“Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime.”—proverb

Now you can learn how to learn from a book! Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens is available in Kindle, paperback, and audio CD.

First, it was a free Massively Open Online Course (MOOC) on Coursera offered by the University of California, San Diego. When I followed the second session in early 2015, it was a four-week course. Each week I watched a series of short lectures by Drs. Barb Oakley and Terry Sejnowski, an educator and a neuroscientist respectively, about the human brain, how it learns, and how I could more easily turn instruction into knowledge.

Then, Coursera turned it into an always-available, self-paced course. Still free and with the same content, you can sign up any time and follow the lectures as your schedule allows.

Since taking the class, I use what I learned in Learning How to Learn every day, and I recommend it to everyone, no matter your age, no matter how smart I think you are already.

Find out how exercise and sleep clean your brain and help make new brain cells (at any age!), how and when to use different modes of thinking to solve problems more easily (did you know there are different modes of thinking?), how to let your subconscious do some of the work for you (that lazy bastard!), and my personal favorite, how to beat procrastination!

Ranked the most popular online course of all time by Online Course Report, at the end of its first year it had over a million students enrolled.

In a 2015 interview for the New York Times, Dr. Sejnowski said the course’s completion rate was more than 20 percent, two times better than the average MOOC.

This week, Drs. Oakley and Sejnowski, with Alistair McConville, released Learning How to Learn in book form, aimed at children aged 10 to 17, parents, and teachers.

In their “Cheery Greetings” newsletter this week, Barb and Terry wrote:

“In some ways, this seemingly simple book goes deeper into how we learn than even our MOOC Learning How to Learn. You’ll find that this is also a great book to read together as a family. And you’ll see that even if your children are in the toddler stage, you’ll get some powerful insights on learning that will help you guide your kids in their learning as they mature.”

For adults who wonder if you've still got it in the attic, take the free self-paced course or get the book. You'll see that your neurons are in better shape than you might think, and you'll learn how to make them even better.

Give yourself a gift of learning you’ll use for the rest of your life; give your kids a gift they’ll use for all of theirs.

Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens by Barbara Oakley, PhD, Terrence Sejnowski, PhD, and Alistair McConville, New York: TarcherPerigee 2018
Kindle | Paperback | Audio CD