Chevron Left
Back to Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects

Learner Reviews & Feedback for Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects by Deep Teaching Solutions

4.8
stars
91,192 ratings

About the Course

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 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 can be taken independent of, concurrent with, or prior to, its companion course, Mindshift. (Learning How to Learn is more learning-focused, and Mindshift is more career-focused.) A related course by the same instructors is Uncommon Sense Teaching. To join the fully translated Portuguese version of the course, visit: https://www.coursera.org/learn/aprender To join the fully translated Spanish version of the course, visit: https://www.coursera.org/learn/aprendiendo-a-aprender To join the fully translated Chinese version of the course, visit: https://www.coursera.org/learn/ruhe-xuexi To join the fully translated French version of the course, visit : http://www.coursera.org/learn/apprendre-comment-apprendre...

Top reviews

GY

Jul 14, 2022

A very helpful course, with good content and good presenation. Well worth the time spent working through the lessions. Thanks for spending the time and effort to create the course, Barabara and Terry!

EJ

Aug 25, 2023

This is course is so helpful it will debunk all the false beliefs and the wrong thing that you're doing in your life. It will also help you to understand your brain, that will make you a good learner.

Filter by:

976 - 1000 of 10,000 Reviews for Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects

By Lyn F

Oct 7, 2019

Fantastic. Learned so much, despite having a Masters qualification and written a book. I've found ways to improve my learning and rekindled my love of learning - am really thinking about how to apply to my creative writing, but also it's nudged me back into taking up my Tibetan and Spanish learning again. I've used Pomorodo before, as an academic on a writing retreat, enjoyed it, then forgot about it. This course has confirmed - with me testing it in practice - that it really is an effective technique.

Can't recommend enough.

By Divya

Feb 27, 2016

Dear Dr. Oakley and Dr. Sejnowski ,

I'd like to thank you for all sharing this very well made MOOC with the world.

At the age of 35, I'm gearing up to going back to school o pursue my Master's and this course has got me excited to be studying again.

I love the depth in the topics you've covered, the simple language with which you put across complex medical terms, the humor, the encouragement, the tips, and yes, the zombies.

I will be back in some time to review this course again.

Love and Gratitude,

A STEM MOOC student from India.

By anchal s

Sep 4, 2020

The course shook my mind. First time ever, I thought about my problems as common problems. All the optional videos of such great personalities are insightful. I will never stop learning from Dr. Barbara Oakley and Dr. Terrence Sejnowski.

As a child, I had so many negative scripts that I never tried to do good. While doing the course, the tutors rewired my thinking pattern. I feel normal. I am enthusiastic to apply the knowledge. Also, I never wanted this course to end. It felt right to interact with such wonderful teachers.

By Khaled B

May 6, 2020

This is an absolutely fantastic course in my opinion. I just realized that I have been utilizing extremely bad habits in my studying for so many years. The concepts that I found to be of great help to me are chunking, interleaving, and also the types of human memory (long-term memory, and working memory) as well as how our brains work in relation to procrastination. I highly recommend everyone who is taking the course, to make neat notes for each week, I found this advantageous in retaining much of the content. Peace & love

By Tanzima K

Dec 29, 2015

The course was well designed. I liked the structure of the course. Due to my procrastination problem, I enroll for the coursera courses now and then, but middle of the session I drop out from each of the course. This is the first in Coursera that retained my interest to finish the course. I loved the concept of Pomodoro, Chunking techniques that have been taught in this course. I'm looking forward to apply these techniques not only in my professional career but also in my life-long learning process. Happy learning everyone!

By Abdul H J S

Sep 30, 2020

I'm a dyslexic and ADHD person. You can imagine how much I suffer from learning and memorizing things and I always suffer from studying and making exams and I hate going to school. This course taught me how to overcome my problem in studying and to memorize things easily It makes me more confident with myself. I found myself going thru the material easily and confidently doing the practice exams. I wish I had this course before. I'm 63 years old. Thank you for the marvelous course. I definitely will recommended to my kids

By Johannes G S

Jun 11, 2020

This course was a big learn and life changer. before taking this course I was unable to learn anything due to a not working pituitary. This course learned me how to be able to learn antything. Even better, this course does not only how to learn, but also how to learn very efficient. So now I'm able to follow multiple online courses at a time, thanks to this wonderfull course.

