A Mind for Numbers by Barbara Oakley

Thinking you can learn deeply when you are being constantly distracted

( bad ) Every tiny pull toward an instant message or conversation means you have less brain power to devote to learning. Every tug of interrupted attention pulls out tiny neural roots before they can grow.

Repeatedly solving problems of the same type that you already know how to solve

( bad ) If you just sit around solving similar problems during your practice, you're not actually preparing for a test—it's like preparing for a big basketball game by just practicing your dribbling.

Letting study sessions with friends turn into chat sessions

( bad ) If your joint study sessions turn to fun before the work is done, you're wasting your time and should find another study group. ( good ) Checking your problem solving with friends, and quizzing one another on what you know, can make learning more enjoyable, expose flaws in your thinking, and deepen your learning.

Not checking with your instructors or classmates to clear up points of confusion

( bad ) Professors are used to lost students coming in for guidance—it's our job to help you. The students we worry about are the ones who don't come in. Don't be one of those students.

Passive rereading

( bad ) Sitting passively and running your eyes back over a page. Unless you can prove that the material is moving into your brain by recalling the main ideas without looking at the page, rereading is a waste of time.

Merely glancing at a problem's solution and thinking you know how to do it

( bad ) This is one of the worst errors students make while studying. You need to be able to solve a problem step-by-step, without looking at the solution.

Waiting until the last minute to study

( bad ) Would you cram at the last minute if you were practicing for a track meet? Your brain is like a muscle—it can handle only a limited amount of exercise on one subject at a time.

Neglecting to read the textbook before you start working problems

( bad ) Would you dive into a pool before you knew how to swim? The textbook is your swimming instructor—it guides you toward the answers. You will flounder and waste your time if you don't bother to read it. Before you begin to read, however, take a quick glance over the chapter or section to get a sense of what it's about.

Not getting enough sleep

( bad ) Your brain pieces together problem-solving techniques when you sleep, and it also practices and repeats whatever you put in mind before you go to sleep. Prolonged fatigue allows toxins to build up in the brain that disrupt the neural connections you need to think quickly and well. If you don't get a good sleep before a test, NOTHING ELSE YOU HAVE DONE WILL MATTER.

Use recall

( good ) After you read a page, look away and recall the main ideas. Highlight very little, and never highlight anything you haven't put in your mind first by recalling. Try recalling main ideas when you are walking to class or in a different room from where you originally learned it. An ability to recall—to generate the ideas from inside yourself—is one of the key indicators of good learning.

Chunk your problems

( good ) Chunking is understanding and practicing with a problem solution so that it can all come to mind in a flash. After you solve a problem, rehearse it. Make sure you can solve it cold—every step. Pretend it's a song and learn to play it over and over again in your mind, so the information combines into one smooth chunk you can pull up whenever you want.

Eat your frogs first

( good ) Do the hardest thing earliest in the day, when you are fresh.

Take breaks

( good ) It is common to be unable to solve problems or figure out concepts in math or science the first time you encounter them. This is why a little study every day is much better than a lot of studying all at once. When you get frustrated with a math or science problem, take a break so that another part of your mind can take over and work in the background.

Alternate different problem-solving techniques during your practice

( good ) Never practice too long at any one session using only one problem-solving technique—after a while, you are just mimicking what you did on the previous problem. Mix it up and work on different types of problems. This teaches you both how and when to use a technique. (Books generally are not set up this way, so you'll need to do this on your own.) After every assignment and test, go over your errors, make sure you understand why you made them, and then rework your solutions. To study most effectively, handwrite (don't type) a problem on one side of a flash card and the solution on the other. (Handwriting builds stronger neural structures in memory than typing.) You might also photograph the card if you want to load it into a study app on your smartphone. Quiz yourself randomly on different types of problems. Another way to do this is to randomly flip through your book, pick out a problem, and see whether you can solve it cold.

Test yourself

( good ) On everything. All the time. Flash cards are your friend.

Space your repetition

( good ) Spread out your learning in any subject a little every day, just like an athlete. Your brain is like a muscle—it can handle only a limited amount of exercise on one subject at a time.

Focus

( good ) Turn off all interrupting beeps and alarms on your phone and computer, and then turn on a timer for twenty-five minutes. Focus intently for those twenty-five minutes and try to work as diligently as you can. After the timer goes off, give yourself a small, fun reward. A few of these sessions in a day can really move your studies forward. Try to set up times and places where studying—not glancing at your computer or phone—is just something you naturally do.

