Conscious Math: Envisioning the Elements of Mathematics - Paperback

by Nathan M. Harper (Author)

Like playing sports and other games of skill, practicing math can be an exhilarating way of sharpening your mind. Conscious Math is a guide to spark your curiosity and record inspired insights. People learn math best when they can make their own discoveries, connecting dots of information and creating their own constellations of knowledge. This book offers visual cues and a coherent mental framework for uniting galaxies of constellations into a single, more accessible universe. It is designed to spark those light-bulb moments when things suddenly make sense. As you brighten each page with the light of your attention and flashes of discovery, the book becomes a string of colored lights for you to open and re-illuminate whenever you wish to remember.

All too often, learning math is treated as a matter of memorizing one piece of information after another. These pieces of information can seem random and unconnected, making math frustrating and confusing.

Practicing math consciously means working to understand a larger framework, conceptualizing new pieces of information as components of a system. Conscious Math involves zooming in on small details, and zooming out to look for patterns within a bigger picture. It means asking ourselves questions to focus our unconscious memories and skills on one task at a time. Conscious Math is mindful and creative.

This book condenses math instruction to help frame that bigger picture. It draws together essential elements of algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and basic calculus, combining already familiar material with accessible introductions to more advanced topics for students at almost every level. Conscious Math is a valuable guide for developing new skills while consolidating old ones. It is suitable for all students grades 6 through 12, especially those looking for more creative and engaging approaches to learning math. The artful notes and exercises are also good for collecting and rekindling past knowledge in time for college calculus courses or big tests, just for fun, or for sharing math with other people.