[HN Gopher] Improving Students' Learning with Effective Learning...
___________________________________________________________________
Improving Students' Learning with Effective Learning Techniques
Author : pella
Score : 158 points
Date : 2023-03-01 16:04 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (journals.sagepub.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (journals.sagepub.com)
| kazinator wrote:
| I'm confused by the overly concise title and humbly suggest:
|
| "Improving Student's Learning with Learning Techniques That
| Improve Learning by virtue of being Effective".
|
| It needs to be clear that not all techniques are the same. Only
| some are effective. Moreover, it's not clear that what it means
| for a learning technique to be effective is that it improves
| learning. And so--aha!--that is why the study is only about the
| effective ones.
| hummus_bae wrote:
| [dead]
| ravedave5 wrote:
| From years of editing wikipedia the first sentence sets off
| alarms for using weasel words "many students", "some people". I
| hope the rest of the paper is more rigorous.
| RheingoldRiver wrote:
| It's so interesting to me that interleaved practice is an
| effective learning technique, that's probably the single method
| of study I used consistently throughout my entire schooling.
| Slightly bored of one subject? Okay switch to the next. Bored of
| this one? Switch to the next. CONSTANT context switching. I
| thought I was "cheating the system" by making my homework more
| interesting, who knew I was learning more effectively by
| employing a (moderately) effective study habit!
| revskill wrote:
| Teaching students is almost the same as mentoring junior
| developers on how to successfully onboard them. The goal is to
| let them actively control the project they're working on.
| tedyoung wrote:
| I did a talk that dives into some of these topics, aimed at
| developers: https://youtu.be/SdvmMPcXK0Q
| golemiprague wrote:
| [dead]
| billbrown wrote:
| One of the authors--Daniel T. Willingham--has a new book along
| these lines:
|
| https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Outsmart-Your-Brain/D...
|
| His book "Why Students Don't Like School" is one of the best
| books on cognition I've ever read if you can transfer its
| knowledge from the pedagogical form in which it's presented.
| poszlem wrote:
| In my opinion, one of the most significant failures of modern
| education is the lack of emphasis on spaced repetition. It's
| really a shame that while we have lessons on a wide range of
| topics, including the latest social justice causes, there is one
| technique that can be truly life-changing, yet it's often not
| taught until people reach adulthood and have to discover it on
| their own.
| asdff wrote:
| IMO you kind of do get spaced repetition in modern education.
| As you specialize, you frequently have major classes where its
| "first week or two we dig into what you already should know,
| then we really dive into the deeper stuff." Or you take up a
| job, and maybe you have to refer to that one topic from class
| years ago twice a year, that's spaced repetition.
|
| In a sense, the nature of a specialized career forces you to
| engage in spaced repetition of the things you need to know, and
| allows you to safely ignore the stuff you never need to touch
| again. If we encouraged spaced repetition on each and
| everything, I would be wasting a ton of time on subjects that
| ultimately aren't relevant, at the expense of free time and
| maximizing time spent on the relevant bits.
| BeetleB wrote:
| This is the perspective many people have, but in my
| experience it falls short. To quibble with your examples:
|
| > As you specialize, you frequently have major classes where
| its "first week or two we dig into what you already should
| know, then we really dive into the deeper stuff."
|
| Yes, they do this. But I've often seen (especially at the
| undergrad level) instructors avoiding topics or challenging
| problems because it required material beyond just the basic
| math/calculus (e.g. some trig identities, differential
| equations, etc). So in practice, this is not happening.
|
| > Or you take up a job, and maybe you have to refer to that
| one topic from class years ago twice a year, that's spaced
| repetition.
|
| It's even worse at work, where you don't have a teacher to
| enforce things. Suggestions get shot down all the time
| because coworkers have forgotten some (even trivial) things
| they learned at university, and they do not want to review
| it. I've seen this happens where they avoid basic Calc I
| stuff, where they avoid stuff in data structures (e.g. union
| find). They'll implement a poor solution, and convince
| management it can't be done better. Or that it can but it's a
| long term risk because if that one person who knows "union
| find" leaves, we won't be able to hire someone to maintain
| it, etc.
|
| > If we encouraged spaced repetition on each and everything,
| I would be wasting a ton of time on subjects that ultimately
| aren't relevant, at the expense of free time and maximizing
| time spent on the relevant bits.
