In Uncommon Sense Teaching: TEACHING ONLINE we’d like to help you to move toward fresh approaches to online teaching that build on the latest insights from scientific research. We’ll use insights from movie-making—not to mention from odd visual tricks in Barb’s kitchen—to see how students learn, both independently and together. We all know, for example, that social learning is valuable in helping students grapple with tough concepts as well as in making learning more fun. But if you understand what is happening in the brain during social learning, you can also understand why certain approaches commonly used in online learning, such as discussion forums, can sometimes pose a challenge. As you will see, we can use insights from neuroscience not only to motivate our students, but to help them change their very identity.
Our course is designed for university professors, vocational instructors, K-12 teachers, coaches, business trainers, parents, and in fact, anyone who is trying to teach concepts or skills online. We're not just talking about traditional academic materials—if you’ve ever considered teaching a course on Udemy, putting up a video series on YouTube, or launching your own educational blog, this course is also for you. An essential and exciting point is that students can learn even BETTER online than they can in the traditional face-to-face classroom. That’s whether you’re teaching synchronously—that is, live, via a platform like Zoom; or you’re teaching asynchronously—that is, any time—by having videos and other teaching materials accessible to students whenever they want.
You can take this course independently from the other two "Uncommon Sense Teaching" courses in this specialization—some of the neuroscience- and cognitive-psychology-based insights we’ll mention here in simple ways are explored more deeply in those other courses. So feel free to take the other two courses in the specialization in conjunction with or after this course. If you’ve already taken the other two courses, you’ll find that this course reviews and extends the practical insights from neuroscience you’ve already received in unexpected new directions. And you’ll find even deeper insights we haven’t covered before.
In TEACHING ONLINE you'll be joining a trio of experienced online instructors who have taught millions in some of the world's most popular online courses. One of our deepest goals for this course is to help YOU to teach others to improve their ability to reach and teach students. We’ve loaded the animations and visuals we've developed for this course online in PowerPoints (licensed under Creative Commons) in the assets under the videos, as well as in the resources section. You can rework these PowerPoints as you wish to reteach this material to your colleagues and students. Your sharing and resharing of this material is one of the best things you can do to help us all move teaching and learning forward to a visionary future. YOU are the foundation—children, adults, and society as a whole can leap ahead because of your desire to learn and spread these new ideas!
Overview
Syllabus
- Schemas, Motivation, and Teaching Online
- A major challenge in teaching—especially teaching online—is how to motivate your students. This week, we’ll introduce the concept of schemas—those frameworks in long-term memory that help form our very identities. As we’ll see, increasing our motivation can involve changing our identities—a process that good online teaching can spur. What is good online teaching? It’s teaching that avoids “checkbox” approaches that seem to satisfy all the requirements, but in reality, produce poor online learning experiences for students. There are many paths past these challenges—dive into the details with us in this week’s videos!
- Popcorn Time! Lessons from the Neuroscience of Movie Watching
- Habits form a surprisingly important role in our online teaching. This means we can learn of simple practices for good online teaching—yet ignore them when it comes time to actually implement them. But as we explore this week, there are ways around this challenge. We will also explore how slightly different camera settings and angles, lighting, and above all, sound quality, can have a surprisingly beneficial effect on our students. Finally, we’ll take a plunge into what movies can tell us about how to teach effectively online. As we will discover, theoretical techniques that can work well in traditional classrooms don’t necessarily transfer to the online world!
- Retrieval & Spaced Repetition in Online Learning
- Today’s online learners have no time to waste. How can you ensure that students learn as deeply and well as possible, in minimal time? That’s the focus of this week’s videos. We’ll dive into specific popular applications that can enhance students’ ability to retain the material—and also help you see at a glance how well your students are understanding what you are teaching while you are teaching. Our octopus and flocks of birds will also be at hand as metaphors that can help us understand, in surprising ways, how key concepts come together in the brain. As we’ll see, online teaching can give us a great platform to encapsulate key concepts by turning them into tight events that are easier to retrieve.
- Preparing Now and for the Future through Great Online Teaching
- One of the great features of the online environment is that it allows you to use simple attentional tricks that are virtually impossible to do in real life. And your friendly moving image on the screen can provide for a social partnership that becomes very real—and very encouraging—for students. This can happen even when you have classes so large that you don’t have the ability to interact individually with your students. But, perhaps surprisingly, attention isn’t ALWAYS important—creativity thrives when attention wanders. There are specific tricks in the online environment to encourage this. Learning also thrives when students can interact with one another—not only because of the exchange of mental models and of schemas, but also due to interaction with familiar faces who share eye gaze. As you’ll see, this gives us important insights related to online discussion forums. Finally, we will learn how learning itself changes the brain in therapeutic, uplifting ways. This means online teaching can provide resilience for societies through good times and bad. All this and more in our final week of Teaching Online!
