
The Most Popular Online Course Teaches You to Learn (2015) - bootload
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/29/the-most-popular-online-course-teaches-you-to-learn/
======
autotune
Can't believe after scrolling through that there's no link to the course in
the article:

[https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-
learn](https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn)

~~~
edtechdev
For the impatient, the author of the course has a nice handout with 10 tips
for good and bad studying:
[http://www.barbaraoakley.com/pdf/10rulesofstudying.pdf](http://www.barbaraoakley.com/pdf/10rulesofstudying.pdf)

~~~
BadassFractal
Thanks for sharing! Is there anything like Anki out there, but it's a SaaS
product and available both on my phone and on the web?

~~~
ferbivore
I don't quite understand your question.

AnkiWeb: [https://ankiweb.net/about](https://ankiweb.net/about)

Android:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ichi2.anki](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ichi2.anki)

iOS: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ankimobile-
flashcards/id3734...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ankimobile-
flashcards/id373493387) ($24.99)

------
camillomiller
My problem with online courses boils down to the "sticking around issue", as I
like to call it. You start, you get mildly bored, most of the time you're too
drained by work to really feel like you're learning.... aaand you drop it.

What's your solution to that? Enrolling into paid courses only? Approaching
courses with a different mindset altogether?

~~~
white-flame
A big problem lies from the MOOC end, not the student end, in unnecessarily
enforcing a schedule and penalizing those who fall behind. That's a huge
detractor to catching up and finishing the course when "life happens".

If I could resume at my own pace, I'd have finished courses that I gave up on.

~~~
solarengineer
+1. I have found myself completing courses when I can choose my pace. There
are times when I am done with project work, and I merrily chomp through a
course or some difficult task during the weekend.

I wonder if this schedule is a carry over from how college courses are run.
Perhaps there are those who need the discipline of a schedule. It'd have been
nice to have a choice between a schedule as well as an "at your pace".

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Eridrus
I don't think measuring completion is a good metric. I don't see the value in
a certificate, so I never buy them. I've taken a lot of courses that I haven't
fully completed and still got a lot of value out of them. Sometimes I get
bored or busy and don't complete them, sometimes I'm only interested in parts,
sometimes I don't want to do a pile of homework on a topic that I'm just
looking for a refresher on.

I think the Kahn academy model is a much better one where you complete things
in much smaller units and can pick up where you left off, but it doesn't
really get into more advanced material.

I see people say there's value in completing the course with others, but I
value the flexibility.

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tonyedgecombe
"The Achilles heel of the MOOC phenomena has been that while enrollments have
been huge, the number of students who actually complete courses for credit has
remained low."

Of course completion is low, there is no cost to signing up so many people
will do it on a whim.

The real Achilles heal is certification, for it to be valued employers need to
be convinced you aren't cheating and that the assessment is rigorous.

~~~
randomdata
Also, I don't care about the entire course. I want the specific information
that is relevant to my problem at hand. I'll be the judge of which lectures
satisfy what I need.

I find it a shame that MOOCs these days are trying to duplicate the brick and
mortar experience, because they really could be offering so much more.

~~~
prawn
I signed up for the course in question - I think it was my first interaction
with a MOOC - and lost interest very quickly. Realistically, I need the
abbreviated version rather than the intro videos and the opportunity to meet
classmates and so on.

Does a MOOC have an interest in creating longer courses that seem like they're
worthy of certification, rather than just teaching people quickly and
effectively?

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billhathaway
I took this course about a year ago and really enjoyed it.

The main things I took away were:

* focused and diffuse thinking - I now take short walks at work if I'm struggling with problems for a bit and often find I come up with an alternative approach when I'm not focusing as tightly

* repetition and recall - I take notes and then create flash cards to force recalling information

Additionally, learning the science behind why you lose information so fast
after a cramming session has been helpful too. I really wish I had learned
this info before attending college, it could have made a big difference for
me.

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jonathanfoster
I'm currently taking this course for the second time. The first time I
enrolled I didn't get around to watching any of the lectures. Luckily, I ran
across a reminder email from the course and it just so happened that I had
enough free time to re-enroll and complete the first week's lectures. It's
really difficult to feel invested when the cost to sign-up is $0. They do try
to create a community around the course, but it's so distributed that I
wouldn't consider it a cohort in the traditional sense.

~~~
fma
What's your feedback on it so far? I saw the course a few weeks back and it
seemed kind of gimmicky so didn't dive deeper.

~~~
sjellis
I finished it a couple of weeks ago, and it's really worthwhile.

It did seem a bit gimmicky and superficial at first, but once the course
progresses, you realize that the material itself heavily applies the
techniques that they describe in the course (e.g. spaced repetition, visual
associations).

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WalterBright
> Do the hardest thing earliest in the day, when you are fresh.

I do the opposite. I do the easiest things first, so I can concentrate on the
harder problems without the easy ones being on my mind.

Also, I just don't work that well in the morning. Later in the day is best for
me for my most difficult tasks.

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henrik_w
I took the course 2 years ago and really enjoyed it. I didn't take a lot of
work, yet the content was relevant and good.