|
| Michael Nielsen did an analysis of this after using Anki for
| a bunch of years: The average amount of time spent on a card
| over one's lifetime is about 10 minutes. And so he used that
| as a metric when encountering any new piece of information:
| "If I don't learn it, do I think I will spend more than 10
| minutes looking it up in the future?" If yes, he'll make a
| flashcard for it. If not, he won't.
|
| But yes, I definitely have disabled cards on topics that I
| don't think I'll want to touch again in the future.
| rprospero wrote:
| I frequently hear this comment about spaced repetition, but I'm
| not sure how it would be different than modern education. In
| physics, we started with unit analysis, but it continued being
| a factor throughout the course. Then we learned kinematic,
| which didn't disappear once we went into dynamics and both were
| constantly used with electrostatics. Similarly, in language
| courses, you start with a single conjugation in present
| indicative. You build out from there, but the present tense
| would still show up on every assignment, even after you've gone
| through pluperfect subjunctive. Needless to say, algebra
| courses freely called back to basic arithmetic and calculus
| called back to algebra.
|
| I feel like I must be attacking a straw man here, as you're not
| the only individual I've met who found spaced repetition
| revelatory, but I'm still not sure what I'm missing.
| poszlem wrote:
| Spaced repetition is particularly effective when it comes to
| memorizing a large volume of information quickly and
| retaining it for the long term. This is applicable to a wide
| range of subjects, including history (facts and dates),
| physics (formulas and laws), mathematics (formulas and laws),
| and many others.
|
| There is often a misconception that subjects like physics are
| solely about understanding and reasoning, but at the school
| level, it is necessary to have a solid grasp of the laws and
| formulas. Without this foundation, it is like attempting to
| write a program in a programming language without knowing the
| syntax. You have to stop and look up the syntax for each line
| of code, slowing down the entire process. Some things simply
| need to be memorized to achieve a certain level of
| proficiency.
| parton wrote:
| In all of my physics classes (high school, undergrad,
| grad), we were allowed to have a formula sheet with
| whatever we wanted written on it. Furthermore, important
| equations would just be given to us on the test, in case
| you forgot to write it. Even so, test scores were usually
| below 50% (corrected by curving after). Memorizing formulas
| to study would have been a laughable waste of time, the
| better approach is to practice a wide variety of problems.
| laserlight wrote:
| If one has to look up a formula, can we say that they
| have a good understanding of it? If one had to look up a
| multiplication table each time they calculated something,
| how far would they have gone in learning?
| max51 wrote:
| I think you have it backward. All that time/energy wasted
| memorizing multiplications could have been used to
| understand more complicated topics. It's a cool party
| trick but it won't make you better at solving problems
| past high school level. I would prefer to work with
| someone who understand the concepts well and how to apply
| them than someone who can recall 32x9 or 10 digits of pi
| from memory.
|
| When people complain about the difficulty of their
| college math courses or the math problems they solve at
| work, I can assure that it's not because they had a hard
| time remembering the answer to a multiplication. In a lot
| of cases, the equations they are trying to solve don't
| even have numbers in them. And when there are numbers,
| you won't be able to calculate them mentally because they
| won't simplify like they do in a no-calculator math exam.
|
| You might not have realized, but a lot of the work when
| designing a no-calculator exam is to make sure people can
| compute the numbers mentally. When you step out in the
| real world, 32x9 becomes into 32.091x9.1^1.1. It turns
| ugly real fast when you have to deal with real numbers
| instead of a carefully crafted exam question.
| cschneid wrote:
| to add to this, I think spaced repetition is to learning,
| the way typing speed is to programming. It's good at
| solving for the minor frustrations and slowdowns that stand
| in between you & the complex reasoning to get to a
| solution.
|
| When I can edit code via vim keybindings quickly, I can
| move things, sketch ideas, swap entire blocks, and so on,
| easily. That lets me check and look at things, and allow my
| whole brain to be spent on higher level things like looking
| at the control flow, applying aesthetic considerations to
| simplify, or whatever.
|
| I failed Calc 3 as a college freshman because I had taken
| high school calc as a junior, leaving a full year between.
