45 Barb Oakley - The Science of Learning

Inquiring Minds

Science, Society & Culture, Neuroscience, Female Host, Interview, Social Sciences, Critical Thinking

4.4 • 848 Ratings

🗓️ 31 July 2014

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Charles Dickens, perhaps the greatest of the Victorian novelists, was a man of strict routine. Every day, notes his biographer Claire Tomalin, Dickens would write from 9:00 am to 2:00 pm. After that, he would put his work away and go out for a long walk. Sometimes he walked as far as 30 miles; sometimes, he walked into the night. "If I couldn't walk fast and far, I should just explode and perish," Dickens wrote.According to engineering professor Barbara Oakley, author of the new book A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra), Dickens wasn't just a guy who knew how to keep himself healthy. Rather, his habits are indicative of someone who has figured out how to make his brain function at a very high level. And for this, Dickens' walks were just as important as his writing sessions. "That sort of downtime, when you're not thinking directly about what you're trying to learn, or figure out, or write about—that downtime is a time of subconscious processing that allows you [learn] better," explains Oakley on this week’s episode. We learn about her new book—and how you can train your brain to learn more efficiently.This episode also features a short conversation with neuroscientist Lucina Uddin, author of a recent paper finding that autistic kids have less brain flexibility, as well as a discussion of recent research suggesting that musical ability is innate and that fist-bumps are far superior to handshakes as a greeting, assuming you don't want to spread germs.iTunes: itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/inquiring-minds/id711675943RSS: feeds.feedburner.com/inquiring-mindsStitcher: stitcher.com/podcast/inquiring-mindsSupport the show: https://www.patreon.com/inquiringminds

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's Friday, August 1st, and you're listening to Inquiring Minds. I'm Chris Mooney. And I'm
0:06.3	Indrae Viscontas. Each week we bring you a new in-depth exploration of the space where science,
0:11.2	politics, and society collide. We endeavor to find out what's true, what's left to discover,
0:15.8	and why it all matters. You can find us on Twitter at Inquiring Show on Facebook at slash Inquiring Minds podcast, and you can subscribe to the show on iTunes or any other podcasting app.
0:33.7	And I want to let you know that this episode of Inquiring Minds is sponsored by Harry's Razors.
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0:46.5	It only costs 15 bucks to get a Harry's Razor set, including a handle, three blades, and shave cream shipped to your door.
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1:04.5	If you go to a harries.com and use the promo code inquiring minds, you can save $5 off your first
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1:13.8	So, Indra, I think this will not be surprising to you, given what many of our shows in the past
1:18.8	have been about. But I really am getting to believe that we're living in a golden age for
1:23.8	popular math trade books. We've talked about a number of them on the show. Jordan
1:28.8	Ellenberg wrote this book that I love called How Not to Be Wrong, the Power of Mathematical
1:32.7	Thinking. You talk to Edward Frankel, who wrote Love and Math. And then, of course, don't
1:37.3	forget Simon Singh, mathematics and the Simpsons. Exactly. And so the genre, though, is still
1:42.1	not tapped out. These books are all different, and now there is yet another math book that is also very different, not at all duplicative. It's by Barbara Oakley. She's an engineering professor at Oakland University. It's entitled A Mind for Numbers, How to Excel at Math and Science, even if you flunked algebra. And Oakley is a self-described
2:02.3	former math hater who turned into an engineering professor, so clearly she had a turnaround.
2:08.3	And what's, I think, great about her book is how it synthesizes what we're learning from
2:14.1	cognitive neuroscience about how to learn. And then it applies that to how you can get
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