I would strongly recommend this course to everybody, especially to those that have problems with concentration or do not have much time for learning.

By Casey M

Jul 17, 2019

This was such a helpful course! It gave me tactical tools to change my perspective on learning. I'm much more confident in my study skills, and have awesome tools to combat procrastination and ineffective study habits, and build awesome new ones to help me actually hold onto the new knowledge that I'm studying to pursue a career change. Huge thank you to the instructors and Coursera for offering this for free, as well. I will definitely be reading and learning more from Barbara Oakley. 5 stars from a grateful student :)

By Jose B

Jun 1, 2019

I've always had trouble procrastinating on classwork and studying for tests. After taking this course it really gave me some powerful mental tools that I've never known about, my favorite is the Pomodoro technique and focusing on the process rather than the product. This course really has helped me with my procrastination and has actually helped me look forward towards studying. I highly recommend this course to anyone that is looking to fix their procrastination habits and looking for new effective ways to learn subjects.

By Siddhesh V R

Jun 7, 2016

Just Exceptional. The sincerity of both professors to provide us all the learning skills and techniques that helped to become who they are was done in a very skillful and comprehensive manner. I wish I would have found this course a bit earlier so that I could have used it during undergrad, and taken out all those preconceptions away about learning things that I felt would be out of my scope in general. Anyhow, better late than never as I always say. Thank you for this, and looking forward to taking more MOOCs as this one.

By Juan M T

Dec 26, 2015

I highly appreciate having the opportunity of taking this course. The concepts and techniques I have learnt so far have helped me really improved in my University life as a student and in my work as an En glish teacher. I have taken so long to be able to finish it, but I have also taken my time to double check the video-lessons and take notes, so I can better understand. My purpose is to complete the whole course because I do not know what other wonderful experiences are awaiting to be discovered. Thank you very much.

By Gabriel G

Sep 18, 2016

I enjoyed this course very much. Professors are passionate about learning, have a genuine interest in teaching and are cool. You will have a good time taking this course. It's packed with a lot of resources with a lot of useful and interesting information but you will not feel the time pass by if you want to improve your learning skills and want to know more about the whole learning process, which is very interesting. Highly recommended for everyone! What you will learn here is useful in every field for your entire life.

By Candice B

Nov 29, 2015

Learning How to Learn is without a doubt the most pleasant, interesting, and useful online course I've taken to date. Both instructors are engaging and lively, the material is presented in straightforward and clever manners, and it achieves the balance between technical background information and practical techniques.

I would heartily recommend Learning How to Learn to anyone from high school students looking to improve their grades through to adult learners returning to education after an absence and EVERYONE in between.

By MOHAMMAD N E 1

Aug 22, 2020

I have been struggling with my studies since I got admitted into university but couldn't find out where the root of all problems is. Now, I have come to know about how my brain works and how it can be managed to do things. I wish I will be able to apply what I have learned in this course. Believe it, it was worthy of time to waste in such a course that won't help you to earn your payscale directly but it will bring a major mind-shift to believe in yourself when you will get to know where you lacked and what do you need.

By Paul M

Mar 16, 2017

I found this course for my 12-year-old daughter. She is starting to get classes that depend on tests for the grade, and she was really unclear how to study effectively. I decided to take the course also, and my 6-year-old son, who is highly motivated, participated with me. I got some key benefits from the course, particularly the pomodoro technique, which I am using. The side benefit to doing this "as a family" is that it gives us a vocabulary and common experience around which to discuss learning concepts together.

By Trần H B

Nov 13, 2022

This course is fantastic. The professor in this lecture gave me a better insight into the brain's function and how to learn more effectively. I have been watching numerous videos talking about this problem. However, None of these videos is as enjoyable as this course. Spending a whole week, I learned the correct way to activate the two brain modes and interweave them efficiently. Even though it is still sometimes annoying and hard, I hope shortly, I can master this and be able to reap more fruitions in academic thrive.

