How to do deliberate practice • Hacker News Board

Re: How to do deliberate practice

#11

Post by GHFigs » Tue, May 31, 2011, 2:51 PM UTC

cwb wrote: post #5

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #2

It's interesting that each of those practice scenarios he recommends are fairly dangerous from the point of view of the ego. I would be very apprehensive about learning the multiplication tables in a public fashion.

The teacher would need to try and make the students understand that it is all right -- scrap that, necessary -- to fail when you learn. Learning to perform surgery is not the same thing as performing it. Out of curiosity, how do you think it would affect your motivation to practice in private if you knew you would be tested in public?

The irony is that most students had to be taught to abhor such failure in the first place.

Re: How to do deliberate practice

#12

Post by jonprins » Tue, May 31, 2011, 2:58 PM UTC

wccrawford wrote: post #4

I actually disagree with the 'play perfectly' example. It emphasizes the beginning of the practice and de-emphasizes the end. If playing the whole thing 20 times is boring, imagine how boring it is to play the beginning over and over until you get the whole thing perfect 5 times? Guitar hero has a mode that lets you practice pieces of a song. You can practice each segment to perfection, then play the whole song. This…

Another problem with stopping and restarting with every mistake, is you learn to stop and restart when you make a mistake.

This makes it really, really awful if you're playing a recital and slip up just a tiny bit (obviously, you should practice it so you don't slip up /at all/, but let's be realistic here. Even people studying to be performance majors make mistakes in their recitals) - your first instinct would be to start the passage over, which is the /last/ thing you want to be doing.

It also makes it nearly impossible to play with a group.

Re: How to do deliberate practice

#13

Post by jamesbkel » Tue, May 31, 2011, 3:25 PM UTC

wccrawford wrote: post #4

I actually disagree with the 'play perfectly' example. It emphasizes the beginning of the practice and de-emphasizes the end. If playing the whole thing 20 times is boring, imagine how boring it is to play the beginning over and over until you get the whole thing perfect 5 times? Guitar hero has a mode that lets you practice pieces of a song. You can practice each segment to perfection, then play the whole song. This…

>Guitar hero has a mode that lets you practice pieces of a song. You can practice each segment to perfection, then play the whole song. This targeted practice should be a lot more effective and still obey the idea of what he's saying.

I guess maybe we understood him differently, because I thought that was the point he was getting at.

Regardless, I agree with the idea of "targeted practice" of each section. It's been awhile since I've done any serious piano playing, but my strategy for perfecting a piece was always to nail the final 4-8 bars 5x in a row. Then I would keep adding another 4-8 bars to the beginning of that and repeat the process until I could play the whole thing through.

I found working from the end to be much more effective than from the start. My guess is that it's less tedious since the new part is at the beginning, so if you're restarting after each mistake, you end up focusing on the new material instead of racing through the old boring material to get to the new stuff.

Re: How to do deliberate practice

#14

Post by nerfhammer » Tue, May 31, 2011, 3:50 PM UTC

sayemm wrote: post #7

Here's a good piece by Dr. K. Anders Ericsson on Expert Performance and Deliberate Practice , he's the guy who's pretty much behind all this research on deliberate practice and the making of outliers - http://www.psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericsson/ericsson.exp.perf.ht...

Here's a whole book on the subject:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591842948/ref=as_li_tf_tl?...

Re: How to do deliberate practice

#15

Post by te_platt » Tue, May 31, 2011, 3:50 PM UTC

For me the most important part deliberate practice losing all embarrassment about making mistakes. Practice should give a chance stumble at the edge of your ability and take chances you wouldn't in a live performance.

For more detail I highly recommend "The Perfect Wrong Note" by William Westney.

Re: How to do deliberate practice

#16

Post by icegreentea » Tue, May 31, 2011, 4:10 PM UTC

jonprins wrote: post #12

wccrawford wrote: post #4

I actually disagree with the 'play perfectly' example. It emphasizes the beginning of the practice and de-emphasizes the end. If playing the whole thing 20 times is boring, imagine how boring it is to play the beginning over and over until you get the whole thing perfect 5 times? Guitar hero has a mode that lets you practice pieces of a song. You can practice each segment to perfection, then play the whole song. This…

Another problem with stopping and restarting with every mistake, is you learn to stop and restart when you make a mistake. This makes it really, really awful if you're playing a recital and slip up just a tiny bit (obviously, you should practice it so you don't slip up /at all/, but let's be realistic here. Even people studying to be performance majors make mistakes in their recitals) - your first instinct would be t…

Yeah. My experience with playing (long long ago), as well as while practicing wrestling moves is that you need to do a mix of isolated, and complete practice. The mix depends on your proficiency, length involved, complexity, and some other contextual stuff. I could tell when I practiced just isolated elements too much because then my transitions would be obvious. In fact, having that mix will increase your engagement (which was his original point anyways).

But in my experience, the 4th criteria is by far the most important. Not only is it more effective, it's a hell lot more enjoyable.

Re: How to do deliberate practice

#17

Post by ChuckFrank » Tue, May 31, 2011, 6:01 PM UTC

Part of what these suggestion contains are the basis for the emerging field of game learning. While the wiki is surprisingly weak on the matter -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_based_learning -- the idea is that structured conditions of gaming/sports success can be applied to teaching and knowledge acquisition. Some of these ideas include:

Coached practicing / Competitive performance evaluation / Transparent Scores / Winning opportunities / Final Awards.

Re: How to do deliberate practice

#18

Post by rhizome » Tue, May 31, 2011, 6:19 PM UTC

wccrawford wrote: post #3

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #2

It's interesting that each of those practice scenarios he recommends are fairly dangerous from the point of view of the ego. I would be very apprehensive about learning the multiplication tables in a public fashion.

All education works best when customized for the learner. In your case (and mine!) you prefer to learn without the possibility that someone will ridicule you for making a mistake. Many people actually learn faster/better when the threat of ridicule is on the table, though. Assigning homework actually has the same effect as the in-class quiz, since it forces each student to reach in the same way and would be another e…

Many people actually learn faster/better when the threat of ridicule is on the table, though.

Really? How many?

Re: How to do deliberate practice

#19

Post by raju » Tue, May 31, 2011, 6:28 PM UTC

I have been thinking about this for a while now, and I am not quite sure how to apply it, to say learning a new (programming) language (I have been playing with Clojure for a while now but am nowhere near productive in it).

I guess the part that confuses me is the first step - "R stands for Reaching/Repeating" - How exactly would you apply this to learning a new language, framework, algorithm?

Folks here on HN - Any words of advice?

Re: How to do deliberate practice

#20

Post by Wilduck » Tue, May 31, 2011, 6:31 PM UTC

rhizome wrote: post #18

wccrawford wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All education works best when customized for the learner. In your case (and mine!) you prefer to learn without the possibility that someone will ridicule you for making a mistake. Many people actually learn faster/better when the threat of ridicule is on the table, though. Assigning homework actually has the same effect as the in-class quiz, since it forces each student to reach in the same way and would be another e…

Many people actually learn faster/better when the threat of ridicule is on the table, though. Really? How many?

I don't know about how many, but I certainly do.