Deliberate practice techniques for software developers
Math problems on standardized tests have short, simple answers that fit in a multiple-choice format. But college-level math problems require more detailed explanations. In How to Write a Math Solution, Richard Rusczyk and Mathew Crawford of Art of Problem Solving present a detailed checklist for ensuring that your proofs and solutions communicate your thinking as clearly as possible. Here’s some advice from the article that I found especially useful.
Last week, I considered what we can learn from the standardized test approach to studying math. This week, I’m continuing that line of thinking with some advice from another PrepScholar article.
ContinueOne way to find out how well you know math fundamentals is to take a timed math test. In the U.S., over two million students per year take the SAT (which includes a math portion) as part of the college admissions process. A multitude of online resources, including Khan Academy, are available to help with […]
ContinueWhen you’re studying a topic, a course acts as a filter for the material: Rather than having to consider every reference on a subject, you get a nicely curated subset that the instructor believes fulfills the goals of the course. Rather than having to read an entire textbook, you get a list of sections, or […]
ContinueWhen you’re studying math on your own, a question you must continually ask yourself is how much time to spend on the problem you’re working on. That question also comes up when you’re taking a traditional class, though your options are more limited in that case because of the fixed class schedule. I wrote about […]
ContinueA mathematical proof can be the size of a novella. For example, Andrew Wiles’s published his famous proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem in two journal articles covering 129 pages. But proofs in introductory textbooks like Rosen often contain just a few sentences. It might seem obvious that these proofs are short because they’re easy. But […]
ContinueLast week, I suggested a process for getting better at writing proofs. To illustrate that process, here’s an example of how to use it to prove a theorem from Rosen.
ContinueProof-writing skills are important for all college-level math. But there’s a special relationship between proofs and discrete math. In the “Goals of a Discrete Mathematics Course” section in the preface to his textbook, Rosen puts Mathematical Reasoning first in the list. He writes: Students must understand mathematical reasoning in order to read, comprehend, and construct […]
ContinueIf you search for advice on how to read a math textbook, you’ll find plenty to choose from. I’ll link to some of my favorites at the end of this article. But first, here’s an overview of my experience reading math books, and what techniques I found to be useful.
ContinueIn their first 13 or so years of school, students cover a standardized math curriculum. Last week, I covered how Khan Academy approaches that curriculum. Notably absent from that list are many topics in discrete mathematics. But what is discrete mathematics, anyway? I’ll answer that in two ways: with a definition, and with a curriculum.
Continue