Some awareness of how the brain performs, at its best, improves confidence and effectiveness for any kind of studying, and that includes math learning. I’m about 80 pages into the book, and I’m happy the author spends most of his time discussing how memory works as opposed to mnemonic methods, which aren’t useful for learning math. I think the things I would have learned in this book would have vastly increased my effectiveness as a student while I was in school. It would have allowed me to strategize my studying sessions more effectively.
If you don’t have the time to read the entire book, I would recommend at least reading chapters 1-6. That’s the part that will be useful for mathematics learning anyway.
i’ve always said that calc 2 was the most difficult for me, but now that i actually think about it, it was only difficult bcuz i taught it to myself with just the textbook and ap calc bc book. after taking the ab ap exam in junior year my school changed teh math curriculum so there was no longer a bc class, so me and this girl used to just sit in the ab class (or library) and study from the book…obviously no studying went on and the shit seemed harder than it probably was.
so my first college math class was calc 3 and it wasn’t particularly difficult all things considered. even diff eq wasn’t that hard once you get past the first couple of chapters.
Wow, I actually have that book. Reading that post made me dust it off.
My post wasn’t giving memorization a bad rap. The entire point was that you can simply build off of what you already know and understand to get what you need or don’t understand. That is a very mathematical thing to do. Blindly memorizing formulas however doesn’t lead to understanding. I once made an effort to write down all the formulas in my precalc book when I began studying math. By the time I was done, I had no idea what I had written… A couple of years later I stumbled upon those notes and I laughed because I already knew those formulas. So the idea isn’t that memorization is bad. In fact, on an exam when every second counts, having those formulas memorized saves you time by not having to derive them. But if you understand where they come from then there is no point to memorize it. You already know.
I don’t know about mnemonic methods not being useful for learning math. SOHCAHTOA helps me remember the trig ratios. PEDMAS helps me remember the order of operations necessary for the field of real numbers. ASTC helps me remember the sign values of the trig ratios. FOIL is useful for binomial multiplication. A memory device is only as good as the user’s ability to use it. Then again, I will grant you that meaningfulness is excellent for retention as well. That’s why knowing proofs is a great way to learn math.
I can see your point. I haven’t systematically studied proofs in order to learn mathematics since Euclidean geometry in high school, so it’s hard for me to comment on using proofs to learn math, although I remember that class being the most enjoyable math class in high school mainly because it was more verbal (which I liked.)
I don’t think I will have time to read books with a rigorous mathematical emphasis these days, even though I’ve bought a few only in the last few months just because they looked interesting and were related to electronics.
I’ve never heard of anyone that used mnemonics intensively to study mathematics, but the memory book I mentioned above actually does cite a work that purports to deal with that very subject. Locating a copy looks like it will be tough though.
Here is the worldcat entry for it. If you know of any way I can read it, I would be grateful.
Well, actually, you already located the copy. It is getting it that will be tough if you aren’t still in college. In theory, you could actually go to IU Bloomington and read it. So if you’re looking for an excuse to take a road trip, there you go.