#81: Barbara Oakley — Author of “Uncommon Sense Teaching: Practical Insights in Brain Science to Help Students Learn,” Engineer, Professor at Oakland University, and Fmr. Army Captain

Hundreds of institutions, both online and offline, claim to offer quality educational experiences and expose you to the best learning techniques available.

According to Barbara Oakley, most of these groups are nothing more than scams.

For the past 30 years Barbara has focused all of her research on the relationship between neuroscience and social behavior. Published in outlets such as the National Academy of Sciences, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times, where her work has been called “revolutionary.”

Barbara has had a varied career, starting in the U.S. Army and eventually serving as a Captain stationed in Europe. She then received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, while serving as a translator for ships in the Bering Sea. She then spent a season as the radio operator for South Pole Station Antarctica (where she met her husband), and then “settled down” near Seattle as a control engineer in a laser research and development firm. After a final run at Ford Motors, Barbara began consulting and teaching at Oakland University.

Needless to say, Barbara knows how to master skills quickly and effectively. Her decades of hands-on application and in depth research has been compiled into a number of her books, most recently “Learning How to Learn,” “Learn Like a Pro,” and “Uncommon Sense Teaching.”

We sat down with Barbara to delve deeper into her strategies and research, and what the future of learning could achieve with a new hybrid standard.

So with that…let’s bring it in!