A Mind For Numbers
Page 27
11 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrNqSLPaZLc.
12 http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive.
13 See also endnote 8 from chapter 12.
14 Mastascusa et al. 2011, chaps. 9–10.
15 Foerde et al. 2006; Paul 2013.
Chapter 15: Renaissance Learning
1 Colvin 2008; Coyle 2009; Gladwell 2008.
2 Deslauriers et al. 2011; Felder et al. 1998; Hake 1998; Mitra et al. 2005; President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, 2012.
3 Ramón y Cajal 1999 [1897].
4 Kamkwamba and Mealer 2009.
5 Pert 1997, p. 33.
6 McCord 1978. See Armstrong 2012 for an extensive discussion of this and related studies. Manu Kapur and Katerine Bielaczyc (2012) indicate that less heavy-handed guidance by instructors may result in counterintuitive improvement in student performance.
7 Oakley et al. 2003.
8 See Armstrong 2012 and references therein.
9 Oakley 2013.
Chapter 16: Avoiding Overconfidence: The Power of Teamwork
1 Schutz 2005. “Fred” is a hypothetical amalgam of typical traits of “broad-perspective perceptual disorder of the right hemisphere.”
2 McGilchrist 2010 provides a comprehensive description supporting the differences in hemispheric function, while Efron 1990, although dated, provides an excellent cautionary note about problems in hemispheric research. See also Nielsen et al. 2013; Jeff Anderson, M.D., Ph.D., who was involved in the study, notes, “It’s absolutely true that some brain functions occur in one or the other side of the brain. Language tends to be on the left, attention more on the right. But people don’t tend to have a stronger left- or right-sided brain network. It seems to be determined more connection by connection” (University of Utah Health Care Office of Public Affairs 2013).
3 McGilchrist 2010, pp. 192–194, 203.
4 Houdé and Tzourio-Mazoyer 2003. Houdé 2002, p. 341 notes, “our neuroimaging results demonstrate the direct involvement, in neurologically intact subjects, of a right ventromedial prefrontal area in the making of logical consciousness, that is, in what puts the mind on ‘the logical track,’ where it can implement the instruments of deduction. . . . Hence, the right ventromedial prefrontal cortex may be the emotional component of the brain’s error correction device. More exactly, this area may correspond to the self-feeling device that detects the conditions under which logical reasoning errors are likely to occur.”
5 See Stephen Christman and colleagues 2008, p. 403, who note that “the left hemisphere maintains our current beliefs while the right hemisphere evaluates and updates those beliefs when appropriate. Belief evaluation is thus dependent on interhemispheric interaction.”
6 Ramachandran 1999, p. 136.
7 Gazzaniga 2000; Gazzaniga et al. 1996.
8 Feynman 1985, p. 341. Originally given in his 1974 Caltech commencement address.
9 Feynman 1985, pp. 132–133.
10 As Alan Baddeley and colleagues (2009, pp. 148–149) note: “We are not lacking in ways of defending ourselves against challenges to our self-esteem. We readily accept praise but tend to be skeptical of criticism, often attributing criticism to prejudice on the part of the critic. We are inclined to take credit for success when it occurs but deny responsibility for failure. If this stratagem fails, we are rather good at selectively forgetting failure and remembering success and praise.” (References omitted.)
11 Granovetter 1983; Granovetter 1973.
12 Ellis et al. 2003.
13 Beilock 2010, p. 34.
14 Arum and Roksa 2010, p. 120.
Chapter 17: Test Taking
1 Visit Dr. Felder’s website at http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/ for an enormous assortment of useful information on learning in the STEM disciplines.
2 Felder 1999. Used by permission of Dr. Richard Felder and Chemical Engineering Education.
3 For food for thought along these lines, see McClain 2011 and the work of the researchers McClain cites.
4 Beilock 2010, pp. 140–141.
5 Mrazek et al. 2013.
6 Beilock (2010, p. 60) notes that “athletes under pressure sometimes try to control their performance in a way that disrupts it. This control, which is often referred to as ‘paralysis by analysis,’ stems from an overactive prefrontal cortex.”
