This course has opened my eyes to learning and provided me with a solid foundation to rebuild my own learning methods and strategies. I have gained tremendous insight about various forces at play that need to work like a well orchestrated symphony if I am to tackle complex subjects and master learning.

The course is structured very well with short video lectures and sprinkled with quizzes to help you retain invaluable information. Also, there is opportunity for supplemental work to further cement one's newly discovered strengths. The optional reading sections and interviews with various people has further augmented my understanding and sparked ideas for novel applications of learning.

By applying the techniques, I have already started to retain and recall more information than I have ever done before. I have also stopped wasting my time by re-reading material endlessly or writing things down. Instead after learning something new, I pause after each key idea and test myself if I can recall the gist of it and see how it fits with the rest of knowledge mass. This technique alone has unlocked my potential.

I highly recommend this course to anybody. I am super excited for finding something that actually works.

Superb. This is the first MOOC I managed to finish, and now I'm actively exploring all the extra resources and videos from the course.

I originally enrolled looking for tips on how to make my courses more accessible for my students (I'm a college instructor), and also to help me hone my learning skills, since I'm starting to delve on different fields of study. Not only did I achieve those goals, but I'm also very excited to explore new MOOCs and online study possibilities.

The only downside, if one could say such, is that this course sets quite a high bar in how a MOOC should be: one can easily percieve that everything about its format -- from the weekly newsletter to the videos' length and visuals to the structure and syllabus -- is made with careful consideration of the context of online learning, and of the fundamentals of neuroscience the course shares with the students. Many (good!) MOOCs aren't as well tailored as this one.

I absolutely recommend it to anyone who is interested (even if frustrated!) with learning, be it independently, online or in a traditional classroom environment. Congratulations and warm thank yous to Dr. Oakley, Dr. Sejnowski, and the Learning How to Learn Team!

This course is 4 weeks long; Why Do something new for30 days; do this course.

If you've always wanted t be a much better learner , then nows the time: think about it, you've always wanted to add to your learnings in life , advent you? Invest in Meta learning - Learning about learning - for the next 30 days.

30 days is a great time span, it's just about the right amount of time to add this new habit , Learning how to learn, to your life.

Get a hold of the coming month, (theres a course starting right now on 22 march2016), and you can find instead of t 2016 flying by, forgotten, the time invested in March/ April will make everything in 2016 and beyond much more memorable. Your self-confidence as a Learner par excellence will grow exponentially.!

if you really want to be a superlative learner badly enough, you can certainly do this course with dedication & commitment for 30 days.When you make small, sustainable changes, things you keep doing, they are more likely to stick.

So here's my question to you: What are you waiting for? the next 30 days are going to pass anyhow, so why not Choose To be A Skilful Learner, something you have always wanted to do and give it a shot!

I think this is one of the best courses I have attended. I wish concepts taught in this class are taught to every student right from the early age. I am 39 years old and as I look for a job (I was laid off a while back), I feel educating myself by getting certifications would be a good idea to enhance my prospects of exposing myself to better opportunities and with this course I have the self confidence that yes I can learn and get good grades in my certifications.

I was getting bogged down by procrastination to a very large extent in my life and this course helped me deal with the procrastination zombies using pomodoro, this feels so empowering and I am glad I did not choose depression or bad habits. After incorporating the pomodoro technique I have also significantly reduced my 10+ year smoking habit and I am confident I will get rid of it like a champ.

Listening to professors from such esteemed colleges and universities help break the dogma/belief in my head that people are born genius. With hard work, dedication and self-belief anything is possible.

Lastly, I want to thank Barbara Oakley and Terry Sejnowski from the bottom of my heart, Thank you for teaching me about learning.

After signing up for at least half a dozen (probably ~10) MOOCs over the past few years, this is the first course that I have actually followed to completion. Not only is the information relevant to my daily (non-student) life, but it is presented in an engaging and *cough* memorable way. I doubt I will be forgetting about my mental zombies or metabolic vampires anytime soon.

The two most life changing, and I mean that literally, ideas shared in this course were the Pomodoro technique and focusing on "process", not "product". Using these two new methods/ideas I have made significant progress on projects I have been putting off for quite a while.

