The Learning How to Learn team — Barbara Oakley and Terrence Sejnowski — are back with a new course.

With over 1.5 million students, Learning How To Learn (LHTL) is the most popular online course in the world. It is also one of Class Central’s Top 50 MOOCs of all time, and my favorite course. We have been following the course right from the beginning, and we even published an interview with Barbara Oakley before the course went live.

If you read through the hundreds of reviews on Class Central and a number of stories online, you will find many instances of people’s lives being changed by the course.

★★★★★
A very useful course covering concepts behind how to learn effectively and efficiently. Barbara Oakley is a warm and friendly presenter whose videos make a potentially dull subject fun and enjoyable (with the use of zombies, flying mules, etc.).
— review by Class Central user 

I am no exception. Class Central wouldn’t still exist if it wasn’t for Learning How to Learn. I took the course back in August 2014 and was part of the first cohort.

Just a few months earlier, I had quit my day job to work on Class Central full time. But I was struggling with time management, procrastination, and juggling the many hats that I wear at Class Central. It was difficult for me to switch between the different roles on the same day and I usually performed just one business function for a few days before switching to another one. (I.e. I would write code for a few days, then I would switch to marketing for few days, then I’d switch to writing articles for the blog, and so on.)

That’s not how you run a startup. For Class Central to succeed, I needed to switch between these roles in the same day. The tips and tricks that I learned in the LHTL MOOC helped me get over these issues. The course also tells you why these tips and tricks work, and is backed by the latest in neuroscience. The other instructor, Dr. Terrence Sejnowski, is a pioneer in computational neuroscience.

The advice is applicable for high school all the way up to PhD level, and also in your day-to-day life. I personally believe everybody should take this course and, if you are introducing someone to MOOCs for the first time, I recommend you point them towards LHTL.

Related

• The MOOC on Learning How to Learn 
• MOOC vs. Book: Complementary Learning Channels (Part 2 of 3)
• Barbara Oakley Talks at Coursera about Learning How to Learn
• In-Depth Review: Learning How To Learn

Mindshift MOOC

The Mindshift MOOC can be considered a sequel to LHTL. The course, offered via McMaster University, is built around the idea that it’s never too late to learn anything new. This course provides learners with practical insights from science about how to learn and change effectively — even in maturity. The course also mentions Class Central as a recommended resource for finding and deciding which MOOCs to take (yay!).

Like LHTL, which was tied to a book (A Mind for Numbers), the new course also has a book (Mindshift: Break Through Obstacles to Learning and Discover Your Hidden Potential), which launches a week after the course itself launches. The course launches on April 10, while the book launches on April 18. You can pre-order it on Amazon.