A Mind For Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra) by Barbara Oakley (PDF)

Description

The companion book to COURSERA®’s wildly popular massive open online course “Learning How to Learn”Whether you are a student struggling to fulfill a math or science requirement, or you are embarking on a career change that requires a new skill set, A Mind for Numbers offers the tools you need to get a better grasp of that intimidating material. Engineering professor Barbara Oakley knows firsthand how it feels to struggle with math. She flunked her way through high school math and science courses, before enlisting in the army immediately after graduation. When she saw how her lack of mathematical and technical savvy severely limited her options—both to rise in the military and to explore other careers—she returned to school with a newfound determination to re-tool her brain to master the very subjects that had given her so much trouble throughout her entire life. In A Mind for Numbers, Dr. Oakley lets us in on the secrets to learning effectively—secrets that even dedicated and successful students wish they’d known earlier. Contrary to popular belief, math requires creative, as well as analytical, thinking. Most people think that there’s only one way to do a problem, when in actuality, there are often a number of different solutions—you just need the creativity to see them. For example, there are more than three hundred different known proofs of the Pythagorean Theorem. In short, studying a problem in a laser-focused way until you reach a solution is not an effective way to learn. Rather, it involves taking the time to step away from a problem and allow the more relaxed and creative part of the brain to take over. The learning strategies in this book apply not only to math and science, but to any subject in which we struggle. We all have what it takes to excel in areas that don’t seem to come naturally to us at first, and learning them does not have to be as painful as we might think.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Absolutely recommend to anyone in thinking of attending an academic program at any level or a tenacious autodidact. What was most interesting to me was seeing the parallels of my life and many experiences in the book. As a VERY average highschool student i chose not to push the boundaries; why push the boundaries if no one really cares HOW you make it through, just that you DO make it through. Joined the military and with age and maturity I have learned that what I yearn for most is growth, to not only achieve in a single area but be well rounded. This book can help guide you, establishing the foundations of solid information retention and re-tuning our brains with effective techniques.

⭐A Mind for Numbers is written for students of math and science, but Barbara Oakley’s perspective, interviews, and recommendations are very useful for everybody who wants to be a SMART 21st Century lifelong learner. It is a practical book that reflects the best knowledge about how our brains process things – both logically and creatively, from the details up AND from the ideas down. I strongly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn better – or who wants to help a scholar who wants to excel and LEARN in school.Oakley uses good teaching/learning approaches in this book. It is peppered with stories and even pictures that bring lessons to life. The stories are from very successful scientists – many of whom struggled to learn or were even written off by their teachers. They are stories that say – “persist, be smart about how you learn, and you will succeed.” This, of course, is the learning mindset that is so crucial for discovery and living an unstoppable life.Oakley also distributes insights about her core topics – building up and reinforcing the key ideas throughout the book. Ultimately, she concludes that 10 practices are critical (she calls them “Ten Rules of Good Studying.” They apply to lifelong learning as well as to learning for school – especially to information and processes you want to remember:Use recall. Don’t just review what you want to remember. Actively pull your insights out of your own brain. This, of course, is a key practice in my Unstoppable You. Oakley offers many reinforcements of this important way to support learningTest Yourself. This is something anyone can do about any topic you want to remember. For kids it’s flash cards, for adults it might be asking yourself what you know about a topic before a meeting or reading, and then doing it again afterwards.Chunk information. Organizing ideas and facts into categories, pictures and diagrams, songs, and other mental files can help you remember and understand at a deeper level. Connecting ideas to what you know and to each other creates more neural connections and thus more ways to find what you need when you need it.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.Alternate different problem-solving techniques. She talks about how this works in math – work on equations for a while, then on verbal problems, then do a test, etc. The point is, don’t get stuck on one way of learning something. Get a variety of perspectives – some big picture, some detailed. This “interleaving” is a pretty valuable approach for any topic.Take breaks. When you are stuck or tired from focusing on solving a problem/learning, stop and do something that isn’t so taxing. Your automatic (diffused) processing will continue to work on the problem unconsciously and you will be able to have a new perspective when you come back to it.Use explanatory questioning and simple analogies. Try explaining what you are learning in a simple way – preferably to someone else. Tell them what it is “like” (an example she gives if that the flow of electricity is like the flow of water). This more deeply engrains the knowledge in your brain and may get you some clarifying questions.Focus. This is a very important and often broken rule. It is clear that your brain can’t work on more than one complex problem at a time. So, as many others suggest, turn off the phones, text messaging, loud music, and create a space where you can concentrate.Eat your frogs first. That is, do the hardest things first when you have the energy.Make a mental contrast. This is equivalent to the imagination quality presented in Unstoppable You: see where you want to be and compare it the where you are. Let this be motivating.There are many specific tips and encouraging comments in this book. And for students, there is a lot of good help related to working with teachers, studying with others, dealing with procrastination, taking tests, dealing with anxiety, letting go of the need to be perfect in order to be open to insights and to correct errors in thinking, remembering facts and methods, and more.Oakley is a very respected educator who came to the sciences by accident when she was in military service. We should be glad that she discovered math and science and became curious about how to be a master learner and teacher in these areas. We all benefit from her perspective, examples, and tips.