7 Beilock 2010; http://www.sianbeilock.com/.
credits
1. “Me at age 10 (September 1966) with Earl the lamb,” image courtesy the author
2. Magnus Carlsen and Garry Kasparov, image courtesy CBS News
3. Prefrontal cortex, image © 2014 Kevin Mendez
4. Pinball machine, image © 2014 Kevin Mendez
5. Focused and diffuse thinking, image © 2014 Kevin Mendez
6. Triangles, image courtesy the author, based on an original image idea by de Bono 1970, p. 53
7. Ping-Pong, image © 2014 Kevin Mendez
8. Pyramid of dimes, courtesy the author
9. Nadia Noui-Mehidi, photo courtesy Kevin Mendez
10. Thomas Edison, courtesy U.S. Deptartment of the Interior, National Park Service, Thomas Edison National Historical Park
11. Salvador Dalí with ocelot and cane, 1965; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Salvador_Dali_NYWTS.jpg From the Library of Congress. New York World-Telegram & Sun collection. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3c14985; Author: Roger Higgins, World Telegram staff photographer; no copyright restriction known. Staff photographer reproduction rights transferred to Library of Congress through Instrument of Gift.
12. Brick walls, image © 2014 Kevin Mendez
13. Four items in working memory, image courtesy author
14. Robert Bilder, image © Chad Ebesutani, photo courtesy Robert Bilder
15. Octopus focused and crazy-hodgepodge diffuse modes, image © 2014 Kevin Mendez
16. A neural pattern, image © 2014 Kevin Mendez
17. Puzzle of man’s face, image © 2014 Kevin Mendez and Philip Oakley
18. Top-down and bottom-up learning, image courtesy author
19. Puzzle of man in Mustang, partly assembled, image © 2014 Kevin Mendez and Philip Oakley
20. Puzzle of man in Mustang, mostly assembled, image © 2014 Kevin Mendez and Philip Oakley
21. Chunking a concept into a ribbon, image courtesy the author
22. Skipping to the right solution, image © 2014 Kevin Mendez
23. Practice makes permanent, image © 2014 Kevin Mendez
24. Puzzle of Mustang, faint and partly assembled, image © 2014 Kevin Mendez
25. Neural hook, image © 2014 Kevin Mendez
26. Paul Kruchko and family, photo courtesy Paul Kruchko
27. Procrastination funneling, image © 2014 Kevin Mendez
28. Norman Fortenberry, image © 2011, American Society for Engineering Education; photo by Lung-I Lo
29. Many tiny accomplishments, image courtesy the author
30. Pomodoro timer, Autore: Francesco Cirillo rilasciata a Erato nelle sottostanti licenze seguirá OTRS, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Il_pomodoro.jpg
31. Physicist Antony Garrett Lisi surfing, author Cjean42, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Garrett_Lisi_surfing.jpg
32. Oraldo “Buddy” Saucedo, photo courtesy of Oraldo “Buddy” Saucedo
33. Neel Sundaresan, photo courtesy Toby Burditt
34. Zombie task list, image © 2014 Kevin Mendez
35. Mary Cha, photo courtesy Mary Cha
36. Smiling zombie, image © 2014 Kevin Mendez
37. Photo of Joshua Foer, © Christopher Lane
38. Flying mule, image © 2014 Kevin Mendez
39. Zombie hand mnemonic, image © 2014 Kevin Mendez
40. Memory palace, image © 2014 Kevin Mendez
41. S
heryl Sorby, photo by Brockit, Inc., supplied courtesy Sheryl Sorby
42. Monkeys in a ring, from Berichte der Durstigen Chemischen Gesellschaft (1886), p. 3536; benzene ring, modified from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File: Benzene-2D-full.svg
43. Metabolic vampires, image © 2014 Kevin Mendez
44. Jonathon Strong, photo courtesy Jonathon Strong
45. Zombie baseball player, image © 2014 Kevin Mendez
46. Nick Appleyard, photo courtesy Nick Appleyard
47. Santiago Ramón y Cajal, by kind permission of Santiago Ramón y Cajal´s heirs, with the gracious assistance of Maria Angeles Ramón y Cajal
48. Rippling neural ribbons, image courtesy author
49. Photons, illustration courtesy Marco Bellini, Instituto Nazionale di Ottica—CNR, Florence, Italy
50. Barbara McClintock, photo courtesy Smithsonian Institution Archives, image #SIA2008–5609
51. Ben Carson, photo courtesy Johns Hopkins Medicine
52. Nicholas Wade, photo courtesy Nicholas Wade
53. Ischemic stroke, CT scan of the brain with an MCA infarct, by Lucien Monfils, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MCA_Territory_Infarct.svg
54. Niels Bohr lounging with Einstein in 1925, picture by Paul Ehrenfest, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Niels_Bohr_Albert_Einstein_by_Ehrenfest.jpg
55. Brad Roth, photo by Yang Xia, courtesy Brad Roth
56. Richard M. Felder, courtesy Richard M. Felder
57. Sian Beilock, courtesy University of Chicago
58. Dime solution, image courtesy the author
index
The page numbers in this index refer to the printed version of this book. The link provided will take you to the beginning of that print page. You may need to scroll forward from that location to find the corresponding reference on your e-reader.
