IHERD Learning How to Learn Seminar with Prof. Barbara OAKLEY - How Your Brain Really Learns: Practical Strategies for Students

Abstract

Most students work hard and still underperform—not because they lack ability or effort, but because nobody has ever taught them how their brain actually learns. In this seminar, Prof. Barbara OAKLEY, creator of one of the world's most popular online courses, reveals the neuroscience behind durable learning and why the study habits most students rely on are precisely the wrong ones.

The brain builds lasting knowledge through two interlocking systems—one conscious and deliberate, the other automatic and intuitive—and real expertise requires moving fluidly between them. Prof. Oakley shows how retrieval practice and spaced repetition exploit the biology of memory consolidation; how toggling between focused concentration and diffuse thinking is essential for creativity and problem-solving; how dopamine and curiosity are not just motivational but neurologically foundational to learning; and why procrastination is a brain phenomenon with a simple, evidence-based fix.

Students leave with a concrete toolkit they can apply to any subject immediately—strategies grounded not in self-help intuition but in what neuroscience actually tells us about how expertise is built.

Watch Prof. Oakley's TED Talk on “Learning How to Learn”

Extended Speaker’s Biography

Prof. Barbara OAKLEY is a Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan; Michigan's Distinguished Professor of the Year; winner of the 2023 Harold McGraw Prize in Education; and Coursera's inaugural "Innovation Instructor." Her work focuses on the complex relationship between neuroscience and social behavior. Prof. Oakley's research has been described as "revolutionary" in the Wall Street Journal. She is a New York Times best-selling author who has published in outlets as varied as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. Her book A Mind for Numbers, on effective learning in STEM disciplines, has sold over a million copies worldwide; Uncommon Sense Teaching is a critically praised guide to teaching based on insights from neuroscience. Prof. Oakley has won numerous teaching awards, including the American Society of Engineering Education's Chester F. Carlson Award for technical innovation in engineering education and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers William E. Sayle II Award for Achievement in Education. Together with Terrence Sejnowski, the Francis Crick Professor at the Salk Institute, she co-teaches Coursera's "Learning How to Learn," one of the world's most popular massive open online courses with over five million registered students, along with a number of other leading MOOCs.

Prof. Oakley recently completed a Senior Fellowship with The New Zealand Initiative, studying the effects of constructivist educational approaches on student outcomes, and her current research draws on case studies from education systems across Asia and beyond. Her paper "The Memory Paradox," co-authored with Terrence Sejnowski, has received over 23,000 downloads prior to its pending publication in Springer Nature's "The Artificial Intelligence Revolution."

Prof. Oakley has adventured widely through her lifetime. She rose from the ranks of Private to Captain in the U.S. Army, during which time she was recognized as a Distinguished Military Scholar. She also worked as a communications expert at the South Pole Station in Antarctica, and has served as a Russian translator on board Soviet trawlers on the Bering Sea. Prof. Oakley is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.