| I understood the ideas of calc 3, but couldn't remember the
| basic stuff like integrating tan() or whatever. (and I also
| didn't have any study discipline at the time to actually
| solve for my situation). So I couldn't answer the questions
| on a test even though I knew the steps I would need to take
| past a roadblock. Solvable with study, which would have
| been effective in the form of spaced repetition flash
| cards.
| account-5 wrote:
| This is definitely not my experience with space repetition.
| I really wanted it to work for me but I found it didn't
| help at all with retaining anything. I was using anki.
|
| The more cards I created/added made it worse.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Curious: How many cards did you create? And how often do
| you test yourself? You really _need_ to do it daily with
| few gaps for it to be very effective.
|
| I would recommend not giving up but instead altering your
| approach. I tried spaced repetition multiple times in
| grad school and completely failed at it. I then tried
| again over 10 years later (and much older!) and it was
| really like attaining a super power. The success is even
| more remarkable because compared to my university days, I
| am much less actively _using_ the material in the cards.
|
| In my case, the difference between the two attempts was
| sticking to the daily schedule[1] and getting better at
| creating relevant cards.
|
| And keep in mind: SR aids in _recall_ , not in
| _understanding_. There have been times where I look at
| the cards on a certain topic and do very poorly
| (consistently). I then realize it 's partly because some
| key understanding has been lost. I then need to do a
| proper study session (get the book out, read for
| understanding, perhaps do some problems). After that
| study session, I get good on the cards and stay good for
| a long time. In the last 4 years, I've needed to do this
| perhaps twice.
|
| [1] Yes, I do stop from time to time, but those are the
| exceptions, not the rule.
| account-5 wrote:
| I created cards as I was learning the topic. And I was
| doing it daily or twice daily.
|
| I certainly wanted it to work, when I first learned about
| it I thought it was the answer. But I seemed to get worse
| and more stressed out because I wasn't learning anything.
|
| I'm not too fussed about it not working for me. I don't
| think there is a one size style of learning.
| bhattid wrote:
| This has been my experience as well (especially with
| Anki), though I've always felt like my ability to
| memorize information to be poor in general. In my
| experience, I find it easier to memorize things rather
| through brute force/frequent repetition. To use
| memorizing foreign language vocabulary as an example;
| repeating words to myself, listening, or writing them out
| for 30-60 minutes everyday or every few days (as opposed
| to spreading out fewer terms over, say, two weeks). The
| conjecture I have is that my brain commits to memory more
| heavily based on frequency/intensity during short
| intervals of time rather than long intervals of time, but
| it's just a guess.
|
| Not sure if I'm just an outlier, but I think you're right
| that many learning heuristics aren't one-size-fits-all.
| Hope you can find something that's effective (and
| enjoyable) for you. :)
| victor106 wrote:
| 100% this.
|
| Once I realized that understand is different from recall,
| it made a world of difference.
| asdff wrote:
| People are already doing this though. If you are a
| historian, you are already having spaced repetition on your
| subject of interest, since every book you pick up from the
| field will cite the seminal information everyone knows in
| the field. You are constantly being refreshed on it.
| Likewise in physics or math, if you specialize in some
| niche, you are constantly reviewing the groundwork and in
| all likelihood reading a good deal of review articles as
| well. That being said, there's no point in the professor of
| history reviewing their calculus from undergrad, and
| there's no point in the physics researcher to review all
| the central dates and names of world history every few
| years. If you strive to have the breadth of an ocean you
| won't have time for much depth. There's just a finite
| amount of information one can intake a day.
| dls2016 wrote:
| This seems to be changing a bit. I have two children in a US
| public elementary school. The teachers use various apps to have
| children review mathematics facts. The apps allow children to
| move at their own pace and also incorporates some spaced
| repetition. (Though teachers seem to pick whatever app they
| like and the apps are of varying quality.)
| poszlem wrote:
| I really hope you're correct. It feels a lot like the debate
| between phonics and whole language to me, where how we teach
| makes it difficult for the average student to learn. People
| here are discussing Bloom's Taxonomy and higher levels of
| learning, but many students struggle with even the most basic
| concepts.
| waynesonfire wrote:
| what do you call the two midterms, the final, the reading, the
| lecture, and the worksheets? all cover the same material at
| different times.