All of the topics covered were engaging and informative, not to mention useful!

For those who are hesitant to try this course due to lack of free time, I would recommend turning up the video speeds by 25% increments, until you are at a comfortable speed where you still understand the material, but compress your time spent watching the videos. I started at 1.25x, slowly working my way up to the max of 2x by the end of the course.

This is an excellent course covering a critical topic that can improve your daily life, for the rest of your life!

I took this course as part of a programming curriculum, and I was absolutely hesitant to go through so much content. However, I have absolutely no regrets! Be ready to learn a lot about learning, as ironic as that sounds! You will learn some basic science behind the mind and how we learn, and then will be exposed to a lot of different methods you can use to learn whatever you need. The content creators are qualified due to their educational backgrounds and often times mention the studies that support their techniques. I truly believe that everybody would benefit from taking this course no matter where they are in life. The first week of content absolutely blew me away, and made me realize that I was experiencing a lot of what was covered! I thought I didn't need this as I have been through K-12 and some college, but it definitely gave me a reality check. I will admit that I was completely discouraged when I saw that estimated time completion. But I highly recommend setting your video speed to x2! I have tons of notes on my note editing software to accompany everything I've learned, and I will absolutely use what I've learned here for the rest of my life!

This course is helping me solve one of the most pressing problems I am facing as a student which is how to learn on my own in online courses. After searching books, talking with people, and searching the internet, I found this course. While I was aware of some of the material this course offered which aiding in my chunking of the material in this course, the mental techniques which I was not aware of have been very helpful such as chunking in small burst with the Pomodoro Technique and learning multiple subjects in parallel rather than one at a time thus utilizing interleaving, focusing on deepening my understanding of materials I already know a bit about in the form of overlearning, figuring out ways to win against pitfalls in misunderstandings because of prior knowledge or Einstellung, and working against procrastination plus more.

This is a great course that many people can benefit from and I am very grateful for the opportunity to have learned from Dr. Barbara Oakley and Dr. Terrence Sejnowski. As a computer science undergraduate in college, these mental tools are very useful and students of other fields can benefit as well, from humanities to business and beyond.

Learning how to learn is a real thing that complete changed my life and attitude towards many things. It was mentioned that when we are born, our brain is not supplemented by the manual guide. I think this course can be a real manual guide for many of those who have taken this course. It explain the nature of our brain. When we ask plain questions such as why we should go to bed early or why we have to learn every day and shouldn't cram, sometimes we get very vague answers which cannot meet our expectations. After this course, I could totally understand the nature of my brain and my behavior. I could change my patterns and get rid of many bad habits. I am sure that this course could boost me even more. Also after this course I decided to learn Chinese. I have never thought about it, but having been inspired by Barbara Oakley I could make this very unexpected for me choice. Also I have notices that my memory skills somehow became better. I will highly recommend this course to my friends, students and many other curious people.

I would like to thank the University of California, San Diego. and Barbara Oakley for this wonderful course.

Best regards,

Andrew Liberman

This is a wonderful class. The entire team at Learning How to Learn have put together a marvelous course which teaches us how to learn. What I found very helpful was learning that there are things you can do to achieve competence. Becoming a skilled learner is not magic or genetics or esoteric techniques but rather very basic things: putting in time and making it a part of daily living like eating or sleeping, practicing over time and not cramming everything into one day, making the study period consist of varied methods and material, doing self tests, challenging your self by doing hard things to deepen understanding of a topic, recalling material by closing the source or book and trying to make a brief summary statement, using mnemonic methods, analogies, metaphors, visualizations to really help you remember. The most important take-away from this class is that learning requires me to do certain things. If i commit to doing these things, then i can learn anything. Doing a little every day and keeping at it will help you to gain mastery in whatever you wish to learn. Thank you so very much for empowering manny many people by sharing these methods.

