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Tarcher

A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra)

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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. Read more

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Tarcher


Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 31, 2014


Edition ‏ : ‎ Illustrated


Language ‏ : ‎ English


Print length ‏ : ‎ 336 pages


ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 5


ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 45


Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.2 ounces


Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.96 x 0.86 x 8.99 inches


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Top Amazon Reviews

    • Read it NOW. You're suffering in math class needlessly!
I wish I read this book earlier. Though I loved math and science I always received middling grades. I was never taught ANY study skills or strategies growing up and just muddled my way through with brute force. I eventually became a science teacher and bought this book to see if I could use it to reach my students better and it opened my eyes not only to good strategies but how the technical parts of our brain even work. I'm going back to school again for a degree in engineering and successfully achieved a 4.0 this first quarter using these strategies. This would have been completely impossible for me in the past. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on December 6, 2017 by Christopher C. Faber
    • Do not buy this book
This was such a disappointment. When I read the book, I expected a bit more than work hard, study the stuff several times, do a little at a time and it will come to you. Actually, read my three line review and you have read this useless book.
Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2019 by John J. Valentine
    • and recommendations are very useful for everybody who wants to be a SMART 21st ...
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 learning Test 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. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on October 29, 2017 by Pat McL
    • Could have been two pages long article
It’s amazing how the author can go on and on about the same idea for 300+ pages. His ideas are extremely simple that could have fit in a two pages article. Plus the ideas are nothing special and definitely doesn’t teach you to think like a mathematician or scientist. Read instead “How Not to be Wrong. The Power of Mathematical Thinking” if you want to learn to think like a mathematician. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2019 by Duo User
    • Awesome!
This book was wonderful! First of all, it can be used for any subject, not just math and science. Anything that a person has to learn that intimidates them, that person can use these techniques. Second, the material was digestible. The author didn’t use a lot of dry wording and complicated theories in order to prove her point. I loved the personal stories and insights from individuals and got as many tips from their interviews as I did from the author’s advice. Third, by focusing on mental blocks and how the brain absorbs information (as opposed to math tricks), the author spoke to the heart of what makes people resist learning things that frustrate them. I was an AP math student with poor grades because I did everything Oakley said NOT to do. Now, I’m challenging myself to get a 2nd Masters in a math-heavy IT discipline. I feel more confident after studying (I didn’t read this book, I studied it) the methods in this text. I even recommended it to my mother who can be notoriously hesitant to learn new things. I LOVED THIS BOOK! ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2017 by Kimberly Brooks
    • Good to encourage girls to study mathematics
This is a very useful book. It was clearly written. The lessons I learned from this book are very applicable to me. The author's approach was to relate her own struggles with mathematics, and the methods she used to improve her mathematical abilities, These are folk remedies. She presents scientific research to support her lessons. Also, she uses anecdotes from other students and teachers to amplify these lessons. It was so good that I brought two (2) copies: one for myself and one for my niece as starts high school. I hope that it encourages her to study mathematics and science. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on December 15, 2017 by D. Hawthorne
    • A self-help book disguised as a practical guide
This book is not what it seems. There are no practical tips or tricks for doing math. Instead, this is a self-help book about how to learn "better." (There's a whole section on the Pomodoro Technique, for crying out loud.) If you already value studying and understand how your brain wrestles with new information, this book won't tell you anything you don't know. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2017 by iamfantastikate

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