|
| if anything, it's higher level education (4, 5, and 600 level
| college courses) where i saw a lack of spaced repetition, or
| any sort of learning beyond the professor presenting the
| material. I guess it's expected that at that point you have
| your learning technique figured out.
| bluSCALE4 wrote:
| I'm not sure but by spread out I would assume multi-year.
| What you described is still problematic. I believe this is
| why mixed grade classrooms worked out so well because this
| was inherently unavoidable.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| Having an intensive course on a subject over 3-6 months
| doesn't really let you do much in terms of spaced repetition.
| If a course is a year long and material is briefly visited,
| then often revisited, that could work, but even with a year
| long course, if you see the material on a quiz, a test and (a
| little bit) in the final that's not even close to optimal.
| poszlem wrote:
| That's precisely my point. There should be a dedicated
| subject called "Effective Learning" or something similar,
| where students are equipped with the necessary tools to
| continue learning at a higher level after leaving school. The
| fact that individuals are unaware of these skills later in
| life is evidence of the education system's shortcomings.
| drjasonharrison wrote:
| Sometimes they don't cover the same material.
|
| In post-secondary education, the amount of material,
| typically due to the speed or density of delivery, may reveal
| that your learning technique isn't working. For example you
| may spend too much time on one topic rather than on a topic
| more heavily weighted in an exam.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > what do you call the two midterms, the final, the reading,
| the lecture, and the worksheets?
|
| Haphazard spaced repetition.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like spaced
| repetition is rather limited to the bottom two tiers of bloom's
| taxonomy. Can you flash-cards your way towards being effective
| at making the changes you want to see in the world?
| ttpphd wrote:
| The image made me laugh!
| pessimizer wrote:
| _Using spaced repetition_ is not the same as _replacing all
| other learning methods with spaced repetition._
|
| Just because spaced repetition isn't good for everything
| doesn't mean it shouldn't be used for what it is good at.
| It's good for remembering the specifics of things that you
| have already learned and understood.
| Kokouane wrote:
| No, you can not. But Bloom's taxonomy is hierarchical, so
| covering the first two rungs is very important and necessary
| for the steps after that. Spaced repetition systems allow you
| to make sure those bases are covered in an optimal way.
| poszlem wrote:
| Pretty much this. Essentially, the bottom two tiers serve
| as the fundamental basis that ought to be robust and
| sturdy, but frequently end up being the place where
| students' academic progress comes to a halt.
| sambapa wrote:
| TLDR: use Anki. Yes, really, that's it.
| account-5 wrote:
| I hope not. Anki did not work for me at all. I genuinely got
| worse at remembering things trying that spaced repetition
| stuff. Definitely not the way I learn things.
| sambapa wrote:
| Unfortunately it is backed 100% by this paper. Maybe you used
| Anki in a wrong way (it isn't so obvious and simple)
| account-5 wrote:
| Maybe. I created cards, and regularly reviewed them in the
| app, whilst creating more as I was learning new things. Is
| there a different way of using it?
|
| All it did was stress me out because I wasn't recalling
| anything and all my cards were repeated basically all the
| time.
|
| Is there a guide you can recommend that shows me how to use
| it properly?
| jldugger wrote:
| I can't recall which guide I read but
| https://zhighley.com/anki-settings/ seems to cover the
| relevant bits.
|
| But it honestly depends on the purpose, and the person.
| There are tunables about how often you see cards in the
| learning phase, how many new cards are released daily,
| and how impactful forgetting is on future reviews.
| Language learning cards focused on vocabulary, may need a
| longer "learning" stage than math or science topics. So a
| lot of this comes down to looking at your recall percent,
| and tuning / reducing new cards added cards to the review
| set until you are hitting 80-90 percent recall for a week
| straight. I don't even recall the defaults but especially
| if you are downloading other people's decks its easy to
| drown in new cards.
|
| My other suggestion is to use Cloze deletion cards where
| feasible. It's much easier to learn the US Bill of rights
| as a set of clauses than trying to recall the seventh
| amendment on demand in its entirety, and Cloze makes it
| simple to produce these.
| sambapa wrote:
| You can start here:
|
| https://www.supermemo.com/en/blog/twenty-rules-of-
| formulatin...
| elteto wrote:
| This is not the TLDR and the Anki worshipping is silly. You
| can't use Anki to learn physics, or math. There's only so much
| you need to memorize in those subjects, the rest you have to
| work through problems.