⭐I purchased this book after I had taken the “Learning How To Learn” course on Coursera. The material presented is about learning techniques, which ones have been shown to work, and which ones have been shown to be ineffective. It explains in simple terms how the brain works in regard to learning and memory and how to use discoveries in neuroscience and psychology to optimize your time spent on learning. The focus of the book is on mathematics and the sciences but the information and techniques can be applied to any form of learning as far as I can tell.I was familiar with some of the techniques discussed in the book already, and was quite glad to learn about which ones were proven effective and ineffective. Some techniques that I learned decades ago but had little benefit from were noted as ineffective in controlled studies and I was very happy to find out it wasn’t just me. So instead of trying harder with those techniques I have tossed them in the dust bin with confidence. Other techniques are effective, but not if misused; another good thing to know.A personal anecdote: I was practicing recall with some flashcards after having taken a week or so off of studying this particular subject. Then a question came up that stumped me. It was very frustrating as I knew that I knew the answer but I could not recall it. Rather than end my frustration by flipping over the card I set it aside because I knew from this book that prematurely looking at the answer was not helpful and that the more difficult the recall was the more the benefit to memory. I got involved with other things and never went back to the flash cards that day. The next day while at work, without any provocation and thinking of something else entirely, I shouted out “redeemable trust certificates!” which was the answer to the question I missed. The rest of the day the term came to mind over and again. I doubt I shall forget it now.

⭐Boyfriend loves this book and it’s totally changed how he looks at focus and attention to tasks

⭐As someone who came to an interest in science in later life I was hoping this book would assist me, even permit me to ‘excel’, in my my new private study of math and science (and I did ‘flunk algebra’). I am very disappointed to write, however, that it certainly did nothing of the sort and this in spite of the glowing reviews all over the cover and opening pages. It must be said, furthermore, that on closer inspection, none of these official reviewers is a particularly significant name in science with the possible exception of Keith Devlin who has written some interesting titles in popular mathematics. Despite its 263 pages the basic revelation of this book is to study hard for short periods and then take a break and this is supposed to be the result of years of research in cognitive science that the author has allegedly undertaken for us. Where the book does get slightly interesting is in its presentation of memory improvement techniques but these are far better and more thoroughly presented in countless other publications and have their origins in at least ancient Greece. My only conclusion with this disappointing read it that what little bit of originality it has is simply dull and where it isn’t dull it is unoriginal. I suppose this book may be of some use to first year students just starting a university course in a scientific, or indeed any other, subject but only if they have no knowledge or experience whatsoever in basic study skills.

⭐Finals are coming up for me. Perfect testing grounds for the author’s advice!Overall, many strategies here may be old adages you’ve heard before. The evidence and reasoning, however, are so outstanding that you’ll actually find yourself incorporating these modifications into your life.There were times in this book where I teared up. There times that had me smiling and chuckling. But most of all, this book gave me the tools to study effectively and the reassurance I needed to simply try. I want to see how far I can go.

⭐This book is complimentary to the Coursera online course, providing both the science behind and practical examples of how to gain a mind for numbers. Admittedly, I was a little sceptical initially, but did the online course for free and then bought the book and found that it did really help by providing clear practical knowledge and tips on how to apply the lessons in your own academic pursuits.One of the things that i really like is that there is flexibility in the application, as opposed to a “do it this way” approach. It gives you a toolbox of methods and you can pick the methods that work best for you and how you learn, by inspiring the reader to creatively find the method that works for them.

⭐Not just for maths but for anyone who wants to hone their study habits or indeed improve their retention and understanding, this book is it. Barbara Oakley begins with why so many of us struggle with maths as it’s so abstract the higher the level gets. She explains clearly what to do to get the learning, theories to not only stick but how to have the whole thing become second nature. I wish I’d had such a book when I was a student many years ago and I’ve found this to have even changed how I approach new learning and information even now. All pupils or students should have this book and follow the advice within.

⭐The book contains some fantastic and important learning tools for excelling in any academic discipline or professional domain. However the book falls short in terms of clarity and conciseness. The explanation of the various mechanisms that come into play when learning from a neuro-scientific lense was unnecessary. Life is short…I want a good return on investment in terms of the amount of time and attention I allocate to a book.

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