Barbara Oakley, PhD, author portrait
© Rachel Oakley

Barbara Oakley, PhD

Barbara Oakley is a professor of engineering at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, and Ramón y Cajal Distinguished Scholar of Global Digital Learning at McMaster University. Her research involves bioengineering with an emphasis on neuroscience and cognitive psychology. Dr. Oakley teaches two massive open online courses (MOOCs), "Learning How to Learn" (the world’s most popular course) and “Mindshift” (based on this book), alongside legendary neuroscientist Terrence Sejnowski. Dr. Oakley has received many awards for her teaching, including the American Society of Engineering Education's Chester F. Carlson Award for technical innovation in education, the National Science Foundation New Century Scholar Award, and the Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education.
Uncommon Sense Teaching
Learning How to Learn
A Mind for Numbers

Books

Uncommon Sense Teaching
Learning How to Learn
A Mind for Numbers

What Students Will Be Reading: Campus Common Reading Roundup, 2024-25

With the fall semester in full swing, colleges and universities around the country have announced their Common Reading books for the upcoming 2024-25 academic year. We’ve compiled a list of over 340 programs and their title selections from publicly available sources, which you can download here: First-Year Reading 2024-25. We will continue to update this

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2025 Catalog for First-Year & Common Reading

We are delighted to present our new First-Year & Common Reading Catalog for 2025! From award-winning fiction, poetry, memoir, and biography to new books about science, technology, history, student success, the environment, public health, and current events, the titles presented in our common reading catalog will have students not only eagerly flipping through the pages,

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