书名：A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science 学习之道
作者：Barbara Oakley
出版社名称：TarcherPerigee
出版时间：2014
语种：英文
ISBN：9780399165245
商品尺寸：15.2 x 2.1 x 22.8 cm
包装：平装
页数：336

A Mind for Numbers《学习之道》一出版即高居美国亚马逊学习类图书榜首，是一本学习神书，看过的人秒变“学霸体质”，开启外挂模式。
A Mind for Numbers《学习之道》主要讲述了人体（脑科学、心理学）对于学习的一些规律、原理和好的习惯技巧，如何快速成为一个超级“学霸”。作者是“Learning How to Learn”网络课程主讲芭芭拉·奥克利，美国奥克兰大学的工程学教授、研究员。
推荐理由：
1.高居美国亚马逊学习类图书榜首长达一年；
2. Coursera网络课程推荐的教材书目；
3. MIT、普渡大学、清华大学等中外数百所名校教授亲证有效。

媒体评论：
“对于任何领域的学习者而言，本书都能让你受益匪浅。芭芭拉•奥克利教授以认知科学的研究为依据，提供权威的指导。她简洁、明快地引导我们大限度地从学习中受益。对于学习困难户，以及任何想精进学习效果的人而言，这都是一本好读物。” ——戴维•C.吉尔里密苏里大学心理学与跨学科神经科学教授

“很久没遇到一本书能让我这么激动了。加深对学习方法的认识，才能让人们持久掌握知识，并在各个领域取得成功。这是一份能让人受益终身的礼物。” ——罗伯特•R.加马什 麻省理工学院罗威尔校区协理副校长

“干活要使巧劲而不是蛮力，这句话说起来容易，但芭芭拉•奥克利真真切切地教会了你巧办法。这本轻快易懂的书收纳了许多学习窍门，皆是以严谨的科学和经验为基础的。不瞒你说，我就打算把其中的几种技巧运用到我自己的学习生活中。” ——格伦•哈兰•雷诺兹、比彻姆•布罗根田纳西大学名誉法学教授

“掌握学习之道，会学才是你的目的。这本大脑使用手册揭示了在学习领域取得成功的奥秘。我见过很多学习者，他们一遇到困难就打退堂鼓。既然这本使用手册能让学习者“懂得更多”，他们自然会‘做得更好’。”——雪莉•马尔科姆美国科学促进会会员

The companion book to COURSERA®’s wildly popular massive open online course “Learning How to Learn”
Review
“A good teacher will leave you educated. But a great teacher will leave you curious. Well, Barbara Oakley is a great teacher. Not only does she have a mind for numbers, she has a way with words, and she makes every one of them count.” — Mike Rowe, creator and host of Discovery Channel’s “Dirty Jobs” and CEO of mikeroweWORKS

“If you struggled through math and slept through science, there’s hope. In A Mind for Numbers, polymath Barbara Oakley reveals how to unlock the analytic powers of our brains so we can learn how to learn. This book should be required reading for students—and for my mother.” — Adam Grant, New York Times-bestselling author of Give and Take

“An ingeniously accessible introduction to the science of human cognition—along with practical advice on how to think better.” — James Taranto, The Wall Street Journal
 
“In my book The Math Instinct, I described how we have known since the early 1990s that all ordinary people can do mathematics, and in The Math Gene, I explained why the capacity for mathematical thinking is both a natural consequence of evolution and yet requires effort to unleash it. What I did not do is show how to tap in to that innate ability. Professor Oakley does just that.” — Keith Devlin, NPR Weekend Edition’s “Math Guy”

“A wonderful book! How do you come to love math and science, and how do you come to learn math and science? Read A Mind for Numbers. Barbara Oakley is the magician who will help you do both.” — Francisco J. Ayala, University Professor and Donald Bren Professor of Biological Sciences, University of California, Irvine, and former President and Chairman of the Board, American Association for the Advancement of Science

“Being good at science and mathematics isn’t just something you are; it’s something you become. This users’ guide to the brain unmasks the mystery around achieving success in mathematics and science. I have seen far too many students opt out when they hit a rough patch. But now that learners have a handy guide for ‘knowing better’ they will also be able to ‘do better.’” — Shirley Malcom, Head of Education and Human Resources Programs, American Association for the Advancement of Science