~~~
truth_sentinell
Do you still remember any of the course?

~~~
henrik_w
Not that much. I remember the importance of sleep when you're learning (well
explained in the course), and also spaced repetition and the importance of
recalling the material on your own.

I also remember that the instructors were very good - positive and
enthusiastic, and that they explained the concepts very well.

In general, it's hard to remember contents of courses I think. I often try to
write a review of the course, either as a blog post, or on one of the review
sites (Course Talk or Class Central). The act of deciding what was the most
important parts, and expressing it in words go a long way towards remembering
better.

Examples of reviews:

[https://henrikwarne.com/2015/10/20/coursera-course-review-
so...](https://henrikwarne.com/2015/10/20/coursera-course-review-software-
security/)

[https://www.class-central.com/@henrik/reviews](https://www.class-
central.com/@henrik/reviews)

------
perseusprime11
The article fails to cover that this course is actually short and simple
unlike the other MOOC courses which contributes to the success of this course.
Maybe there is a lesson here for other MOOCs which is make your courses more
byte sized and simple so people can actually complete them instead of putting
your class room course as is online.

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avindroth
I looked into this couple weeks ago; how is the course compared to _Mind for
Numbers_?

------
wdr1
Popularity is an odd way to rank online courses. It really only speaks to what
is the most universal interest, so it's not terribly surprising that's a
course such as this (as opposed to an area of speciality).

------
thr0waway1239
I looked at the article written by Barbara Oakley which was cited in the
current article. [1]

MOOC deniers are asking if they a) adequately satisfy the requirements from
education, an important part of which is the actual completion of the course
and b) are economically viable.

Let us leave aside the question of whether you decide if it is a good idea
whether to gamble at Vegas by talking only to those who hit the jackpot. [6]

Barbara Oakley's defense seems to be:

1\. "Look at how many people can now learn this stuff" [2]

2\. "Look at all the new and amazing things which happen when students can
play, pause, rewind and resume the lesson, or when teachers can use all the
technologies at their disposal" [3].

3\. To fellow instructors: "Please try a little better. The problem might be
the way you teach"

And remember that teaching someone how to learn is not exactly at the same
level of rigor or conceptual difficulty [4] of teaching someone calculus. If
you have ever seen a screencast of some really dense material [5] from some
really smart people and see them struggle to "hold the stack in their head",
so to speak, as they present their thoughts in public view, you know the
process starts becoming seriously challenging as the subject increases in
difficulty. Here are some quotes from Barbara Oakley's articles, which I think
are good examples of things which don't scale very well as the material
becomes more rigorous.

"Good online courses make students feel professors are speaking directly to
them. A teacher’s direct focus on the camera translates as personal attention
in the videos. Students develop a sense of familiarity; we are often seen as
friendly private tutors. It makes us more approachable and “listen-to-able.”
It’s not that we’re replacing teachers in a classroom. It’s that we serve as
additional personalized resources, despite the fact that we’re explaining at
massive scales. And I should mention that every single video lecture I give in
our MOOC is the best lecture on that topic I’ve ever given in my life."

"Terry and I made “Learning How to Learn” for less than $5,000, and largely in
my basement. I had no previous film editing experience—in fact, I could barely
click a camera shutter. Much of the moving imagery for the course was created
using simple PowerPoint slides. So I would issue a challenge to MOOC critics.
Make your own online course. Film the most interesting, most insightful
lecture you’ve ever given in your life. If you don’t think your lecture is
good enough, reshoot it until you’re happy. Make your video available for
millions of students around the world, not just the privileged few in your
classes. Come up with questions for a quiz on the mistakes you most commonly
see in your classes. You will learn more than you know about the outreach and
capabilities of MOOCs. More importantly, you will exemplify a wonderful
openness for learning to students everywhere."

[1] [http://nautil.us/issue/29/scaling/why-virtual-classes-can-
be...](http://nautil.us/issue/29/scaling/why-virtual-classes-can-be-better-
than-real-ones)

[2] "She cited a range of groups who are promoting the course from the
California State Prison System, federal K-12 teacher certificate programs, as
well as refugee camps in Somalia and Sudan, where she asserted that students
threatened to overwhelm the meager Internet bandwidth available in those
countries." \- from original article

[3] "I would venture to say most MOOC deniers have little experience with
creating and teaching online courses. The reality is MOOCs can be artistically
and technically fascinating and can have terrific pedagogical advantages. This
is particularly true in the fraught area of STEM (Science, Technology,
Engineering, Math), where difficult explanations often cry out for a student
to replay a portion of a lecture, or simply to take a pause while
comprehension works its way to consciousness. "

[4] For example, I would like to know how the students assessed the
satisfactory completion of the material to decide whether they are, indeed,
better learners. And then compare it with whether their actual learning rate
improved in their future endeavors.

[5]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfoudtpBV68&list=PL4LJlvG_SD...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfoudtpBV68&list=PL4LJlvG_SDpxQAwZYtwfXcQr7kGnl9W93)

Edits: some edits for readability

[6] I mean this in two senses. One, of course, is the choice of subject, among
thousands of possible ones - something as meta as "Learning how to learn" has
a few built in advantages when it comes to measuring popularity. Two, I don't
mean it in the sense of a skill-less person getting the luck of the draw to
achieve the desired result. I mean in the sense of how there are bound to be a
few jackpot winners in a large enough sample, and studying them is misleading
because the takeaway messages are not universally applicable.

~~~
tamana
Yes, a 4 hour seminar on study skills is more of a supplement than a unit of
progress toward mastering a subject. So? It fills an import gap for students
who didn't learn study skills in traditional school.

Sure, "Most popular MOOC" is a gimmick -- CGPGrey or Veritasium could claim
that any of their YouTube videos are the most popular MOOC.

To really evaluate this course, they should compare students who take this
course plus other, vs students who only take others. (Which has blindness
problems, but it's a start)

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iKenshu
I think this is a good list to take good course, I'll save it only for take a
few.