This is the first class I had ever taken on the open online classes. I took it to be prepared to take other classes. Honestly, I figured it would be kind of like a reminder class on studying. The Professors are amazing. The have set a high standard for other classes. There was never a dull moment. It was so much fun and I learned so much NEW information but Not only did I learn it but I completely understand why it works. it is great having insight into the brain and how to have it work for you. This is not the standard study skill class at all. The names says it all. I still surprise myself on how enthusiastic I am when I get the opportunity to use the information acquired . It really works . it's like being able to depend on a really good friend. They are always there to help you pull through and won't leave you hanging. My favorite is the Pomodoro technique. if you procrastinate this is the one to help you get stuff done. I have incorporated a lot of what I learned into my daily life. After being in many other classes, I have to say this is the BEST class I have taken. It's the knowledge I use most. Keep up the good work Barb and Terry!!!

I loved this course - the subject-matter was interesting, the instructor was endearing, and the content was incredibly easy-to-grasp, fun and engaging. The retrieval quizzes were well spaced out and super helpful for embedding the new knowledge, and the expert interviews were great as well.

Two potential improvement areas: 1.) The videos featuring Barbara Oakley (which was most of them) are very low-volume. I had turned up my device speakers and the video player volume adjustor to the maximum levels (and tried on multiple devices) but it was really hard to hear some of them without straining, and having to download the transcripts in order to follow along (which meant missed some of her hilarious visuals). No audio issues with the other videos or in my other Coursera classes. 2.) The practice quizzes allow you to see WHAT you got wrong in a given problem (and indicated what the correct choice would have been), and explained WHY it was wrong, but the actual quizzes don't reveal either. This made me feel anxious every time I got a question I'd gotten wrong on a previous quiz, since I didn't know what exactly I'd gotten wrong or why.

Amazing course. Concepts and ideas are explained very clearly and thoroughly, and all study techniques taught in this course are based on scientific facts and research. Furthermore, option videos show us fantastic examples of people who succeded at learning, and they are all very inspiring. I don't think I can explain how much the ideas taught in this course touched me deeply. For years I've been thinking that it was pointless for me to study properly because my memory is not that great and I would forget things in a matter of weeks. Well, Barbara & co. made me realize that the development of my memory and my brain is in my hands (and not only in my genes) and I can actively work in order to improve them. Now, I won't probably get a PhD in Engineering, but I feel that -with the right motivation and study techniques- I can really achieve almost everything I want. It's really a great feeling. Thank you so much for this course. Highly recommended to everyone, but especially to those who feel insecure about their study methods and academic achievements. I wish someone taught me all of this when I was actually a student!

This course is potentially useful to anyone at any age from any background. There are useful tools in this subject matter that can help most any learner learn any subject more easily whether in an academic environment or a non-academic environment. This course is more than a self-help course because the course lays a foundation as to how to learn any subject matter. Because this course is contemporaneously based in scholarly and scientific research, social science, and especially brain science, the learner is benefiting from some of the most recent and sound knowledge available without pedantic complexity. This course takes some very complex knowledge and makes that data easily accessible to most learners such that the learners may become self-actualized. This course can be truly transformative in nature because this course will change a learner's perspective about how to learn anything and change a learner's perspective about one's self. This course is not snake oil. I know because this course has changed how I learn and changed me as a person. In short, this course has positively changed my life.

It's a useful and interesting course for me.

I had graduated from university for several years.The long I graduated the more I felt hard to learn faster and easier.Too much things to make learning planning procrastinated, and I felt fidget, frustrated, and hard to concentrate.

I tried my best to find a solution (I thought).I spent much more time on learning,but that didn't work.Once I thought learning new things was for those who were young or high IQ.

After I learned Learning How to Learn,I found I was terribly wrong.Firstly, the most important thing is,after I use these methods which the course taught,I find self -confidence feel fun and find learning is interesting.No more frustrated,and no more self-denial. Secondly,learning is a life time work,and the brain is ready for it,I just need to know how to make it prepared.

I recommend this course to those who had left school for years,and now who want to learn more.

I also think this course is useful for students to study much better.

Thank you.

(In the end, sorry for those grammar mistakes,English is not my native langue,I studied on my-own.)