Use explanatory questioning and simple analogies

( good ) Whenever you are struggling with a concept, think to yourself, How can I explain this so that a ten-year-old could understand it? Using an analogy really helps, like saying that the flow of electricity is like the flow of water. Don't just think your explanation—say it out loud or put it in writing. The additional effort of speaking and writing allows you to more deeply encode (that is, convert into neural memory structures) what you are learning.

Big ideas

* Focused like a post it note or a pinball machine with lots of bumpers * Diffuse mode is like a super computer or pinball machine with a few bumpers * Zeigarnick * Spaced repetition or distributed learning * Testing or recall * Teach (explain it like I am 5) * Interleaving * Ellaboration * Pomodora's * Focus on process and not product * Rest * Diet * Practice breathing * Attribute fight or flight to excitement and not fear * Procrastination pain is in anticipation not action * We want to create chunks or mental representations * Fluency illusion - biggest killer to mastery - feels good

10 rules of bad studying

1. Passive reading 2. Letting highlights overwhelm you 3. Merely glancing at a problems solution and thinking you know it 4. Waiting until the last minute to study 5. Repeatedly solving problems of the same type you already know how to solve 6. Letting study sessions with friends turn into chat sessions 7. Neglecting to read the textbook before you start working problems 8. Not checking with your instructors or classmates to clean up confusion points 9. Thinking you can learn deeply when you are being constantly distracted 10. Not getting enough sleep

4 parts of a habit

1. The cue 2. The reward 3. The routine 4. The belief

9 rules of good studying

1. Use recall 2. Test yourself 3. Chunk your problems 4. Spaced repetition 5. Interleaving (alternate different types of problems) 6. Take breaks (triggers diffuse mode) 7. Use explanatory questioning and simple analogies 8. Focus 9. Eat your frogs first

Neurotransmitters

Acetylcholine affects focused learning and attention. Dopamine signal in relation to unexpected reward. Serotonin affects social life and risk-taking behavior.

Long term memories for facts

Are living parts of your brain that are changing all the time Are subject to modification by a process called "reconsolidation."

Pre-test stress

As one of the videos mentioned, when stressed, your body produces cortisol which can give you sweaty palms and a racing heart. One easy way to overcome the effects of stress and cortisol is to tell yourself that you are not afraid of failing the test but instead, that you are EXCITED to take the test and get a good grade.

Examples of focused mode

Avoiding distractions of any sort by taking yourself to a quiet area of the library. Setting a timer and "doing a Pomodoro."

Chunking truths

Chunks can help you understand new concepts. This is because when you grasp one chunk, you will find that that chunk can be related in surprising ways to similar chunks not only in that field, but also in very different fields. The best chunks are ones that are so well-ingrained that you don't have to consciously think about connecting the neural pattern together. That, actually, is the point of making complex ideas, movements or reactions into a single chunk. Chunking helps your brain run more efficiently. Once you chunk an idea, concept, or action, you don't need to remember all the little underlying details; you've got the main idea—the chunk—and that's enough. One concern about using worked-out examples to help you in starting to form chunks is that it can be all too easy to focus too much on why an individual step works and not on the connection between steps. That's why it's also important to keep a focus on the connection BETWEEN steps when following worked out solutions. A chunk is a way of compressing information more compactly. When you are trying to figure something out, if you have a good library of chunks, you can more easily skip to the right solution by—metaphorically speaking—"listening" to whispers from your diffuse mode. Your diffuse mode can help you connect two or more chunks together in new ways to solve novel problems. The bigger and more well-practiced your chunked mental library—whatever the subject you are learning—the more easily you will be able to solve problems and figure out solutions. The ability to combine chunks in new and original ways underlies a lot of historical innovation. "Chunking" involves compressing information more compactly--this is part of why it is easier to draw a "chunked" idea or concept into mind.

Ability to learn

Don't just blindly follow your passions--also work to broaden your passions by keeping yourself open to learning new things, even if you feel you don't have a talent for them. We ordinarily think of learning as something we do when we sit down to study a book. But actually, being able to learn more easily and deeply involves many important facets--including not only periods of focused concentration, but also periods of relaxation, and even times when the body is simply out getting exercise, or even when it's sleeping. Your brain can be busy figuring things out during times when you have absolutely no conscious awareness of it.

