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Uncommon Sense Teaching: Part 2, Building Community and Habits of Learning

Deep Teaching Solutions via Coursera

Overview

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In Part 2 of Uncommon Sense Teaching: Building Community and Habits of Learning, you will explore the following areas more deeply—helping you to connect with the latest insights into research and have fun while you are doing it!

• The hidden strengths of neurodiversity: Dyslexia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism, and
other syndromes that relate to learning
• The value of forgetting
• How to use habits formed by the procedural system to help you with classroom management
• Judicious use of rewards to motivate students (too many rewards can de-motivate)
• How to avoid educational fads
• The power of lesson plans

This is like no other course on teaching—it weaves late-breaking insights from neuroscience with personal insights from the classroom to provide unexpected, yet practical, new approaches. You’ll discover how to bring out the best from all your students in today’s diverse teaching environment, where students often have a wide range of abilities.

Uncommon Sense Teaching will take your teaching to a higher level for whatever subjects you teach, whether math, physics, literature, dance, art, or anything else; and whether you are teaching K-12, university, business, vocational, or at home.

Join us today to move into the new era of education!

Syllabus

  • Week 1: Motivation, Stress, and Character Change
    • This week’s materials cover motivation, stress, and character change—vitally important topics for us as teachers. We’ll learn about the importance of surprise in learning—part of what can make good teaching both surprising and rewarding! We’ll also discover why we like to say that “Curiosity is Queen” —and why being taken by surprise can be a very good thing when it comes to learning. We’ll also learn about the “Drama King"—that is, the amygdala—which can underpin some of our subconscious biases. And we’ll begin setting the stage to understand why cramming is so effective. At least, for short periods of time! Neuroscience is uncovering new insights about motivation. This brings us to a seemingly different area—unreachable, unteachable students who can tell you exactly what you want to hear, without any internal motivation for change no matter what you may do to try to motivate them. Perhaps surprisingly—bullying isn’t just a problem for students—it can actually be a problem amongst teachers themselves, with some of the best teachers bearing the brunt of the bullying behavior. But guess what—sometimes our best approach to help students sail successfully through stressful situations in life is to simply do what we teachers are born to do—teach with passion and with heart. All this, and more, in this week’s videos!
  • Week 2: How to Reach and Teach Both Procedural and Declarative Pathways
    • This week, we’ll learn how the brain decides whether to make some mental or physical task conscious or nonconscious—it all depends on how often we do it! We’ll also be sneaking in through both the front and back doors of the brain’s different learning systems. Of course, both declarative and procedural ways of learning can have advantages and drawbacks. But as we’ll see, having information deposited in procedural sets of links can be like having a nicely wrapped package of movements or thoughts that a student's working memory can automatically grab onto, instead of having to think through each tiny movement or thought individually. This can not only speed students’ learning—it can even make classroom management easier. Using the magic of the procedural system, your classroom can run like a well-oiled machine, seemingly without you doing anything!
  • Week 3: Intellectual Humility, Critical Thinking, and Bias
    • This week is full of surprises as we dig deeper into the advantages and disadvantages of faster and slower types of learning. Who knew that those who struggle with their learning—our hikers—can actually be more accurate with what they learn? For them, it can be easier to flexibly accept and change their minds when the data shows they are wrong. On the other hand, our race cars, who can learn faster and remember better, can also find it difficult to accept when they’re wrong. And all this relates in a very deep way, as you’ll see, with our ability to think critically. Join us as we explore all these ideas, and more, in this week’s videos! (And don’t forget, there’s plenty of optional extra info in the readings!)
  • Neurodiversity, Student Groups, and Charting Your Course to the Finish Line!
    • Syndromes such as dyslexia or attention deficit disorder can sometimes exert subtle effects that can make learning more difficult even though no diagnosis has been made. Other times, as with famed director Steven Spielberg and his dyslexia, a student's learning challenges can simply escape detection altogether. For teachers of these students, the best approach is to nurture these students’ ways of learning, rather than forcing them to learn like the majority of other students. Surprisingly often, this involves teaching more toward the procedural system for some students, and more toward the declarative system for others. All of this means that careful planning of your lessons is in order. What do we mean by careful planning? That's the subject of our final videos--we'll give you a template and insights to help guide your activities and allow you to soar in your teaching!