| sambapa wrote:
| Yes you can, check Michael Nielsen or "A mind for numbers".
| Anki is two highest highest utility learning techniques
| combined, so by pareto principle it is tldr.
| VoodooJuJu wrote:
| >What's the best way to learn a thing? >By doing that thing,
| repeatedly.
|
| Wow, really activates my almonds. That massive complex academic
| performance for a conclusion you could have received if you just
| asked your grandmother.
|
| To me, this is a branch of scientism.
| syzarian wrote:
| There are lots of examples of counter intuitive results and
| lots of examples of "obviously true" statements turning out to
| be false after a rigorous study. Here is an example of a study
| that reinforces the "obvious". That doesn't make the study
| without merit or that it was a waste of time.
| ticviking wrote:
| There is an open question of what smaller things can you teach
| someone to do so they can do the next more difficult thing.
|
| Music education is full of standard exercises like this that
| build skills and fluency in them until students can combine
| them in ways that seem magical to outsiders.
| pella wrote:
| TLDR: Result of a large meta-analysis of study techniques:
|
| High
|
| - Distributed practice
|
| - Practice testing
|
| Moderate
|
| - Elaborative interrogation
|
| - Interleaved practice
|
| - Self-explanation
|
| Low
|
| - Highlighting
|
| - Imagery use for text learning
|
| - Rereading
|
| - Summarization
|
| - The keyword mnemonic
|
| // via: https://twitter.com/emollick/status/1630938305213628417 (
| see tips How AI/ChatGPT can help )
| whatever1 wrote:
| How can you practice history? Or biology? Or organic chemistry.
| Or law?
|
| You just have to memorize the damn thing. There are no
| shortcuts.
| mym1990 wrote:
| No one really said anything about shortcuts. Building maps of
| knowledge that have logical progressions and connections is
| so much more fulfilling than rote memorization. I can either
| memorize that the Iron Age came after the Bronze Age or I can
| weave a story with as many details as I can find and
| understand the inner workings of how the transition from the
| Bronze Age to the Iron Age happened.
|
| You can also identify patterns within domains, which is a
| pretty common way to begin tackling problems or questions
| that you don't really know but can start making an educated
| guess about.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| You write about it.
|
| I dual majored in history in college in the 90s. The best
| professors made you write a paper every class that would fit
| on the front of a college ruled looseleaf paper that would be
| more comfortable to write on 3-4 pages.
|
| The process of writing and editing taught you to think.
| Journalism writing before the shit-fest of online news was
| similar. 6 editors would wield the sword over whatever you
| wrote.
| austinjp wrote:
| This is just a guess: maybe thought experiments? In law, that
| might be randomly picking/generating cases and arguing the
| points to rehearse knowledge. In history, similarly it could
| mean role-playing historical scenarios and considering the
| individuals involved and the politics of the day.
|
| I'm imagining these as group activities, not something one
| would do alone.
|
| I also freely admit my naivety regarding these subjects.
|
| Finally, I don't think these or similar approaches are "short
| cuts". Quite the opposite.
| criddell wrote:
| Test taking is a skill that you can develop. I wonder what
| portion of the improvements from practice testing come from
| getting better at test taking?
| Jensson wrote:
| They tried test taking with tests of a very different format
| than the final examination, still worked.
| Silverback_VII wrote:
| no spaced repetition? ChatGPT seems to be very good at
| generating cards btw
| [deleted]
| bawolff wrote:
| I feel like that kind of defeats the point if you get chatgpt
| to make the cards for you.
| AstixAndBelix wrote:
| Spaced repetition is distributed practice
| layman51 wrote:
| I read that "distributed practice" seems to be scheduling
| the learning activities to be spread out over time. I'm not
| sure if distributed practice has this, but "spaced
| repetition" seems to have some additional part to it where
| you don't review the flash cards that you answer correctly
| as often as the ones you get wrong.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| It's distributed practice where the time between practice
| sessions is chosen to maximize learning / work.
| thundergolfer wrote:
| > ChatGPT seems to be very good at generating cards btw
|
| So you can get very good at memorizing occassionally
| incorrect information? If I'm going to put in the effort to
| drill information into my brain with spaced-repetition, I
| have a high bar for the accuracy of that information.