读完一本书，却不记得讲什么？
美剧看了一箩筐，英语还是没长进？
公众号、指导书、牛人帖，一个都没落，却还是没有形成自己的学习体系？
这些都是典型的低质量学习症状。
不了解学习的原理，就是在无效重复；缺乏有效的学习方法，就是在消耗天赋。
本书从脑科学和心理学的新研究出发，跨学科解读学习的原理，提供全面的学习方法和思维模式：
大脑如何处理图形、文字、数字等信息，不同类型的学习匹配哪种信息通路
学艺术、学语言、学音乐、学数理？各种事物的学习原理有何差异
对于你而言，为什么A方法比B方法效果更好
如果你翻开这本书，我相信你对学习是认真的。
专注思维VS发散思维
记忆组块
提取练习
穿插学习法
机遇的法则
数学浸泡法
记忆宫殿法
间隔重复法
知识迁移
解释性提问法
学习类APP
数十项科学研究，绘制学习原理全景地图；
全面的学习法则，通往精进之路。
Whether you are a student struggling to fulfill a math or science requirement, or you are embarking on a career change that requires a new skill set, A Mind for Numbers offers the tools you need to get a better grasp of that intimidating material. Engineering professor Barbara Oakley knows firsthand how it feels to struggle with math. She flunked her way through high school math and science courses, before enlisting in the army immediately after graduation. When she saw how her lack of mathematical and technical savvy severely limited her options—both to rise in the military and to explore other careers—she returned to school with a newfound determination to re-tool her brain to master the very subjects that had given her so much trouble throughout her entire life.
In A Mind for Numbers, Dr. Oakley lets us in on the secrets to learning effectively—secrets that even dedicated and successful students wish they’d known earlier. Contrary to popular belief, math requires creative, as well as analytical, thinking. Most people think that there’s only one way to do a problem, when in actuality, there are often a number of different solutions—you just need the creativity to see them. For example, there are more than three hundred different known proofs of the Pythagorean Theorem. In short, studying a problem in a laser-focused way until you reach a solution is not an effective way to learn. Rather, it involves taking the time to step away from a problem and allow the more relaxed and creative part of the brain to take over. The learning strategies in this book apply not only to math and science, but to any subject in which we struggle. We all have what it takes to excel in areas that don't seem to come naturally to us at first, and learning them does not have to be as painful as we might think!

芭芭拉•奥克利（Barbara Oakley），现为工程学教授，本科专业（居然是）俄语。小学到高中数理成绩一路垫底，因此热爱文学。职场生活，不得不学习大量新鲜知识，甚至是头疼的数学知识。放下工作，回到学校，竟然学成了工程学博士，后留任教授。在MOOC、Coursera上开创很受欢迎的学习课“Learning How to Learn”，数十万人报名。
Barbara Oakley is a professor of engineering at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. She has received many awards for her teaching, including the coveted National Science Foundation New Century Scholar Award.

Thomas Edison is one of the most prolific inventors in history, with over one thousand patents to his name. Nothing got in the way of his creativity. Even as his lab was burning to the ground in a horrific accidental fire, Edison was excitedly sketching up plans for a new lab, even bigger and better than before. How could Edison be so phenomenally creative? The answer, as you’ll see, relates to his unusual tricks for shifting his mode of thinking.
Shifting between the focused and diffuse modes
For most people, shifting from focused to diffuse mode happens naturally if you distract yourself and then allow a little time to pass. You can go for a walk, take a nap, or go to the gym. Or you can work on something that occupies other parts of your brain: listening to music, conjugating Spanish verbs, or cleaning your gerbil cage The key is to do something else until your brain is consciously free of any thought of the problem. Unless other tricks are brought into play, this generally takes several hours. You may say – I don’t have that kind of time. You do, however, if you simply switch your focus to other things you need to do, and mix in a little relaxing break time.
Creativity expert Howard Gruber has suggested that one of the three “B’s” usually seems to do the trick: the bed, the bath, or the bus One remarkably inventive chemist of the mid-1800s, Alexander Williamson, observed that a solitary walk was worth a week in the laboratory in helping him progress in his work.(Lucky for him there were no smartphones then.) Walking spurs creativity in many fields; a number of famous writers, for example, including Jane Austen, Carl Sandburg, and Charles Dickens, found inspiration during their frequent long walks.
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. After your break, when you return to the problem at hand, you will often be surprised at how easily the solution pops into place. Even if the solution doesn’t appear, you will often be further along in your understanding. It can take a lot of hard, focused mode work beforehand, but the sudden, unexpected solution that emerges from the diffuse mode can make it feel almost like the “Ah-hah!” mode.