Taught by

Barbara Oakley, Beth Rogowsky and Dr. Terrence Sejnowski

Reviews

4.9 rating, based on 101 Class Central reviews

4.9 rating at Coursera based on 102 ratings

Start your review of Uncommon Sense Teaching: Part 2, Building Community and Habits of Learning

  • This course was brilliant. Perhaps the most exciting new concept was that of dopamine, a hormone presented by the media as the one in charge of pleasure and reward, but within the context of learning. I did feel pleasure while learning this element…
  • Wow! Another great class from a wonderful team. I loved this class! This class goes deeper into the concepts covered in part 1 and covers more material on different learning styles. This class is a must for any teacher/educator and of course any c…
  • Uncommon Sense Teaching Part 2 is a very informative course. Thorough study of the course will give you a more understanding at what is really going on in the brain while we learn. Supported by scientific research, which is also included in the course and also in depth books, scientific articles and a lot of supporting material for a deeper understanding of the subject is available. Excellent learning experience for all diversity of students.
  • Zsuzsanna Kispál-Vitai
    I have done all the MOOCs that were taught by Barabara Oakley. The first one changed my life, was "Learning How To Learn". Uncommon Sense Teaching 1 and 2 gave me more motivation to teach, explanations about how students learn, and how we teachers s…
  • Anonymous
    Though I’ve been an educator for 25 years, I never learned this crucial information about how people and particularly students learn, e.g. the declarative and procedural systems, the role of rewards, what motivates students, the impact of dopamine —…
  • Anonymous
    Wonderful course! It uses science (dopamine, declarative and procedural brain systems, amygdala, etc.) to outline classroom practices (bell ringers, formative assessments, group work, research) and ends with practical tips on lesson planning to include all learners (from race car learners to neuro-atypical learners). It's not only what to do - but how to do it! Quizzes and animations throughout make this delightful to take.
  • Anonymous
    This course, the first I have taken to begin teaching English to students in Spain, has been a totally riveting and eye opening course, beginning to end of the two courses. I have immensely enjoyed learning here, especially based on neuroscience res…
  • Anonymous
    I highly recommend all three courses in the specialisation. This is the second of the three courses. The videos are very easy to follow. The quizzes can be challenging but good for learning. They are easier if you follow through with the IDORecall retrieval practice. The optional readings have plenty of interesting readings to expand your knowledge if desired.
  • Anonymous
    This course expands the neuroscience of learning from course 1. It shows hoe the amygdala influences learning and behavior. The material has direct application to classroom activities at the most basic level. The information on "value function" can be extended to the USA's politics to explain why people favor conspiracy over truth.
  • Suwithida Charungkaittikul
    The session is very useful. It is important to better plan the objectives of each class to meet the learning of students. I love to learn about the assessment process.
  • Anonymous
    I enjoyed the class Uncommon Sense Teaching both parts 1 & 2 . This class is good for caregivers & "Brain Moms" of their children who have been rewired by Neurologist via brain surgeries. This class is fun and silly + I enjoyed logging in to watch the videos and take the quizzes.
  • Anonymous
    Information is clear, easy to understand and learn, and useful!! I can’t wait to start re-engineering my lesson plans.
  • Anonymous
    This course has helped me in recalling what I learned in my teaching studies, and new things as well.
    Thanks a lot.
  • This was a great course! The instructors were great, and they provided information that could be very useful to new teachers as well as seasoned teachers. I loved how the instructors provided examples from their life stories to help illustrate the…
  • Anonymous
    I loved this course as it is jam-packed of insights about how to help our students to learn better and faster. This course contains many details, nuances and practical suggestions on how to plan our lessons in the best way and how to organise teams/…
  • Anonymous
    This course is a must for every teacher. It has valuable Information, tips, insights and the most important, at least for me, is it touches sensitive subjects (like bullying and research biases) and suggests the best solutions from a scientific perspective.
    The references of each lesson are gold.
    And teachers transmit so much enthusiasm that you just want to go back to your class and apply all that you've learnt.
    This is by far, the best teaching course I've ever attended.
    Highly recommended!!
  • I thoroughly enjoyed this course. I have a better understanding of the importance of being purposeful when giving rewards and what activities are constituted as possible "rewards" for students, other than stickers or prizes. I also have a better u…
  • Anonymous
    I really enjoyed and learned a lot in this course. I loved the images in the videos. I think they supported very well the main ideas and key points. I also liked that the explanations were very clear and the vocabulary too. English is not my first l…
  • Anonymous
    This course gives enough knowledge on how the brain works while studying and provides with tools for teachers how to improve lessons. The course is perfectly accompanied by various sources, addtitional materials, presentations, templates and - which…
  • Anonymous
    As a healthcare professional, I really appreciated how the course focused on the neurological aspect of learning and connected or linked it to actionable steps. I also appreciated the emphasis on different types of learners and the challenges of the neurodivergent student. Providing solutions to teach to the student instead of forcing the neurodivergent student to be in a situation that just doesn’t work.

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