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Mastering Linear Algebra in 10 Days: Astounding Experiments in Ultra-Learning

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Re: Mastering Linear Algebra in 10 Days: Astounding Experiments in Ultra-Learning

#61

Post by dagw »

gus_massa wrote: post #25
confluence wrote: post #2

I'm inclined to actually believing a lot of this. When I got into university I found every course very easy, didn't attend any lectures, got all my workshops to run on the same day to reduce my face time and maxed out my free time to do whatever I wanted (work/friends/extra/etc). I'm a STEM major at a top 30 world ranked engineering school with good grades. I've often asked if I could max out my classes and finish a…

(I'm a professor in a University, mostly for first year students.) The problem with allowing the students to take all the courses they want is that some of them can't correctly measure how much work they can handle. So you will get horror stories like: "A student get enrolled in 3 times the expected courses, has too many homework, too many midterms the same week, and finally don't approve any of them." Now we have a…

As someone who at one point enrolled in too many classes and failed all but one of them, I have to say "so what?" I learned a valuable lesson about both my limitations and motivations. Why are we so afraid of letting students fail a little bit once in a while?

Re: Mastering Linear Algebra in 10 Days: Astounding Experiments in Ultra-Learning

#62

Post by mquander »

oz wrote: post #55
tolos wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LessWrong looks like something I'll enjoy reading. Do you have any favorite or recommended articles -- not necessarily related to op? Keep up the good work.

Thanks. It's often recommended to start at the Sequences (most of which I haven't read yet): http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Sequences Harry Potter & The Methods of Rationality: http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Methods_Of_Rationality_(fanfi... Here's a good one on the ways in which LessWrong can improve: http://lesswrong.com/lw/2po/selfimprovement_or_shiny_distrac... But my 2 favorites are the ones I mentioned: A "Failu…

My favorite (not most enlightening but just my favorite) article to date is Yvain's Eight Short Studies on Excuses: http://lesswrong.com/lw/24o/eight_short_studies_on_excuses/

Re: Mastering Linear Algebra in 10 Days: Astounding Experiments in Ultra-Learning

#63

Post by Nimi »

lutorm wrote: post #59
oz wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup; it was an article on her work in NYMag that 'diagnosed' me. I think it was 'The Power & Perils of Praise.' I remember reading it and thinking, "holy fuck, that's me!" I think that was also when I was exposed to the "Talent Doesn't Matter" meme, with which I disagree. Talent does matter - no one disputes that some people have learning disabilities compared to the average; yet seem hesitant to accept that some hav…

About the "talent doesn't matter" issue: It's one of these things where the truth may actually hurt you. It's pretty clear that talent does matter, but it's better for you if you don't know this , since that knowledge may serve as an excuse for you to give up. I don't generally advocate not telling the truth, but this may be one of these cases where everyone is better served by emphasizing the part about malleability…

Or one can plainly tell the truth, like my SAT instructor used to say: you're competing against other people with similar capabilities to yours. If you don't bother to do the coursework, they'll get a higher score and you'll get a lower one, and it won't be because of some inherent reason, it will happen simply because they did take the time to study.

(the SAT here is normalized to form a perfect Gauss curve, so essentially the only thing that matters is one's percentile, but I guess this saying is generalizable)

Re: Mastering Linear Algebra in 10 Days: Astounding Experiments in Ultra-Learning

#64

Post by oz »

lutorm wrote: post #59
oz wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup; it was an article on her work in NYMag that 'diagnosed' me. I think it was 'The Power & Perils of Praise.' I remember reading it and thinking, "holy fuck, that's me!" I think that was also when I was exposed to the "Talent Doesn't Matter" meme, with which I disagree. Talent does matter - no one disputes that some people have learning disabilities compared to the average; yet seem hesitant to accept that some hav…

About the "talent doesn't matter" issue: It's one of these things where the truth may actually hurt you. It's pretty clear that talent does matter, but it's better for you if you don't know this , since that knowledge may serve as an excuse for you to give up. I don't generally advocate not telling the truth, but this may be one of these cases where everyone is better served by emphasizing the part about malleability…

Upvoted. This is something I've thought about as well. My general motto is "We gain nothing by denying the truth," but I've also learned that the mind can sabotage us in very subtle ways. On LessWrong, the idea is that "our brains are untrusted hardware."