Test taking tip

Face your fears. If you fear getting bad grades because it will impact your future career, try coming up with an acceptable 'Plan B.' While Plan B may not be ideal, your test taking stress can be reduced by knowing that doing poorly on one test or one subject will not ruin your entire life and future. During the test, try to momentarily shift your attention away from the test questions and then go back through the questions with a 'big picture' perspective.

Deliberate practice

Focusing intently on the parts of the problem that are more difficult to you.

New synapses

Form in your brain during sleep and help you remember new experiences.

Procrastination

General habits of procrastination can negatively impact many aspects of your life. As this week's videos explained, it's best to avoid procrastination by applying willpower at only one small point--your reaction to a procrastination cue. This is because willpower is actually a valuable mental resource and you don't want to be using it up unnecessarily.

Memory truths

Handwriting appears to help you to more deeply encode (that is, convert into neural memory structures) what you are trying to learn. The more neural hooks you can build by evoking the senses, the easier it will be for you to recall the concept and what it means. Creating flashcards is a useful technique to help you remember. By increasing your spacing as you become more certain of mastery, you will lock the material more firmly into place Repetition is needed so your metabolic vampires—natural dissipating processes—don't suck the memories away. Your working memory is centered out of the prefrontal cortex, although there are also connections to other parts of your brain so you can access long-term memories. To help with moving something into long term memory, use a technique called "spaced repetition." This technique involves repeating what you are trying to retain, but what you want to do is to space this repetition out—repeating a new vocabulary word or problem-solving technique, for example, over a number of days.

Memory palace technique

Imagine a place you are very familiar with (your "palace") and then deposit memorable versions of the item on your list in various locations in your palace. Useful for memorizing lists Using these memory techniques allows you to more deeply internalize the information you are using, allowing you to use it much more effectively than if you were to simply try to memorize it by repeating it many times.

Imposter syndrome

Imposter syndrome involves frequent feelings of inadequacy. Getting a good grade on a test but being convinced that it was luck and that you are sure to fail the next test and be exposed as a fraud, is a good example of the impostor syndrome.

Chunk truths

Improvising a new sentence in a new language you are learning involves the ability to creatively mix together various complex minichunks and chunks (sounds and words) that you have mastered in the new language. Chunks can help you understand new concepts. This is because when you grasp one chunk, you will find that that chunk can be related in surprising ways to similar chunks not only in that field, but also in very different fields. The best chunks are ones that are so well-ingrained that you don't have to consciously think about connecting the neural pattern together. That, actually, is the point of making complex ideas, movements or reactions into a single chunk.

Good study habits

Interleave your learning by alternating your practice with different types of problems--don't waste study time by simply repeating the same technique over and over again. Space out study sessions with smaller bits of information to be mastered in each session.

Short term memory

Is like an inefficient mental blackboard

Einstellung

Is when your initial thought, an idea you already have in mind, or a neural pattern you've already developed and strengthened, prevents a better idea or solution from being found, or keeps you from being flexible enough to accept new, better, or more appropriate solutions.

Context

Is where bottom up and top down learning meet.

Zombie mode

It refers to the relaxed state your mind enters when you are performing common and habitual tasks. Examples of zombie states and habitual behavior include riding a bike, getting dressed in the morning, and being able to back your car out of a driveway (if you are familiar and comfortable with driving).

4 cues for habitual reaction (zombie mode)

Location, time, how you feel, reaction (either to other people or to something that just happened)

Truths about learning

Mastering a new subject means learning not only the basic chunks, but also learning how to select and use different chunks. Interleaving your studies—making a point to review for a test, for example, by skipping around through problems in the different chapters and materials—can sometimes seem to make your learning more difficult. But in reality, it helps you learn more deeply. Although practice and repetition are important in helping build solid neural patterns to draw on, it's interleaving that starts building flexibility and creativity. It's where you leave the world of practice and repetition and begin thinking more independently. Our brain uses two very different processes for thinking—the focused and diffuse modes. You generally toggle back and forth between these modes, using one or the other. "Spaced repetition" is an effective learning technique.

Illusion of competence truths

Merely glancing at a solution and thinking you truly know it yourself is one of the most common illusions of competence in learning. Recall—simply looking away from the material and attempting to recall the main ideas—is a more effective study technique than rereading the material.

