Andrew Cohen

Andrew Cohen is founder & CEO of Brainscape. He developed the first version of Brainscape as an Excel macro to help him study French after having become frustrated with other language software. Over a few years of tweaking, the Brainscape process became so refined that Andrew decided to obtain a Masters in Education Technology at Columbia University, where he coined the term "Confidence-Based Repetition" and dedicated his degree toward researching why the method was so effective. Before starting Brainscape, Andrew spent nearly a decade developing eLearning solutions for large corporations, U.S. government offices, the United Nations Development Programme, and the World Bank, across four continents. He can be found on Twitter at @acohenNY.

Andrew Cohen's Posts

Why Google is NOT “replacing our memory”

By Andrew Cohen, 2/21/2012 at 8:03 am

Ever since a study from Harvard and Columbia was released last summer “proving” that Google is eroding our memories, educators and technophobes alike have been pontificating on what this means for the future of education and the brain. The Twitter-sphere abounds with doomsday tweets about the “googlification” of our brains. Even Mashable recently weighed in on the subject, lamenting that we may “go into withdrawal when we can’t find something online.” With so much at stake, it’s probably worth understanding the actual context of the Harvard study a bit better. (more…)

Comments (1)

How to minimize daydreaming at work and school

By Andrew Cohen, 2/14/2012 at 8:10 am

Over the past few decades, much has been written about the proliferation of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) symptoms among American children and adults. Researchers have postulated dozens of causes and potential remedies for the affliction. Some studies show that the cause is mainly genetic and that the only way to truly treat it is therefore through the use of drugs. Other studies show that the cause is mainly environmental and that the elimination of artificial sugar or TV can slowly restore normality to an ADD-affected brain. And other studies even explore whether the cause of today’s ADD epidemic may actually be rooted in the proliferation of food dyes.

Whatever the causes and potential physiological-based remedies for attention deficit, it’s worth stepping back and considering whether our attention spans could actually be improved by some structural changes in our education & work systems, and in our lifestyles. (more…)

Comments (3)

Brainscape’s Vision for the Future of Education

By Andrew Cohen, 2/8/2012 at 5:39 pm

You may have already experienced Brainscape as a mobile education tool that helps you study things more efficiently using intelligent flashcards. If so, thanks for being one of our “early adopters!” Brainscape’s adaptive study algorithm has already helped over one million people like you do things like ace a test or learn a foreign language faster than you ever thought possible.

Yet there’s so much more innovation left to be done in education. Intelligent flashcards can cover only a small part of the knowledge and skills you want to acquire. People deserve a world where any bite-sized learning experience can be made available at their fingertips and delivered seamlessly into their brain. Until Apple invents the iBrain to embed knowledge into our skulls in the year 2025, people deserve to know that every moment of learning time is used as efficiently as possible!

Putting on our science fiction hats for a moment, let’s design a future Personal Learning System that truly optimizes learning. (more…)

Comments (2)

By not using Brainscape, you are actually killing baby seals

By Andrew Cohen, 2/6/2012 at 8:29 am

No, I’m not being melodramatic. If you are still creating paper flashcards to study, instead of using Brainscape to create shared web/mobile study resources for you and your classmates, then you are personally increasing the pace of deforestation. This deforestation increases the production of CO2, which shrinks the cooling band of atmosphere that spans the earth along the Equator, which naturally warms the planet, which causes the polar ice caps to melt, which destroys the habitat of arctic wildlife, which consequently causes millions of baby seals to die.

So stop being a murderer, and instead use Brainscape to learn faster. You might just improve your brain power in the process.

Comments (4)

On Screen with John Katzman, founder of 2Tor

By Andrew Cohen, 1/17/2012 at 7:46 am

John Katzman, founder of 2Tor

When most people think of online college classes, the first thing that comes to mind is often a “cheaper,” more convenient alternative to traditional in-person courses. The problem with this model is that “cheap” often brings with it a grossly inferior learning experience.

