A Mind for Numbers: A Brief Guide to Learning
A Mind for Numbers is book on learning how to learn written by Dr. Barbara Oakley. Dr. Oakley is an engineering professor at Oakland University. Even though her field is clearly within the realm of math and science, she definitely wasn’t a natural. She enlisted into the army directly out of high school and studied Russian. After obtained her bachelors in Slavic language she became part of the U.S. Army Signal Corps. From there she was put in a position where she was required to learn a variety of technical skills involving radio. This was a very critical moment for Dr. Oakley. She could either have forgone her technical path and continued with language. Lucky for us, she didn’t. Dr. Oakley went through the process of retraining her brain. This instilled a passion of math and science in her which resulted in her going back to school for electrical engineering. Oh yeah, she also wrote a book about her methods and practices. Dr. Oakley discusses several concepts and technique about how to become a better learner. Here are my top four picks.
Modes of Thinking
There are two modes of thinking, focused thinking and diffused thinking. Focused thinking is the type of thinking you would normally expect with learning. It involves focus and deliberate thought. Diffused thinking on the other hand is relaxed and broad. You could imagine them as being a laser and a flood light.
When learning, it’s important to understand that both modes of thinking are equally important. Focused thinking is used when you need to remember details and facts. It’s necessary in order to learn complex topics. Diffused thinking is used to create relations and bring concepts together to build your understanding.
You need both of these modes to work together in order to completely learn. Focusing is intuitive, you should study the material. Diffused on the other hand is not. To become in a diffused mode of thought, you need to actually remove yourself from the material. Talk a break, go for a run, or nap. By giving yourself some rest, you allow your subconscious to process the information you just studied and build connections. Easily enough, this leads right to the next point.
Sleep and Exercise
Yeah, both of these things are really important. I’m not the type of person to pull off all-nighters but from my experiences with the people who did, it didn’t really help that much. It never made sense to me why someone would choose to have no sleep right before an important exam. Sleep is crucial to learning. During sleep, you move things from your short-term memory to your long-term memory. Also, feeling well rested is a huge plus.
Exercise is another way of getting into the diffuse mode of thought. I didn’t really exercise a lot during college and I definitely regret it. I would always let me laziness get the better of me but now that I’ve gotten into the habit, I can’t imagine foregoing it. I actually look forward to it now. I know the header says “Sleep and Exercise” but it’s not really just sleep and exercise that put you in a diffuse mode of thought. Drawing, socializing, playing a video game, meditating, or taking a shower are all practical things as well. The point is to put yourself in a state where you aren’t in intense focus. Allow yourself to zone out occasionally and relax. It may seem counter intuitive, but it’s definitely necessary.
Chunking
Do you have a skill you can just do on auto-pilot? If so, you’ve probably have it all chunked up in your brain. For example, when I first learned how to juggle, I had to really focus on where the balls were in the air and what why hands and arms were doing. Now, I can kind of just do it mindlessly. Nothing has changed in my actions, but it’s all been integrated into a single action. Rather than it being a bunch of things like watching the balls, following them, moving my arms, and catching and throwing with my hands. Its just juggling.
Chunking is our ability to take several ideas and merge them into a single, but equally complex idea. Chunking is obtained by studying information and then allowing your diffuse mind to build connections and relations between those ideas. This connection will allow you to free up your mind to focus on other things, which then in turn leads to more connections, and I’m sure you can imagine the rest.
Illusion of Competence and Active Learning
The concept of an illusion of competence was a huge realization for me. I began to understand that I wasn’t actually learning to the degree that I needed. Rather than being able to recall information off the top of my head, I would rely on contextual cues to recognize the information. This was a result of my bad habit of passive learning.
Passive learning is basically what it sounds like. You attempt to learn everything by basically doing nothing but listening or reading. Another passive learning habit that may not be so obvious is typing up notes word for word. Rather than trying to parse out information, you just try to type everything without really working it out in your mind. This is even worse because it feels like you’re putting in effort when in reality it’s not doing anything for you. Here are some techniques for active learning.
Active learning involves recall, quizzing, and repetition. Recall is important because by recalling the material without any contextual cues you build up those mental connections making it easier to recall in the future. Quizzing allows you to then apply what you’ve recalled. Not only is it important to be able to pull what you need from you mind, its also important to know what tool you need to solve a problem. There’s no use in knowing a bunch of random equations and facts if you don’t know where they apply. Repetition further strengthens your mental connections. By constantly using focused and diffuse thinking to add to your mental tool set, you begin to chunk the information, which leads to faster recall and more associations with other concepts.
Conclusion
A Mind for Numbers has really taught me a lot about how to learn effectively. Make sure to take breaks and get enough sleep, in order to make sure you don’t lose the material you just studied. Don’t get into the habit of learning passively, take action and be deliberate in your study. Most importantly, don’t stop learning.
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