Take the 2-minute tour ×  I am an undergraduate CS major with
strong interests in applied math and theoretical computer
science. In the past, I've done reasonably well grade-wise in
all math-related (that is, pure math, applied or theoretical CS)
classes, but I feel that I still haven't taken away as much as i
could have from most.  As people who have often taught math
courses and had to deal with the inevitable fact that no lecture
will be universally effective, what are your suggestions for how
I (as a student) can best learn in these classes.  A few
problems I've experienced regularly:  When professors try to
present long and difficult proofs on the blackboard. I always
find it ridiculously hard to understand proofs in real time or
to understand verbal and visual explication of the proof
simultaneously. I have to look the proof up in a textbook, and
the comprehensibility of textbook proofs varies widely.  More
generally, accessing the "kernel" of the proof that really makes
it comprehensible is sometimes d