By 刘晓卉

Jul 6, 2017

Really helpful, while learning the course, I recalled of many words that my teachers told me when I was at school. Such as look at the last few questions (the most difficult ones) first during an exam, and recall what I've learnt after each course, they were really helpful, but back then I couldn't understand very clearly so didn't try hard on them. But now I know, and I become more confident with these 'tricks' and become more willing to control my learning process to make it more efficient and enjoyable.

Thanks a lot.

By Agata K

Aug 23, 2015

This course is amazing! It really explains the topic in depth and you learn a lot from both professors! This course also provides a lot of practical information and you know that it's evidence based. It's definitely worth the time and effort to watch all the videos and I recommend this course to everyone who wants to learn something. More important: This course is mainly focused on academics but it also links the knowledge to everyday learning (skills like cooking great dishes, learn a sport or any other skill really)

By Christian M C

Jan 1, 2025

I am sure that the topics mentioned in this course will be helpful for anybody, in any area of their lives. I love the fact that the course is short and concise, you can see through out the course that Barbara and Dr. Sejnowski truly care about the quality of the material. This course has helped to change my way of learning; I feel like I have made a lot of progress in a short period of time and I am sure I will continue to improve my learning skills. Thank you to all the people involved in the making of this course.

By Wolfram F

Mar 22, 2020

Great info, I also read the book to further interleave the learning. In the future I will definitely use techniques presented in this course. One little point of annoyance, for most of the tests, the multiple choose questions contain very clearly right and very clearly wrong answers. In my opinion this makes the effectiveness of taking those tests much less. I think this is a missed opportunity since this course itself speaks so highly about the value of serious test taking. But overall I'm very happy with the course.

By Dotan F

Jan 27, 2016

I felt it was mainly fun, and I did talked about the principles and interviews I've seen during the course, so I guess something about the course works! :)

Also, It helped me understand some of my behaviors (for good and bad) .

There are a few things that were a bit...well...made me go somewhere else for a while during the course:

1.

It took me a while to get used to the lectures tempo. For me - they are a bit too slow.

2.

In many cases - the answers for the question were long. From time to time - It was really exhausting.

By Ruben P

Feb 24, 2017

Through this course I learned about the mechanics of the learning, techniques for learning better and also how to retain what we learn in our long-term memory.

The course covers a wide range of topics such as procrastination, different thinking models, the importance of physical activity for your brain among many others.

The course has the contribution of experts and scientists from different domains which I believe that contributes for the overall quality of the program.

I highly recommend everyone to take this course!

By Melanie F

Oct 18, 2024

I found this course while looking around what to learn in Coursera and this one has a high rating and interesting topic, since I'm kind of struggling to overcome procrastination lately. But what I learn here is more than just tackling procrastination, it's so amazing to learn about our brain and how to maximize its function. There is also some useful techniques that can be implemented in our daily life. I suggest everyone to take this course because it will give you a new perspective about learning. Try it yourself.

By clementina j p v

Sep 6, 2024

Me gusto mucho, aunque me hubiera gustado muchísimo mas haber tenido este curso disponible cuando estudie la universidad. En términos generales muchos de los consejos los fui adquiriendo a prueba y error durante mi época de estudiante, pero muchos otros conceptos acerca del funcionamiento del cerebro en relación al aprendizaje y consejos mencionados durante el curso me habrían ayudado muchísimo saber que eran correctos en su momento y saber que iba por el camino correcto al probar técnicas diferentes para estudiar

By Geneva A

May 5, 2022

Good afternoon! I am eternally grateful to the authors of the course and all those involved in it. This is the best thing I've learned lately, I wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone. The course is very exciting and useful, it is literally an instruction to the brain. Awesome! Special thanks, Barbara Oakley she is so friendly that it cannot leave you indifferent. Dr. Terrence SejnowskiThank you for your invaluable knowledge. Thank you for helping people from different countries to be kinder and smarter. Thank you!