[HN Gopher] Learning 101: The untaught basics [pdf]
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       Learning 101: The untaught basics [pdf]
        
       Author : JustinSkycak
       Score  : 48 points
       Date   : 2024-09-21 14:34 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (typeset.io)
 (TXT) w3m dump (typeset.io)
        
       | rnjailamba wrote:
       | Original link: https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/147253/7/147253.pdf
        
       | dave333 wrote:
       | Pithy summary: The paper "Learning 101: The Untaught Basics" by
       | Junaid Qadir and Muhammad Ali Imran highlights that many students
       | fail to learn effectively due to flawed intuitive learning
       | methods and a lack of knowledge about optimal learning
       | strategies. It identifies seven common impediments, such as fixed
       | mindsets, lack of engagement, and poor metacognitive skills, and
       | offers remedies for each. The authors emphasize the importance of
       | effortful learning techniques like retrieval practice, spaced
       | repetition, and interleaving to achieve deeper, long-lasting
       | learning outcomes.
        
       | wonder_er wrote:
       | mmm this is interesting, so strongly agree, I've felt and seen
       | others feel the real-world cost of wasted effort. I would
       | sometimes get so indignant, witnessing how an institution was
       | allowing the time of the learners to be so poorly spent, when I'd
       | realize retroactively things about my own experience learning.
       | 
       | A big piece clicked in my mind when I encountered this piece
       | about 'tacit knowledge': [0]
       | 
       | That piece was rattling around my brain when I encountered
       | "Bloom's 2-sigma problem", which I ended up writing a little
       | explainer on, bc it was coming up in conversation often.[1]
       | 
       | I was confused by the title at first, until I read the paper
       | (it's short) and realized it could be re-phrased as "[random
       | person]'s two standard deviation problem", or "Dude's 98th
       | percentile problem".
       | 
       | The "problem" was "there exists a reliable way to give 98th
       | percentile results to an arbitrary student, it's simply too
       | laborious for mass instruction".
       | 
       | this expensive, non-scalable labor was the 'problem' part.
       | 
       | Interesting to me, though, was that the 98th percentile
       | result/effect was fully achieved by _mastery-based learning_ and
       | _1:1 tutoring_. (dang, expensive, doesn 't 'scale well')
       | 
       | But one can still sorta drag those principles into your own
       | learning efforts, one can try to see clearly why it's desirable
       | to have those two things and then adjust one's own learning
       | journey accordingly. (I.E. focus on less that isn't just those
       | two things, or Anki SRS)
       | 
       | The two interventions made intuitive sense to me, and I
       | eventually tried to approximate both. [2]
       | 
       | In that series i'm trying to capture and make visible the pattern
       | seeking behavior of an expert solving a real problem with me
       | following along and following/making visible the decision
       | making/intuition-following that's being done, in a way that you
       | could do the exact same in a practicable way, if so inclined.
       | 
       | It happens to be a kind of resource I wish existed for me, years
       | ago. Not an active project of mine right now.
       | 
       | [0]: https://commoncog.com/tacit-knowledge-is-a-real-thing/ [1]:
       | https://josh.works/2-sigma-problem [2]:
       | https://www.intermediateruby.com/make-oss-contributions-part...
       | 
       | edit: add commoncog url, formatting
        
       | jimhefferon wrote:
       | I'm not sure who is the audience for this, but if it is students
       | then it is not going to be very helpful, IMHO. For students to
       | get it the authors must give concrete examples.
       | 
       | Let me pick on B, on spaced learning and interleaving. In those
       | two paragraphs there are no concrete examples. If a student asks,
       | "OK, I'm at the library and I have my book open. What do I do?"
       | then the answer is not there.
       | 
       | I'll talk about college math because that's what I teach.
       | 
       | If you want students to learn what to do, you have to tell them.
       | Maybe, "Set your timer to a half hour, pick out five problems,
       | three from the current section and two from sections you did last
       | week, and do them. If you get stuck take a peek at the answer,
       | but don't peek until you are stuck. If you get really stuck, mark
       | the question in your notebook and ask about it at the start of
       | the next class. But under no circumstances just read the book."
       | Then you have told them how to practice recall and to interleave
       | in a way that they can actually do it.
       | 
       | Four half hours remembering how to do both current problems and
       | also some from before for every hour spent in class is a good
       | whack at learning the class's material, at least in the first two
       | years.
       | 
       | Just using the two words recall and interleave is not enough.
        
         | rahimnathwani wrote:
         | you have to tell them
         | 
         | Yup! Justin (who posted this to HN) is trying to solve that by
         | having a software system tell students exactly which exercise
         | to do next.
         | 
         | BTW thank you for freely sharing your textbooks.
        
       | yamrzou wrote:
       | Readers might also be interested in this:
       | 
       |  _A Learning Map_ -- https://hyponymo.us/2018/09/30/learning-map/
        
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       (page generated 2024-09-21 23:01 UTC)