&gt;It&#x27;s little things, like going through how the quadratic formula is derived instead of just telling someone to learn it by rote. Explaining differentiation with a bit of the logic behind it instead of just teaching rules.<p>Once you get in the mindset of deriving equations, rote memorization becomes insanely difficult, at least in my opinion.<p>During my last year as an undergrad majoring in physics I got a 4.0 in quantum mechanics, but very nearly failed introductory chemistry (which I was taking to fill a science distribution requirement at a liberal arts college), despite many of the chemistry concepts just being edge cases of applied quantum mechanics.<p>There was also the very embarrassing case of being called to the blackboard to complete a problem in an elective course on number theory only to draw a blank on what 9 times 7 was. I understood the solution to the problem itself, but when the professor started giving me hints I had to admit in front of the whole class that my issue wasn&#x27;t with the number theory proof -- it was with the multiplication table we learn as children.