ABSTRACT
Trial and error is almost always the best plan. As I observed earlier, what gamers actually learn is that trial and error is much more effective when tempered by experience. Trial and error, guided by experience, is an integral part of the way professional mathematicians work. A more accurate description would be trial and improvement. But students in a typical math class quickly learn that trial and error is a disastrous strategy. Traditional mathematics instruction rewards stu-dents who learn the rules and practice applying them. There’s always an answer. Though this is not the case in many real world ap-plications of mathematics, particularly at more advanced levels, it is true for the kinds of basic mathematical skills we are looking at in this book. I can figure it out. This is coupled with the two previous key features. Such an attitude is essential to being able to learn mathematics. Yet, in a typical math class, most students come to the conclusion that when it comes to math, they cannot figure it out, and they look for a teacher or a textbook to do it for them.