Page numbers in italics indicate photographs or illustrations.
abstractions, 197, 210, 212
See also chunking
abstractness and complexity, 16–17
Accounting Equation, 60
acne treatments, 128–29
acquaintances and success in job market, 231
activators for diffuse mode of thinking, 35
“active” repetition, chunking, 114, 119
active review, 142–43
“active” teaching technique, 218
addiction and procrastination, 87, 88–89
adding a new problem, chunking, 114
Afghanistan, 142
Africa, 215
“aha!” insights, 30, 227
See also diffuse mode of thinking
Alkon, Amy, 44
Allen, David, 126
alternating different problem-solving techniques, 257–58
Alzheimer’s, 45
anagrams exercise, 65
Anki flash cards, 64, 138, 174
anxiety, dealing with
choking vs. chunking, 112–25, 250–51
test taking, 103–4, 244–46, 248, 250–51
Appleyard, Nick, 192, 192
appreciating your talent, 183–92, 221
apps (best) for studying, 137–39
arsenic poison, 83, 89, 90, 145–46
attentional octopus, 14–15, 16, 52, 53, 53, 57
attention difficulties, 149, 150
Austen, Jane, 30
“autodidacts,” 222
Avogadro’s number, 163
avoidance and procrastination, 85–86
avoiding overconfidence, 20, 225–37, 247, 248, 254
background, working on a problem, 44
backward, working, 68
Baddeley, Alan, 62
“bad” trait, understanding value of, 221
ball bearing and Thomas Edison, 32
Bannister, Roger, 127
Batalha, Celso, 217–18
bed, bath, bus (three B’s), 30
befuddlement and learning, 22
Beilock, Sian, 103, 250, 250–51
belief part of zombies (habits), 88, 95, 99–100, 107
Bell, E. T., 223–24
Bellini, Marco, 206, 206
benzoyl peroxide and acne, 129
“big-picture” perspective, 12, 18, 19, 20, 30, 226, 227, 228, 247, 248
See also diffuse mode of thinking
big-picture top-down chunking process, 59, 60, 61, 61, 70, 79
Bilder, Robert, 49, 49–50
birds, survival instincts, 20
bite-sized pieces, breaking work into, 24–25, 97, 99, 103, 103–7, 104, 108, 132, 138, 149, 151, 151, 253, 258
Black-Derman-Toy model, 199
blinking and focusing, 37, 247, 248, 249
Blowers, Paul, 233
Bohr, Niels, 229–30, 230
bottom-up chunking process, 59, 60, 61, 61, 70, 79
Bradley, James V., xvii–xviii
Bradshaw, Bob, 242
brain
default settings of brain, 256
designed for extraordinary mental calculations, 6–7
maturity of brain, 195, 199
prefrontal cortex, 12, 12, 14–15, 187
procrastination and, 86–89, 87
retraining the brain, 5–6
sculpting your brain, 193–200
See also math and science, learning; neural structures, building
brainstorming, 229–33, 230
breaks, taking, 28, 30, 33, 34, 38, 47, 113, 114, 133, 134, 135, 258
breathing and test taking, 245, 248, 249
brick wall metaphor, 38, 38, 39, 43, 85, 254
Brisson, Charlene, 98
broad-perspective perceptual disorder of the right hemisphere, 226
Broadwell, Randall, 133
Buddha in Blue Jeans (Sheridan), 127
building a chunk, 56–61, 57, 60, 61, 78, 113–17
burnout, 145
Cajal, Santiago Ramón y, 193–94, 194, 195, 196–97, 200, 205, 206, 213, 215, 219, 221, 255
calculus limits, 169
Calculus Made Easy (Thompson), 169