|
| I hand write all my cards, and think it's commonly accepted
| that the manual process of producing the cards is an
| important first step in the memorization process.
| david_allison wrote:
| You can prompt ChatGPT to convert existing information into
| Q/A or cloze style, which saves time for some workloads.
|
| I wouldn't trust it to generate cards from scratch.
| [deleted]
| eric__cartman wrote:
| I'm not sure if this really saves time in the end. At
| least for me the part of taking a lot of information and
| thinking about condensing it in a few sentences is the
| most important part of making flashcards or similar
| summaries.
|
| A lot of the time I end up never reading them, or reading
| them once because I already indirectly studied everything
| in the process of making them in the first place.
| gowld wrote:
| There are many free flashcard making tools that are
| optimized for purpose.
| sureglymop wrote:
| Personally I prefer coming up with them myself as I am
| studying the material because that's already the _first pass_
| of studying. Then as I review I adjust and improve the cards.
| unshavedyak wrote:
| Ooo, nice idea. Hadn't thought of that
| SpaceManNabs wrote:
| This list has been pretty well known for about 10 years at
| least. I remember having this list for at least that long.
|
| From what I understand as well, self-explanation can be higher
| depending on how elaborate the encoding is.
|
| edit: just noticed that the date was 2013 and not 2023 so 10
| years is correct. I read this same article long ago.
| l5870uoo9y wrote:
| Is practice testing equivalent to a multiple choice quiz on the
| subject?
| marcosdumay wrote:
| I'd recommend against relying on this TL.DR.
|
| The article is incredibly nuanced, and answers many more
| questions than only "is this method any good?"
|
| I'd also say it's not correct to place rereading at low
| effectiveness. The result on the article is more complicated
| than that.
|
| Also, the article is mostly about memorization learning, and
| entirely about things with correct/incorrect answers. How well
| this generalizes for learning the things you need outside of
| schools isn't there at all.
| misterbwong wrote:
| TLDR Addendum for people like me who aren't immediately
| familiar with these terms
|
| High
|
| - Distributed practice: Implementing a schedule of practice
| that spreads out study activities over time
|
| - Practice testing: Self-testing or taking practice tests over
| to-be-learned material
|
| Moderate
|
| - Elaborative interrogation: Generating an explanation for why
| an explicitly stated fact or concept is true
|
| - Interleaved practice: Implementing a schedule of practice
| that mixes different kinds of problems, or a schedule of study
| that mixes different kinds of material, within a single study
| session
|
| - Self-explanation: Explaining how new information is related
| to known information, or explaining steps taken during problem
| solving
|
| Low
|
| - Highlighting: Marking potentially important portions of to-
| be-learned materials while reading
|
| - Imagery use for text learning: Attempting to form mental
| images of text materials while reading or listening
|
| - Rereading: Restudying text material again after an initial
| reading
|
| - Summarization: Writing summaries (of various lengths) of to-
| be-learned texts
|
| - The keyword mnemonic: Using keywords and mental imagery to
| associate verbal materials
| yt-sdb wrote:
| In case it's also not clear to others: "high", "moderate", and
| "low" refer to utility in learning.
| criddell wrote:
| It's very surprising to me that elaborative explanation,
| summarizing, and self-explanation score lower than practice
| tests. I've found that trying to teach something to somebody
| else is the fastest way for me to determine if I really
| understand something.
| Jensson wrote:
| So that method might be fast, but it isn't accurate, your
| explanations could easily be wrong without you knowing they
| are wrong. So even though you feel like you know it if you
| can explain it, many times people are wrong and give wrong
| explanations but still feel like they are experts, don't be
| one of those people.
| criddell wrote:
| It looks like the type of practice test matters a lot:
|
| > a multiple-choice practice test increased intrusions of
| false alternatives on a final cued-recall test when no
| feedback was provided, whereas no such increase was
| observed when feedback was given
|
| Sounds like practice tests are most useful when they are
| graded and the student gets that feedback. I suppose that
| makes sense. Flash cards and practice problems also fall
| under _practice testing_ and it sounds like they were
| less effective.
