For me, playback speed options is not about controlling "speed" but more about controlling the density of information, which varies a lot from content to content. When I listen to a very technical conference, I always keep x1 or even x0.75 but sometimes with a podcast with a low information output, I process everything at x2.
Against 3x Speed
261–270 of 353 posts
Re: Against 3x Speed
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
This lends credence to the educational reform that I always found the most compelling: kids/people should be reading the chapters for the lecture ahead of time as their homework, and doing the practice problems in class instead of a lecture, so the teacher can actually help students work through problems (rather than parents who don't know the material). A brief review/lecture at the end to tie together all of that p…
This is the Thayer method, iirc https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=... For each class, a text lesson is assigned. This assignment includes a reading and specific problems associated with the reading material. Each cadet is expected to "work the problems." (Note: Prior to 2000 these problems were called "drill problems"; the current terminology is "suggested problems.") • "One learns mathemati…
This also has a lot in common with the case study method in both law and business although the specifics are obviously different for a technical topic.
Re: Against 3x Speed
#263Earlier quoted context omitted.
This lends credence to the educational reform that I always found the most compelling: kids/people should be reading the chapters for the lecture ahead of time as their homework, and doing the practice problems in class instead of a lecture, so the teacher can actually help students work through problems (rather than parents who don't know the material). A brief review/lecture at the end to tie together all of that p…
Many teachers/professors I had in my youth asked the class to read the material before lecture so the lecture could be a summary and then most of the time spent asking questions/discussing the topic. Few students actually did so.
It's not a matter of asking, it's mandatory. Reading is your homework, and if you don't read the night before you won't be able to do your problems and get help of you need it the day of.
Re: Against 3x Speed
#264Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many teachers/professors I had in my youth asked the class to read the material before lecture so the lecture could be a summary and then most of the time spent asking questions/discussing the topic. Few students actually did so.
It's not a matter of asking, it's mandatory. Reading is your homework, and if you don't read the night before you won't be able to do your problems and get help of you need it the day of.
But it's far simpler to check if students did 20 math problems then if they read a section of their textbook
Re: Against 3x Speed
#265There are three kinds of learning - new contextual framework (There is no god, armies used to be retinues of retinues) - new skills (make fire from sticks, algebra and calculus) - new information (Henry V won at agincourt) The big important ones are the contextual frameworks. Without them humanity and individual humans are just floundering. And if there is any big political divide it's because people are not in same…
Im interested in your categorisation of learning. Can you elaborate on "contextual framework"? Are these your own concepts, if not where do you get them from?
Oh I see what you mean - plucked randomly from my own synapses
Re: Against 3x Speed
#266I'm impressed more by the comments than the article itself. Some people insist they make progress and listen 3x, but nobody showed any practical measurements of own skills. A personal example: I used to listen to a famous linguist, and everything seemed nice and clear, but then I decided to go in details on one particular question (I think accentuantion), and opened his book. It was like if you showed your programmin…
This lends credence to the educational reform that I always found the most compelling: kids/people should be reading the chapters for the lecture ahead of time as their homework, and doing the practice problems in class instead of a lecture, so the teacher can actually help students work through problems (rather than parents who don't know the material). A brief review/lecture at the end to tie together all of that p…
people should be reading the chapters for the lecture ahead of time as their homework, and doing the practice problems in class instead of a lecture
While it's been decades since I went to college, I'm surprised this is no longer how it's done. That was pretty much the routine when I was in school.
At the end of the class, the professor would say, "Next week, we'll be doing X, Y, and Z. It's chapters A, B, and C in the book." You'd prepare for it over the weekend. The following week, we'd have a mixture of lecture, discussion, and quizzes.
Is it the other way around now? Lecture first, then the books and papers?
Re: Against 3x Speed
#267I'm impressed more by the comments than the article itself. Some people insist they make progress and listen 3x, but nobody showed any practical measurements of own skills. A personal example: I used to listen to a famous linguist, and everything seemed nice and clear, but then I decided to go in details on one particular question (I think accentuantion), and opened his book. It was like if you showed your programmin…
This lends credence to the educational reform that I always found the most compelling: kids/people should be reading the chapters for the lecture ahead of time as their homework, and doing the practice problems in class instead of a lecture, so the teacher can actually help students work through problems (rather than parents who don't know the material). A brief review/lecture at the end to tie together all of that p…
I've never liked the flipped classroom structure.
First, I'm a slow reader, so I always feel penalized when it takes me twice as long to get through a text as classmates.
Second, math/engineering/science lessons typically build upon understanding the first example. If you don't understand or have questions about the earlier parts of the lesson you will have a hard time completing the lesson.
Third, most text books I have encountered are terrible. Grade and High schools typically are trying to get the cheapest books so their dollar stretches further. In college, too many Profs/Departments push certain books because of kickbacks.
