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Introduction to Mathematical Thinking
Keith Devlin
Learn how to think the way mathematicians do - a powerful cognitive process developed over thousands of years.If you are still reading emails from me, I assume you have not given up on this course. Things will get steadily "harder" as we progress, but only very slowly. And each new topic will build on what we covered earlier. So if you are still with me after one week, you stand a good change of getting to the end of week 3. The final two weeks focus more on mathematics, at which point those of you interested just in improving your general analytic thinking skills might decide to drop out -- though I hope you'll try to stay as long as you can! There is a great book that just came out, which I read over the weekend: Edward Burger and Michael Starbird's The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking. The two authors are mathematics professors, and I know them both slightly. In many ways, their book is like my own Introduction to Mathematical Thinking, but whereas I aim mine at helping students develop good thinking skills for further study in mathematics and related subjects at university, they target anyone who could benefit from improving their thinking skills. In particular, they do not use mathematical examples. (On the other hand, when you look at what they say, it's pretty well exactly what I keep saying in my book and in our course.) You might find it helpful to read their book. There is a Kindle edition for $9.99. (My book will come out on Kindle, but because of the mathematics, the Kindle staff are having to convert it by hand -- their automatic conversion system chokes on formulas.) Also, some of you have speculated/asked about the educational thinking behind my course. I say a bit about it in the latest post at MOOCtalk.org.
KD
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