What it argues
Learn Like a Pro is a concise, evidence-based guide to studying more effectively, written by Barbara Oakley — the engineer-turned-neuroscientist best known for A Mind for Numbers and the Coursera course "Learning How to Learn" — and Olav Schewe, a student learning consultant. The book distills cognitive science research on learning into practical techniques that most students and self-directed learners are not using, despite their superiority to common study habits.
The central argument is that many widely practiced study approaches — rereading, highlighting, massed practice ("cramming") — are both comfortable and ineffective. The brain learns through challenge and retrieval, not passive exposure. The two most important techniques the book advocates are retrieval practice (testing yourself on material rather than re-exposing yourself to it) and spaced repetition (spreading study sessions over time rather than massing them before a deadline). Both are supported by decades of research and are consistently underused.
What it gets right
- 1.
Retrieval practice — testing yourself on material — produces stronger memory than rereading the same material. The effort of retrieval is what builds the memory.
- 2.
Spaced repetition beats massed practice. Studying material across multiple sessions with gaps produces far more durable memory than cramming before a single deadline.
- 3.
Rereading and highlighting feel productive but generate an illusion of fluency. If you can recognize the answer when you see it, that is not the same as being able to produce it.
What it covers
Who wrote it
Barbara Oakley is a professor of engineering at Oakland University in Michigan and a Distinguished Professor of Online Learning at Créighton University. Her earlier book A Mind for Numbers and its associated Coursera course "Learning How to Learn" have been taken by millions of students worldwide. She came to engineering late, having initially struggled severely with mathematics, which grounds her practical approach to learning science. Olav Schewe is a Norwegian student learning consultant and cofounder of a learning technology company. Together they teach the Coursera course "Learn Like a Pro."