Initially I thought this course is going to be boring just by looking at the title of the course, but I was wrong. Dr. Barbara Oakley, one of the key speaker of this course was a humorous person, and I can see how she put efforts into all her content to prepare for a course that goes straight to the point where you can see direct practicality in real life, and also cut downs all the jargons into duh-duh easy to understand languages. I really enjoy my time in learning how to learn from her, and it totally re-shaped my understanding towards test-taking and what is the actual best way to study. I benefited a lot from this course. Let me end with my favourite remark from this course by Dr. Sejnowski, "You have not truly learned something unless you can teach it to others." To Dr. Barbara Oakley and Dr. Sejnowski, thanks for your effort in this course. I enjoyed my time learning from the both of you. To those who are struggling with test-taking, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you to consider this course, and I believe it is going to have a momentum change in how you approach learning and test-taking.

I want to say a special thank you to Dr. Barbara Oakley and Dr. Terrence Sejnowski for this outstanding course on Learning How to Learn. I have plans to put to practice the material from this course and share the key points with friends, students and associates. I am finding myself already reviewing my notes in my head. My next thing to accomplish today is to order the POMODORO Timer the one that looks like an apple. I also have plans to read more of the additional works on Procrastination and Memory. I feel a new sense of purpose after taking this course. Thanks again to Dr. Oakley, Dr. Sejnowski, UC San Diego, Coursera, and all of the folks behind the scenes that helped make this the number one most popular online course in the world. I am wondering what student number I have out of the 2 million who have already successfully completed this course? Is this the end of an era of Learning How to Learn? Just maybe Watson A.I. will become how we learn in the future classroom, or on online or at home. Add VR to the mix and anything is possible. We are living in very exciting times.

Couldn't imagine better introduction into MOOCs and strongly believe this course should be included into formal education curriculum as obligatory and one of the most important ones. That's because it deals with the very basics of education - what learning is, how do the brain do it, what processes are involved and how to use them properly. Understanding this in the first place would make huge improvement to any further learning no matter the skill.

Course could be valuable either for those starting their education (giving them proper tools, changing perspective, etc.) and more advanced learners (backing some of their intuitions with scientific data, dealing with some misconceptions, consolidating and presenting knowledge in well structured way). It's all done in layman terms and thanks to dr. Oakley in a very kind, fun and supportive atmosphere.

Another good indicator that creators practice what they preach is the design of the course itself - videos served in digestible "chunks", funny and attention keeping quizzes, little reviews, etc. Overall - highly recommended.

Hello,

I am an NLP Master from France. I have developped differents skills in learning or life coaching ( Erickson Hypnosis, Neuro Semantics...) Your course is just a very good one. And for free ???? No excuse for anyone who wants to improve its skills about learning how to learn. If You are interested about the functionnal of the Brain that even the best scientist as never talked about until today, I strongly recommand you to read The Hidden Face Of The Brain written By Dominique AUBIER. You have never read something like that. I sware because she reveald what the Brain is for the Traditions and compare the Crown knowledge and the Scientist Knowledge reuniting those both approach that are usually describe as opposite. This books is probably the best TOP interleaving learning you have never read. Thank you so much for what you did. Maybe once a day we will meet. But if we don't you will shall say to all the people you know Cyrille BIKOUTA-MENGA aka WALLO11.37.04 has followed our course. THANK YOU SO MUCH Mrs OAKLEY. Keep going smiling and sharing all your knowledge.

This is by far one of the most rewarding courses I have ever taken! As a psychology major, I really love the way how Dr. Barbara Oakley and Dr. Terrence Sejnowski not only discussed the many useful learning techniques but carefully explained how those methods work neurologically, and I believe understanding the underline neural networks could definitely help us make better use of what we have learned from this course.

My favorite part of this program were actually the optional interviews Dr. Oakley did with many other very accomplished scientists and learners. It was always inspiring getting to know how they learned and what they though would be the best way to learn effectively. Also, I have to admit that the way how this class was presented -- one several-minute video for one small topic -- was in effect quite convenient when I felt the need to review a few concepts. I could simply look at the title of video and recall the points involved in the lecture.

In short, this class was surprisingly rewarding, and I would recommend to anyone who wants to learn better.

This is a great course, I wish I had learned it before or during my university studies and not many years later.

When I started university I had a lot of misconceptions about how to learn in a smart way. High school was pretty easy for me so I never learned how to study hard material, and subsequently I struggled through my years in university. This course is for people who lack the correct learning techniques and habits. Not everyone can force their way through university by sheer brain power - some have more and some have less of it. Understanding how your brain works and how to feed it information the right way, when to give it a rest and which kind of rest, how to leverage your diffused mode of thinking and even how to approach an exam - these are all skills that will help you achieve more, while staying focused and energized.