Finally, too often enough people don't complete the readings, so you end up covering the material in class anyway. Or worse, not at all. I had several profs who's assigned reading was never to be discussed in class but was prominently featured in tests.
I much prefer the typical lecture that allows for questions and discussions during the class. That way I can quickly address the issues I have with the material when I encounter it instead of having to wait till the next class hoping I don't fall too far behind.
Re: Against 3x Speed
#268I'm impressed more by the comments than the article itself. Some people insist they make progress and listen 3x, but nobody showed any practical measurements of own skills. A personal example: I used to listen to a famous linguist, and everything seemed nice and clear, but then I decided to go in details on one particular question (I think accentuantion), and opened his book. It was like if you showed your programmin…
100%! This reminded me of a similar lesson beaten into us _repeatedly_ in college. I would study for a test and feel like everything was crystal clear. Then i walk into the exam and get absolutely destroyed by stuff i thought i understood.. over and over again. It was (unfortunately) a common experience. Seeing the answers afterwards, they usually involved facts i knew applied in a way i could not. That experience co…
I had to learn driving a car this spring, with manual transmission. Knowing these things helped a lot. I made notes of all the traffic regulations document, and made tables of all long and intricate rules (e.g. lists of places where u-turn is forbidden, or backpedal, or what are speed limits for different kinds of vehicles/roads).
This helped avoid learning all those 1000 test questions, what most students did.
And using computer simulator with 3 pedals helped to automate the movements, and think of subtleties. Reportedly, those who had no practice before driving school, under the pressure of the exam, didn't stall the engine, but failed exactly in higher-order matters, like they'd cross continuous lines or not notice speed limit signs.
Re: Against 3x Speed
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
This lends credence to the educational reform that I always found the most compelling: kids/people should be reading the chapters for the lecture ahead of time as their homework, and doing the practice problems in class instead of a lecture, so the teacher can actually help students work through problems (rather than parents who don't know the material). A brief review/lecture at the end to tie together all of that p…
I would go even further and argue that making students read or listen to lectures for any significant length of time without them being actively engaged with the lesson is sub-optimal. Newer learning systems like Duo Lingo, ALEKS, and Brilliant do an excellent job of constantly, actively engaging students with the lesson, tightening the feedback loop between teaching the student something and checking whether they ac…
While Duolingo is certainly better than the previous school standard of “here’s a textbook, here’s an audio tape to play on loop”, it’s nowhere near the level of a private tutor.
I’m currently nearing a 2000-day streak and have repeatedly gold-starred the German course as they add more content, and Duolingo isn’t the only app I’m using.
Despite this, while my vocabulary is OK, I don’t conjugate even close to correctly, my grammar in general sucks, and I can only comprehend real-life spoken German if the speaker talks very slowly and clearly and uses a sufficiently short sentences — from experience, the sort of conversation you’d find in an interview in a general interest magazine in the waiting room of a Hausarzt.
I’m also trying to learn Arabic on Duolingo. Over a year into that course, I still can’t even read the entire Arabic alphabet.
Re: Against 3x Speed
#270The article isn’t just about playback speed. It’s a well-written piece about the importance of direct experience and not rushing through spoken lectures alone. It’s extra ironic, then, that much of the comment section here only seems to have absorbed the headline but not the content of the article. I have noticed that my most voracious podcast and book consuming friends seem to have developed a lot of surface-level k…
> It’s a well-written piece about the importance of direct experience and not rushing through spoken lectures alone.
Where this has been incredibly clear to me personally is with any sort of activity that has an easily measurable skill level. For example, at various points in the past couple of years I have dabbled with chess. There is an amazing wealth of chess knowledge available on youtube, and I find that after watching a lot of videos it's easy to trick yourself into thinking that you understand what's going on and that you could keep up in a high level game. When the teacher says something like "here the best move is bishop to b2 to put pressure on the long diagonal" I think "of course, that's exactly what I would have played". But then I go to play an actual game and immediately hang my queen and lose to a 1000-level player.
However, I would push back a bit on the author's framing of the problem. What he describes is only a problem if your ultimate goal is do something with the knowledge. Like he talks about people who want to do something like start a unicorn company, and they're thinking they need to learn everything first before getting started. That does seem like a mistake, you'll learn more by doing.
But a lot of people just enjoy learning things just for the sake of it, and in that case I don't think there's anything wrong with one approach or another. If someone is really into watching sports and following all the analysis, you don't expect them to be training to become a professional coach. Similarly if you just enjoy listening to audio books at 3x speed as a hobby instead of watching TV, is there really any problem with that? Just because everybody now has the access to enough information to become an expert in a field if they study and practice it the right way, doesn't mean that you need to be training towards that goal.