John Katzman is trying to change all that. After a successful exit of his last education startup – The Princeton Review – Katzman has founded 2Tor as a way for universities to finally offer high-quality online degree programs. 2Tor’s instructional designers work directly with professors to incorporate their content into the company’s growing array of flexible tools, for high-impact education delivered both asynchronously and synchronously. According to Katzman, legitimate online degree programs should focus on “excellence first, and cost containment second.”

I sat down with John Katzman this afternoon to learn more about the history, justification, and future of 2Tor. Please check out our conversation in the video below, and be sure to let John know what you think!

(more…)

Comments (1)

How detailed should your startup’s product road map be?

By Andrew Cohen, 1/9/2012 at 8:06 am

I spend a lot of time thinking about Brainscape’s long-term product vision. Sometimes, I’ll lay awake until the wee hours of the morning, visualizing some new feature suite that is so advanced that we’re probably at least 1 or 2 years away from being ready to develop. My enthusiasm for these visions is often so great that I am tempted to draw up wireframes, call a design meeting for the next morning, and present my new mockups as the potential future of Brainscape’s product architecture.

But then I snap out of it. You see, there is a delicate balance between the size of your engineering team and the level of detail with which you should be pre-planning your product long-term development. (more…)

Comments (2)

Should your startup begin in “Stealth Mode”?

By Andrew Cohen, 1/3/2012 at 7:41 am

I often find it hilarious how many people I see on LinkedIn, or hear introduce themselves at a networking event, professing themselves to be founders of a “Stealth Startup.” These people presumably want you to know that there is a good reason for their current lack of formal employment, but they don’t want you to know what their actual project is, for fear that someone might copy their idea. Their intent is usually to stay in Stealth Mode for just enough time to prepare an impressive product and marketing blitz, so that the eventual launch has the highest impact possible, with momentum that cannot be easily replicated by copycats.

The problem is that being in Stealth Mode could kill your company.
(more…)

Comments (3)

Brainscape’s Year in Bullets, and a Look Ahead at 2012

By Andrew Cohen, 12/28/2011 at 6:06 am

Ah, nostalgia. I just got done reading the short blog post I wrote last year to ring in the year 2011. It feels like we were such a baby company barely 12 months ago! I mean, we were so excited about the mere facts that we had launched a few pilot iPhone apps and had a new website “on its way”. Gosh we were so cute. Fast-forward to late-December 2011.

Let’s take a look at what we’ve accomplished over the past year: (more…)

Comments (2)

On screen with Gagan Biyani, Co-Founder of Udemy

By Andrew Cohen, 12/14/2011 at 8:37 am

Have you ever wished that you could take an on-demand video course for interesting topics like building a website, starting a company, or doing yoga? Gagan Biyani has. That’s why he and co-founder Eren Bali decided to start Udemy, an online course authoring and sharing platform that aims to “democratize online education.” I actually interviewed Eren nearly a year ago about his role as the technical founder, and now that the company has raised a Series A, I thought it was a good time to catch up with the other co-founder Gagan to see how Udemy’s plans have evolved.

As you’ll see in the video below, Udemy still combines series of instructional videos into full courses that can be purchased, shared, and even certified. But they now have even bigger plans to expand on their additional features such as the addition of articles, presentations, assessments, index-able videos, and a variety of other social and collaborative education activities to create a richer overall learning experience.

Be sure to check out our interview below and tell Gagan what you think! (more…)

Comments (0)

How switching between a Mac and PC is like being bilingual

By Andrew Cohen, 12/12/2011 at 9:02 am

“MS Excel on a Mac is the bane of my existence.” This is what I tweeted a few months ago while I was painfully getting used to my first Mac. As a long-time Windows veteran exploring my new machine, I found myself constantly looking for directories that didn’t exist, or punching in keyboard shortcutsthat had totally unintended consequences. It was as if the Mac and I just fundamentally did not understand each other, no matter how “user-friendly” everyone told me that the Mac should be.Worse, any headway I did make toward “internalizing” my new Apple keystrokes would just screw up my PC skills for the next time I was using a Windows machine. I ended up making countless distracting syntax errors on both platforms as I switched between personal and work computers during those initial weeks. It was as if I had a distinct PC “accent” when trying to speak Mac. (more…)

Comments (2)

« Newer Posts — Older Posts »