Even if you're busy, this course is well worth your time, and pretty much all of it can be learned without even looking at the screen, so just download the course and listen to it during your commute or your jogging. Thanks Barbara!

This course ought to be given in Freshman year of High School and again in Freshman Year of College. Dr. Oakley is a wonderful conduit for this information. In week 4 the ADD brain is discussed with examples of what the world considers brilliant men. Amazing to learn why my learning as well as my daughter's has a "delay". I noticed her brain development when she was a baby. Day after day I'd try and teach her a new word or sign language or body shape in play. Days later after I thought okay, I'll wait and try something new, she'd do the thing I was teaching her days before. I did not understand this at all. For me now, I see how and why when information comes into my mind, it scatters and then days later, I feel a knowledge chunk forming. wow. This is something I wish I knew many years before. But it is good now that I learned so much about learning and how to feel positive about how best to use what I have to learn new things. Great course. I believe everyone should be required to take this course early in life... and then refresher later on.

As a chronic procrastinator, I usually get work done in the most stressful way possible because I've never found the motivation to get past all the excuses I make for not starting earlier, even after researching so many study techniques and hacks. This course has been amazing in explaining the reasons that commonly praised techniques work in terms of how our brain actually functions. For example, I have heard that revising at longer intervals will help you remember more information. In contrast, Barbara Oakley explains that spaced repetition will consolidate information from your short-term memory into your long-term memory, as the information won't be considered unimportant and erased from your neural networks. Knowing why these techniques work really motivates me to actually use them.I learnt so many new approaches to studying and life in general in LHTL. I highly recommend it as a way to boost productivity, minimise stress and feel better about the process of studying as something to look forward to, now that there's a framework behind it!

This course is truly life-changing. I took it in order to solidify my studying habits. I started Engineering recently, and since it's (in Canadian schools) quite a math-intensive and very rigorous program, Learning how to Learn seemed like a must-do while I'm not neck-deep in exams and homework. As a current student, and as a learner, this course is definitely something that anyone should do if they want to improve their long-term memory and reduce their time spent on studying to assimilate the same amount of information. In my honest opinion, one of the best parts of this course is that you can easily follow it while on transit. For my part, I would download a week's lessons at a time and listen to them while walking to the bus and while riding it. Of course, I missed some information by not using my focused attention so much, but I had time to do my homework at home and learn how to learn elsewhere. Thank you so much for building this incredible course. Thank you even more for making it free. TL;DR: Take the course.

Gorgeous material, which is from my point of view extremely powerful, valuable, as well as very hands-on oriented. I have liked the way very much, how the material is presented and how nice the key ideas are educated in an easy to remember way. Already during the course I practiced a lot of it in real life, e.g. the memory palace technique to visually deposit items I want to remember. Btw and to be honest, w/o the examples in the videos I wouldn't even have dared to be that freaky, funny and evocative with my own memory images on such ;) The only pity thought coming up into my mind is, that I should have had this knowledge 20 years earlier ! Anyhow, happy event never comes too late. I now switch back to master tough subjects of AI Artificial Intelligence, which is currently part of my lifelong learning, and where I made a little step from to the Learning How to Learn course. I'm sure, I speed there up tremendously. Thanks so much to Barb Oakley, Terry Sejnowski, and the Learning How to Learn Team. Kei, Germany

I first took this course when I was at the height of my frustration over learning Nihongo in Osaka. During that time, I had been studying almost everyday for 11 months. I was constantly reading, reviewing, and answering exercises. I often studied until I was too tired to study any more, and yet I could retain the information only for a while. The way I was studying wasn't working for me, and I wanted to know how I can study and learn more effectively. A month after I started taking this course and applying some of the techniques presented in it, I noticed that I was able to remember more of my Nihongo lessons. I actually spent less time studying, but I think that, with the techniques I was using, I was studying in a smarter, more effective, and more efficient way... I continue to apply these techniques in relevant situations in my life now. I also review this course every once in a while. Each time, I find that I still learn something from it. Thank you so much to everyone who came together to make this course possible!