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| It doesn't surprise me. Practice tests can show you you are
| unambiguously wrong about the details of things in a way
| writing my own summaries can't unless you go over them with
| a fine toothed comb anyway.
| Jensson wrote:
| Problem is that people greatly prefer the low result study
| techniques since they requires less mental effort. It has been
| known for a while that they are bad, but since doing those
| allows people to study more hours for same amount of effort
| they do it anyway.
| Brybry wrote:
| "Practice testing" can just be using flashcards to test
| yourself.
|
| That was really common when I was in school and is fairly low
| effort.
| BeetleB wrote:
| As someone who creates flashcards often, the _creation_ is
| definitely not low effort. Reviewing is.
| admiral33 wrote:
| I've made plenty of flashcards during undergrad and
| creation can definitely be both high effort and low
| effort. Low effort copy and paste from textbook, high
| effort when using a plugin for anki can mean obfuscating
| multiple parts of an algorithm/tree. I'm proud of my best
| flashcards - but is there any evidence that creation +
| studying is more effective than studying alone over the
| same timeframe? Anki suggests that on their site but I
| haven't seen much evidence for it.
|
| Study -> create -> study -> create is effective for us
| programmers using google but is study -> create -> study
| -> study ... more effective than study -> study... ?
| Jensson wrote:
| Making flash cards is in the low gain category, and that is
| very popular. Disciplined testing using those cards wasn't
| nearly as common from what I saw, people just made them and
| then forgot about them. Or just read through them without
| putting in effort trying to answer each one without looking
| at the answer. Doing those properly requires effort.
| bawolff wrote:
| Lol, i can't imagine going through the effort of making
| flashcards and then just not using them. Are people
| really like that?
| parksoha wrote:
| If you do not have time to study... I had to do long
| commutes while working part-time to get my CS degree.
| Sometimes I was left with only 1 day of study for an exam
| and this was the best method for me.
| reidjs wrote:
| Guilty
| Jensson wrote:
| Yeah, you can see it in comments in this thread, for
| example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34985638
| suddenclarity wrote:
| People do it all the time because it's fun and you get
| the initial kick. Like planning a budget, habits, hobby,
| exercise routine or spend a week collecting courses. Then
| the daily grind starts and you give up after a few days.
| laserlight wrote:
| > Making flash cards is in the low gain category
|
| I don't see making flash cards in the list. Do you
| consider it summarization?
| parksoha wrote:
| If you do not use them in active retrieval training,
| definitely falls into summarization.
| tokinonagare wrote:
| Not surprising highlighting has low impact. I never
| understood how people could thing that just putting color
| over something would help in anyway. Also that was one of the
| feature my former lab used to promote in its learning
| software and happily wrote cringe research papers about. I
| understand why: it's both easy to implement and track, which
| makes it a good feature for low-effort papers.
| j45 wrote:
| Stopping at highlights alone might be the problem.
| Migrating highlights to rewriting it your own words for
| spaced and periodic review can be helpful.
| ortusdux wrote:
| I once purchased a used textbook wherein over 75% of the
| text was highlighted.
| the_fury wrote:
| I've practiced highlighting on and off over the years, but
| it's never been for memorization. I've mainly used it to
| separate out critical passages to speed up and simplify
| future reading.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| One round of highlighting is almost worthless on its own.
| BUT. "Progressive summarization" (term coined by Tiago
| Forte) starts with broad highlighting, followed by 1-2 more
| rounds of increasingly refined highlighting, and finally
| rewriting material in own words based on the last round of
| highlights. Leads to deeper understanding and recall etc.
| gowld wrote:
| "Low" doesn't mean bad. Sure, practice is better than
| highlighting/rereading, but I expect that practice fails if
| the student makes a mistake that can be cured by re-
| reading. Also, practice takes a lot longer (costs a lot
| more), so it better have higher impact.
|
| Highlighting is an indexing technique, and maybe a marginal
| improvement to reading. It's a piece of a solution.
| gnicholas wrote:
| When I was in law school, I highlighted in different colors
| to mark different parts of cases (facts, procedural
| posture, legal holding, etc.). I found this to be very
| helpful, both when I was marking up cases, and when I was
| reviewing the cases and able to quickly find the different
| elements. This is especially important in law school, where
| professors cold-call students and expect them to know
| various facts about each case at a moments' notice.
| chowells wrote:
| Yeah, all of "learning styles" fits into that bucket. It may
| be what you like, but it isn't what has been shown to be the
| most effective.
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