Taught by
Barbara Oakley, David Joyner and Dr. Terrence Sejnowski
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Reviews
4.9 rating, based on 52 Class Central reviews
5 rating at Coursera based on 50 ratings
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Another top-notch course by Deep Teaching Solutions that explains how to make excellent online courses and practices what it preaches both with examples and the science to back up the statements.
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Hello, world! I've captured some of the key quotes and takeaways from completing this course that I found most helpful: "The more we learn, the easier it is to learn more. But this also means that in the beginning, when we know very little, learni…
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A great class taught by a great team of teachers! The final one in the series --- is very informative for anyone intending to teach online. All three instructors are some of the best on the MOOC. This a must-take class for any teacher, as well a…
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I learned a lot of helpful things and there are definitely things I will do differently as a result. That said, sometimes it felt like the class, quizzes, and tests got a little too jargony, which to me seems to violate some of the principles of th…
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"Uncommon Sense Teaching: Teaching Online" on Coursera provides a practical and insightful approach to effective online teaching. The course offers clear, research-backed strategies for engaging students and enhancing learning experiences. It covers essential topics such as creating impactful content, utilizing technology effectively, and fostering interaction. The emphasis on adaptable techniques and real-world application ensures that instructors can implement the concepts immediately. With engaging content and actionable advice, this course is a valuable resource for educators aiming to refine their online teaching skills and improve student outcomes. Highly recommended for those seeking practical solutions for virtual classrooms.
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This course provides a comprehensive guide of online teaching strategies that enhance, engage, and motivate students in a virtual setting along with the technological requirements to do so effectively. The AI tools used to increase understanding and further explain the concepts and application are outstanding for deep learning. I highly recommend this course, especially for instructors who are accustomed to teaching in a classroom setting—to be successful, you need this transitional knowledge and an understanding of how effective online learning differs from in person teaching.
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This course is very inspiring and easy to follow. The professors (instructors) explain the concepts from neuroscience and online teaching in a very vivid and engaging way. Both novice and expert from neuroscience, education, and some other unrelated fields will find it helpful to refresh their minds and strategies for coping with online learning by completing this course on Coursera!
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I have taken all courses by Barbara Oakley. From Learning How To Learn to this one. All of them are great; they changed my life. I am a university - now- professor and these courses helped me to stay motivated, enjoy teaching, and see the world of e…
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This is a wonderful, engaging course that provides the latest evidence-based techniques that are effective in online teaching. My only wish is that the teachers elaborate more on how retrieval practice, and other approaches are applied in specific examples in their courses.
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The course presents interesting and useful ideas in simple and (good) repetitive ways so that the learning 'sticks'. An excellent way to see and to experience what good online teaching and learning should look like (as well as learning in general). Highly recommend it!
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A great course with everything to feel confident about online teaching ! I had a great experience and just couldn't stop watching a new video. That's how I want my students to feel about my courses ! Fingers crossed...
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This is a wonderful course for anyone looking to improve their online teaching skills. I am already implementing the many tips and practices taught in the course, and I can say that they have helped me a lot.
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Excellent course both if you want to teach online and if you just enjoy watching Barbara Oakley and their team explaining valuable teaching and learning information and experiences.
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Great course with very practical pieces of advice, a bit of humor and clear chunks of information. I admire Barbara Oakley and how cool she is in different teams!
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It changed how I see the world, to be honest. It gave me a wider perspective about learners and teachers.
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A very effective and memorable course (that is, I remember clearly everything covered!). It has me thinking a lot about the way I work and the way I train colleagues.
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This course had a 5-star rating and was in line with what I was looking for, which triggered my action to sign up for this course. I have finished two in this specialization but have no strength left to take the final third......
I have ADHD. This course was a real struggle - the voices, costumes, gestures, and graphics made it almost impossible for me to focus. It was an ongoing overstimulation. I ended up reading the transcript with sound/video turned off. I can say that the video production was not for me, but the reading materials at the end of each module are fantastic, and so is the objective behind this course, unfortunately, I can't give more than 3-stars -
Most complex behavioural changes capsuled in mini digestible doses. I always rely on my very first comment that comes to my mind , which best suits my feelings and emotional state at the end of some doped learning activity However when they say "at…
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This course provides an excellent introduction to how we learn, and ways in which that knowledge can be translated into good online teaching practice. The course also provides excellent tips and recommendations for novice online teachers to create the most accessible and effective content for their students. Overall, it was very informative and helpful.
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A very valuable course from an enthusiastic team of practicing teachers with tons of experience. To me, as a teacher with 20+ ears of experience, it helped to look at what I do and what colelagues do with a fresh eye. I received a valuadle support to my understanding of teaching and learning that I get from my experience, and also helped me realize why some things do not work, even though they are commonly implemented even by large educational institutions. Generally, now I feel very much refreshed and grounded in the most modern knowledge. And, in complete accordance with the information in the course, my mood has dramatically improved - all because some new neurons have popped up)))