Cameron, James, 216
cancer, 170
Carlsen, Magnus, 9–10, 10, 37, 185–86, 253
Carson, Ben, 214, 214
Cha, Mary, 142, 142–43
Chagnon, Napoleon, 223
change, possibility of, 88
changing habits, time for, 149
changing your thoughts and life, 195–96
checking your work, 228, 233, 236, 247, 248, 249
chemistry, 170, 171, 171, 176
chess, 9–10, 10, 36–37, 70, 71, 116–17, 146, 184, 185–86, 188, 253
Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal about Getting It Right When You Have To (Beilock), 103, 250
choking vs. chunking, 112–25, 250–51
chunking, 51–82, 112–25
adding a new problem for, 114
avoiding illusions of competence, 51–82, 256, 257
bottom-up chunking process, 59, 60, 61, 61, 70, 79
breaks, taking, 114
building a chunk, 56–61, 57, 60, 61, 78, 113–17
choking vs., 112–25, 250–51
context for, 58–59, 71
creativity and, 66–67, 67
deep chunking, 196–99, 198
defined, 54–55, 57, 57
focused attention, 52–54, 53, 54, 57, 78, 254, 255
illusions of competence, 61–68, 64, 67, 77, 79, 117, 125
interleaving vs. overlearning, 74, 74–78, 113, 173
knowledge collapse (hitting the wall), 118, 123
library of chunks, 66–68, 67, 113, 115, 117, 120, 121, 122, 147, 186
limited study time techniques, 81–82
>
memory traces, 53–54, 54, 58, 68, 69, 79, 185
mimicking solutions, avoiding, 77–78
neural structures, building, 52–53, 53, 54, 54–55, 67, 67, 68, 69, 71, 78, 93, 113, 121
organizing materials for, 73, 118–19
practice makes permanent, 68–72, 69, 74, 74, 78, 82, 120, 188, 257–58, 259
puzzle pieces metaphor, 61, 61, 74, 74
recall, 61–68, 64, 67, 72–73, 78, 78, 90, 116, 117, 123, 125
repetition of problem for, 114
summary, 78, 78, 121
testing effect, 119–20, 122, 238
top-down big-picture chunking process, 59, 60, 61, 61, 70, 79
transfer and, 59, 209–11, 212
understanding basic idea, 58, 78, 79
walking and recall, 30, 72–73, 90
working a problem through, 56–57, 58, 82, 114, 259
working memory and, 15, 41, 42, 42–43, 47, 64, 64, 65, 121, 122, 187
See also math and science, learning; memory
“chunk-puters,” 117
Cirillo, Francesco, 103
Click Moment, The (Johansson), 144–45
clock, problems reading, 1
Coffitivity, 139
coins and triangle exercise, 23, 23
“collaborative teaching” technique, 218
concept mapping, 71
concrete vs. abstract approach, 210, 212
context and chunking, 58–59, 71
continental drift example, 55
cortisol, 244
Coulton, Jonathan, 203
counterintuitive creativity, 19
Cowart, Aukury, 130
Coyne, Joseph, 105
CPR, 184
cramming, 24, 38, 38, 85, 87–88, 111, 145, 185, 254, 259
cranial bones mnemonic, 176
creative vs. nonimaginative scientists, 66
creativity and learning, 6, 29–50, 254–55
brick wall metaphor, 38, 38, 39, 43, 85, 254
chunking and, 66–67, 67
diffuse mode of thinking and, 32–33, 40
Einstellung effect (getting stuck), 17, 25, 26, 27–28, 36–39, 38, 52, 146, 170, 186, 243
failure, 33, 41, 110–11, 219
harnessing, extending abilities, 32–33
keeping up with the intellectual Joneses, 36
memory and, 179–80
neural structures, building, 32, 38, 38, 45, 46