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They most commonly use the strategy of repeated reading—simply reading through books or notes over and over. We and other researchers have found that this passive and shallow strategy often produces minimal or no learning. We call this “labor in vain”—students are putting in labor but not getting anywhere.
Focused-mode thinking is essential for studying math and science. It involves a direct approach to solving problems using rational, sequential, analytical approaches. The focused mode is associated with the concentrating abilities of the brain’s prefrontal cortex, located right behind your forehead.
Diffuse-mode thinking is also essential for learning math and science. It allows us to suddenly gain a new insight on a problem we’ve been struggling with and is associated with “big-picture” perspectives. Diffuse-mode thinking is what happens when you relax your attention and just let your mind wander.
The harder you push your brain to come up with something creative, the less creative your ideas will be.
Articulating your question is 80 percent of the battle. By the time you’ve figured out what’s confusing, you’re likely to have answered the question yourself!”
when you procrastinate, you are leaving yourself only enough time to do superficial focused-mode learning.
Turn off your phone and any sounds or sights (or websites) that might signal an interruption. Then set a timer for twenty-five minutes and put yourself toward doing a twenty-five-minute interlude of work focused on a task—any task. Don’t worry about finishing the task—just worry about working on it. Once the twenty-five minutes is up, reward yourself with web surfing, checking your phone, or whatever you like to do. This reward is as important as the work itself.
Once you are distracted from the problem at hand, the diffuse mode has access and can begin pinging about in its big-picture way to settle on a solution.
Mistakes are inevitable. To work past them, start early on your assignments and, unless you are really enjoying what you are doing, keep your working sessions short. Remember, when you take breaks, your diffuse mode is still working away in the background. It’s the best deal around—you continue to learn while you are taking it easy.
A good rule of thumb, when you are first learning new concepts, is not to let things go untouched for longer than a day.
Creativity is a numbers game:
one of the first steps toward gaining expertise in math and science is to create conceptual chunks—mental leaps that unite separate bits of information through
Do not confuse the “aha!” of a breakthrough in understanding with solid expertise!
Attempting to recall the material you are trying to learn—retrieval practice—is far more effective than simply rereading the
Illusions of Competence
Beware—a common illusion of competence is to continue practicing a technique you know, simply because it’s easy and it feels good to successfully solve problems.
“The dread of doing a task uses up more time and energy than doing the task
