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.
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Popular Highlights in this book
A good rule of thumb, when you are first learning new concepts, is not to let things go untouched for longer than a day.Highlighted by 8,027 Kindle readers- The harder you push your brain to come up with something creative, the less creative your ideas will be.Highlighted by 6,961 Kindle readers
- But as long as we are consciously focusing on a problem, we are blocking the diffuse mode.Highlighted by 6,490 Kindle readers
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Don't be mislead by the title, Read this book! : )
A Mind for Numbers is a great read on how to learn and how to tackle subjects that you may not be good at. Many times we allow a subject or area to intimidate us but if we just understand how our brains work we can likely break it down and become better in any area. I think the subtitle may throw some people off - "how to excel at math and science" because this is also a book for creatives. It is a manual for your brain and we can all use that at times. ; )I would recommend this book for students, parents, and anyone wanting to be better at anything, including those that teach or want to learn something new.
Top reviews from other countries
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- Carlos Alberto Hurtado SánchezReviewed in Mexico on November 3, 2022
Read it as soon as you can
- krotReviewed in Canada on October 29, 2022
So valuable to know if you really want to learn at any age and at any level
- MuichiroReviewed in India on September 24, 2024
Vivid and expressed beautifully, Must read
The book is not only applicable to maths and science but also to other aspects of life. It includes tips on habits , procastination, memory, and above all learning. It's a must read for high schoolers and college buds. According to author it can be applied to professional levels too. The use of words in this book is beautiful and is written as a friend not as a sacred piece that has all formal words. Use of creativity is quite often. Not a must buy but if you want to read something related to learning . This is a great pick.Vivid and expressed beautifully, Must readMuichiro
Reviewed in India on September 24, 2024
All the best for your read!
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