A Mind for Numbers helps put students in the driver’s seat—empowering them to learn more deeply and easily. This outstanding book is also a useful resource for instructional leaders. Given the urgent need for America to improve its science and math education so it can stay competitive, A Mind for Numbers is a welcome find.” To learn math and science, you need the focused mode to analyze a problem rationally and sequentially, and the diffuse mode to grasp abstract concepts like integrals or electric currents. The 2 Key Memory Systems I feel like that aesthetic needs to be fought at all costs. I feel like that mentality is destroying education (and America for that matter). Education is hard work. There is no getting around that. And, as several other reviewers have pointed out, by only highlighting the successes, the author is being very unscientific (she is sampling on the dependent variable, as they say). To maintain something in working memory, we have to apply energy to it. Otherwise, our bodies divert energy elsewhere and the information leaves working memory. This is an excellent book for everyone who struggles with math. It doesn’t matter if it’s a 7-year old’s problem with multiplication tables or a physics master student trying to understand thermodynamics in quantum systems.

This is a classic modelling mistake of physicists. I think motor coordination is done by simple rule of thumb plus a control loop (see motion, move hand, predict path, see motion, move hand) rather than unconscious calculus or ODEs. Equations are not just things you plug numbers into to get numbers. Equations tell a story about how the physical world works. The key to understanding an equation is in understanding that story – that is far more important than getting the right numbers.Eating your frogs first as Mark Twain said is about doing the undesirable tasks first, as it'll free your mind from ruminating, Barbara realises there aren't just frogs involved, there are also zombies. She points out that when we engage in a task our brain loses to go into a zombie habit mode, where it just plods along where it won't use much thought or energy. This then makes it easier for the brain to do other things. Pace yourself. Break up a large task into daily tasks. Review your “to-do” list the evening before each day. One of the best things you can do to remember and understand concepts in math and science is to create a metaphor or analogy for them.

As a child, Barbara Oakley disliked math and science because she couldn’t grasp the technical details. After she started work, she realized that those inadequacies were limiting her career opportunities. So, she decided to rewire her brain and teach herself to get good at math and science. The more progress she made, the more she started to enjoy the subjects and the better/faster she learned. Overlearning means continuing to study or practice a problem immediately after some criterion has been achieved. For example, correctly solving a certain type of math problem and then immediately solving several more problems of the same kind.You don’t want to wait too long for the retrieval practice. Try to recall the material you’ve learned within a day.

Building my ability to memorize scripts, movies, jokes, etc. (on purpose: I still love quoting things) When you first begin to learn something, you are making new neural patterns and connecting them with pre-existing neural patterns that are spread through many areas of your brain. Effective learning involves both working memory and long-term memory. Working memory vs Long-term memory However, you can’t apply both modes concurrently. You can only toggle repeatedly between the 2 modes: scan for data => process/integrate it => scan for more data/ideas.

Develop

Space repetition. Oakley practices this by revisiting and enhancing these 10 rules throughout this book. The lesson is to work on something for a shorter period of time (30 minutes?) and then do something less demanding. When you return to the learning project later, you will be fresher and your automatic system (she calls it your “diffused processing mode”) will have done some undercover work to process your initial learning. It's not that there aren't gems in this book. There are a few. Diffuse mode vs. focused mode thinking, a core part of the book, is pretty interesting. The fact that the memory palace technique works well for unrelated things, which I never thought about. And some other ones that weren't so memorable. It's good for reminding you about all the productivity tips that you should be doing. But for me, there was nothing novel in here. Getting that out of the way, let's focus on the good. The book is clearly written, easy to follow, and frequently engaging. We develop a passion for what we are good at. It is a mistake to think that if we are not good at something we do not have, and can never develop, a passion for it.