Metaphor and analogy

Metaphors and analogies, as well as stories, can sometimes be useful for getting people out of Einstellung—being blocked by thinking about a problem in the wrong way Metaphors and visualization—being able to see something in your mind's eye—have been especially helpful, not only in art and literature, but also in allowing the scientific and engineering world to make progress. A metaphor is just a way of realizing that one thing is somehow similar to another. Metaphors are never perfect, but they can be vitally important in giving a physical understanding of the central idea behind the process or concept that you are trying to understand.

Focused mode

Mode involves a direct approach to solving problems using rational, sequential, analytical approaches. It is associated with the concentrating abilities of the brain's prefrontal cortex, located right behind your forehead. A pinball machine that has bumpers which are very close together, so the pinball (the thought) cannot go a long ways before bumping into a bumper. Ideas, concepts, and problem-solving techniques that are at least somewhat familiar to you--your previous knowledge lays a sort of underlying neural pathway that you tend to follow.

Overlearning

Once you've got the basic idea down during a session, continuing to hammer away at it during the same session doesn't necessarily strengthen the kinds of long-term memory connections you want to have strengthened. Continuing to study or practice after you've mastered what you can in the session is called overlearning.

The virtue of the less brilliant

Perseverance

Task lists and planner journals

Planning your quitting time is as important as planning your working time. Writing the next day's task list before you go to sleep enlists your "zombies" to help you accomplish the items on the list the next day.

Practice

Practice makes permanent. Practice helps make memories more permanent. Neurons become linked together through repeated use. The more abstract something is, the more important it is to PRACTICE in order to bring these ideas into reality for you.

How to make a chunck

Practice to help you gain mastery and a sense of the big-picture context. Focused attention. Understanding of the basic idea.

Examples of illusions of competence

Re-reading and highlighting. Highlighting more than one or so sentence in a paragraph. With highlighting, the fact that your hand is moving can fool you into thinking you're putting something into your brain, when you're not. Concept mapping Although concept mapping can have its place, research has shown that it's less effective than another powerful technique--simple recall. Remember, connecting concepts isn't going to help if you don't have the concepts already well-embedded in the brain. It's like trying to learn higher strategy in chess without having learned the basics about how the pieces move.

Recall

Recall—mental retrieval of the key ideas—rather than passive rereading will make your study time more focused and effective. A helpful way to make sure you're learning, and not fooling yourself with illusions of competence, is to TEST yourself on what you're learning. In some sense, that's what recall is actually doing—allowing you to see whether or not you really grasped an idea.

Product

Refers to the outcome of a task. Examples of "product" include finishing a homework set or completing the writing of a report.

Good study and memory methods

Repeat key concepts several times over several days, gradually increasing the time between each subsequent repetition as you master the material. When learning something for the first time, try to make the concept or idea into something memorable like associating it with an object or a funny picture in your mind. An example in the videos involved learning the equation f = ma by associating the equation with a flying mule.

Mini tests

Research has shown that testing yourself during your studies is one of the best ways to understand and retain information. Tests during study sessions are good for concentrating the mind.

Teamwork truths

Study groups are a good way to bounce ideas and concepts off of another brain in order to look at ideas from different view-points and further cement study material in your memory. Sometimes you can blindly believe you've got everything nailed down intellectually, but you haven't. This is one reason it is sometimes good to study with others.

When you get stuck on a problem

Switch your attention to something completely different, or even better, go for a walk or take a shower--anything that allows your mind to relax and dart randomly around.

Stuck on a problem

Switch your attention to something completely different, or even better, go for a walk or take a shower--anything that allows your mind to relax and dart randomly around. Trigger diffuse mode.

How to arouse the diffuse (rather than focused) mode

Tag along in the passenger seat of a car, looking absently out the window while someone else is driving. Go for a walk. Dancing in a relaxed and free form manner, without concentrating on anything.

Purpose and benefits of writing a list of the tasks

Task lists free up working memory because they transfer some of the ideas to paper (or smart phone, or computer). All you have to do is remember to check your task list instead of trying to keep in mind all the many things you want to do. The "zombie task list" on one of the videos helped reinforce this idea. As a video mentioned, making a task list makes your tasks easier to remember, WITHOUT having to use much of your valuable working memory.

Process

The Pomodoro technique is effective because it helps you get into the flow of the process.

