How I Rewired My Brain to Become Fluent in Math by Barbara Oakley, 2014

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How I Rewired My Brain to Become Fluent in Math by Barbara Oakley, 2014.

Abstract

Barbara Oakley describes here how she is learning. She explains how she learned the Russian language in school and switched to engineering. And then she explains her method to learn maths the same way she learned Russian : understand then become “fluent”.

Personnal opinion

How to learn.

I am just annoyed by the subtitle of this article “Sorry, education reformers, it’s still memorization and repetition we need.”. Because, in my opinion, we still need to understand first, and then do what the author calls “fluency”. And she writes this herself in the article :

“What I had done in learning Russian was to emphasize not just understanding of the language, but fluency. Fluency of something whole like a language requires a kind of familiarity that only repeated and varied interaction with the parts can develop. Where my language classmates had often been content to concentrate on simply understanding Russian they heard or read, I instead tried to gain an internalized, deep-rooted fluency with the words and language structure. I wouldn’t just be satisfied to know that понимать meant “to understand.” I’d practice with the verb—putting it through its paces by conjugating it repeatedly with all sorts of tenses, and then moving on to putting it into sentences, and then finally to understanding not only when to use this form of the verb, but also when not to use it. I practiced recalling all these aspects and variations quickly.”