what your skill lev­els in top­ics you would like to mas­ter, you can change your think­ing and change your life. If you’re already an expert, this peep under the men­tal hood will give you ideas for: tur­bocharg­ing suc­cess­ful learn­ing, includ­ing counter-intu­itive test-tak­ing tips and insights that will help you make the best use of your time on home­work and prob­lem sets. If you’re strug­gling, you’ll see a struc­tured trea­sure trove of prac­ti­cal tech­niques that walk you through what you need to do to get on track. If you’ve ever want­ed to become bet­ter at any­thing, this course will help serve as your guide.

This course gives you easy access to the invalu­able learn­ing tech­niques used by experts in art, music, lit­er­a­ture, math, sci­ence, sports, and many oth­er dis­ci­plines. We’ll learn about the how the brain uses two very dif­fer­ent learn­ing modes and how it encap­su­lates (“chunks”) infor­ma­tion. We’ll also cov­er illu­sions of learn­ing, mem­o­ry tech­niques, deal­ing with pro­cras­ti­na­tion, and best prac­tices shown by research to be most effec­tive in help­ing you mas­ter tough sub­jects. Using these approach­es, no mat­ter what your skill lev­els in top­ics you would like to mas­ter, you can change your think­ing and change your life. If you’re already an expert, this peep under the men­tal hood will give you ideas for: tur­bocharg­ing suc­cess­ful learn­ing, includ­ing counter-intu­itive test-tak­ing tips and insights that will help you make the best use of your time on home­work and prob­lem sets. If you’re strug­gling, you’ll see a struc­tured trea­sure trove of prac­ti­cal tech­niques that walk you through what you need to do to get on track. If you’ve ever want­ed to become bet­ter at any­thing, this course will help serve as your guide.

To find reviews of Learn­ing How to Learn, vis­it Class Cen­tral. To keep tabs on new MOOCs, see our list of MOOCs from Great Uni­ver­si­ties.

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