Pomadora technique

The _______________ is a time-management, time-boxing technique in which the focused-learning mode is utilized on some task or logically related tasks for 25 minutes continuously, with zero interruptions. It helps you focus on learning, and when you break/reward yourself, it helps you internalize what you went through during the _______________ session. Is a time management method developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. The technique uses a timer to break down work into intervals, traditionally 25 minutes in length, separated by short breaks. Continue to use the technique when you have difficulty learning a subject or getting yourself motivated to get started on a task, but make sure to also take breaks in between your sessions.

Diffuse mode

The brain makes random connections in a relaxed fashion. A relaxed, daydream-like approach to problem-solving. A pinball machine that has bumpers which are very far apart, so the pinball (the thought) can go a long ways before bumping into a bumper. Solution: switch your attention to something completely different, or even better, go for a walk or take a shower--anything that allows your mind to relax and dart randomly around.

Hard start, jump to easy

This method may make more efficient use of your brain because it is may allow different parts of your brain to work simultaneously on different problems. The hardest part of this technique for many students is that you must have the self-discipline to pull yourself off of a problem you are stuck on and move to another question.

Sleep

Too little sleep over too long a time is associated with all sorts of nasty conditions, including headaches, depression, heart disease, diabetes, and just plain dying earlier. During sleep, your brain erases the less important parts of memories and simultaneously strengthens areas that you need or want to remember. During sleep, your brain tidies up ideas and concepts you are thinking about and learning—it erases the less important parts of memories and simultaneously strengthens areas that you need or want to remember. Sleep, which can sometimes seem like SUCH a waste of time—is actually your brain's way of keeping itself clean and healthy.

Understanding truths

Understanding is like a superglue that helps hold the underlying memory traces together. You often realize the first time you truly understand something is when you can actually do it yourself. Understanding coupled with practice and repetition in a variety of contexts is what is needed to make a chunk. Do not confuse the "aha!" of a breakthrough in understanding with solid expertise—or the smooth connections of a well-established chunk.

Procrastination truths

When procrastination is an issue, your challenge sometimes is to avoid focusing on the product. The PRODUCT is what triggers the pain that causes you to procrastinate. It is perfectly normal to start with a few negative feelings about beginning a learning session—even when it's a subject you ordinarily like. It's how you handle those feelings that matters. It's best to try to work on an unpleasant task first thing in the morning--at least just for a little while. This was referred to in the videos as "eating your frogs first." Keep a planner journal and keep track of the methods and techniques that work best for you. Pay attention for procrastination cues and remove yourself from environments that contain many distractions and procrastination cues.

Octopus of attention truths

When you are stressed, your "attentional octopus" begins to lose the ability to make connections. This is why your brain doesn't seem to work right when you're angry, stressed, or afraid. The intentional, focused mode connections of the "octopus of attention" analogy are quite different from the random connections of the diffuse mode.

Procrastination or procrastapain

When you don't want to work on something, a sense of neural discomfort arises. Your brain literally lights up as if it is in pain. However, researchers have found that not long after you might start working on something that you find unpleasant, that neural discomfort disappears. So an important aspect of tackling _______________ is to just get yourself through that initial period of discomfort. The Pomodoro technique helps you do that. _______________ seems to involve an attempt to switch your mental attention away from something that you find slightly painful. Everybody has some issues with _______________. It is best to try to focus on process, not product, because the product is often what triggers the pain that causes you to _______________. One of the easiest ways to focus on process is to focus on doing a Pomodoro—a twenty-five-minute timed work session. (Do NOT focus on completing a task.)

How to avoid illusions of competence

Writing your own notes in your own words which synthesize the key concepts you are trying to learn.

Long term memory

_______________ is like a storage warehouse. Research has shown that if you try to glue things into your memory by repeating something twenty times in one evening, for example, it won't stick nearly as well as if you practice it the same number of times over several days.

Transfer

_______________ is the idea that a chunk you've mastered in one area can often help you much more easily learn chunks of information in different areas that can share surprising commonalities.

Barbara Oakley

_______________ taught the most popular MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) of all time. Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects. She has a PhD, PE, and is a professor of engineering at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, and writer of national acclaim. Her research focuses on the complex relationship between neuroscience and social behavior. _______________ research has been described as "revolutionary" in the Wall Street Journal—she has published in outlets as varied as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and The New York Times.

New neurons are born in your hippocampus every day

new neurons can survive and help you remember things if Exercise Explore a little bit by trying a new route to get to work. Travel to an exotic foreign country and experience new and different ways of doing things. Two experiences that help your neurons to grow and survive are exercise and exposure to new environments or ideas.