Re: Mastering Linear Algebra in 10 Days: Astounding Experiments in Ultra-Learning

#65

Post by forrestthewoods »

ArbitraryLimits wrote: post #45
oz wrote: post #43

Ignoring the semantic controversy on 'mastery' and 'expertise', here's my story. I dropped out of a CS program after first year. I was the classic case of a student who had always been told he was brilliant, so I never worked very hard. In high school, I coasted along simply on a fantastic memory, often 'studying' for the final exams that determine graduation the night before. I never learned how to learn. Going to c…

> I didn't know how to learn. I'm not trolling here, but don't you think it's more accurate to say you didn't know how to work?

I disagree. College is the first time many students have to learn how to teach themselves.

I did quite well in a small town high school with minimal effort. Not perfect, but I graduated 11 out of 399. I can probably count the number of times I did any work or studying at home on my fingers. During the day I listened in class, focused on school, and gave forth effort. It's pretty easy when classes move at a snail's pace lest any student get left behind.

When I went to college my first physics class kicked me in the face so damn hard and I didn't even see it coming. Lectures moved at blistering pace and entire chapters were covered in just one or two class periods. I remember going into the first big test, thinking I did well, and getting a grade so low the teacher pulled me aside and asked if I should drop it. Holy crap that was embarrassing.

After that I realized I needed to learn how to learn. I had to learn how to take the book, break everything down, ask questions when necessary, and master the material without guidance. It was a slow process but my scores got better with every single test to the point I tied for the highest score on the final.

You could argue that I had to learn how to work but I don't think that's accurate. I knew how to put in work rate. I was an Eagle scout and played on the high school soccer team. Both required tons of work. Learning how to learn certainly requires work and effort, but I think it's a skill the same as any other.

Re: Mastering Linear Algebra in 10 Days: Astounding Experiments in Ultra-Learning

#67

Post by 47uF »

rtkwe wrote: post #52
47uF wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I had an interesting experience recently when I decided to "relearn" math. I had taken calculus courses in high school and university, and aced all the exams. But when I eventually came back to calculus out of personal interest, I realized that I didn't know what a derivative was! I didn't know what a limit was! How did I pass those classes? And if someone who got the highest marks didn't learn anything, what…

The real test is how well you were able to pick up the concepts again. Not using it for, how ever many, years it's natural to forget. However if you can quickly reacquire the knowledge then you did learn it atrophied so to speak.

But I really think that I never learned those concepts in the first place. All I learned were rules to solve the problems given to me. For example I actually did remember the "chain rule". But those rules had no meaning to me, just moving numbers around. Which means I would never be able apply it to anything. For example, calculus clearly has applications all across basic physics. But I never really made that connection. All this makes me think that exams are much, MUCH less effective at measuring comprehension than we think.

Re: Mastering Linear Algebra in 10 Days: Astounding Experiments in Ultra-Learning

#68

Post by nickpinkston »

ArbitraryLimits wrote: post #45
oz wrote: post #43

Ignoring the semantic controversy on 'mastery' and 'expertise', here's my story. I dropped out of a CS program after first year. I was the classic case of a student who had always been told he was brilliant, so I never worked very hard. In high school, I coasted along simply on a fantastic memory, often 'studying' for the final exams that determine graduation the night before. I never learned how to learn. Going to c…

> I didn't know how to learn. I'm not trolling here, but don't you think it's more accurate to say you didn't know how to work?

I'm similar to the author in that I hated school forever, yada yada, but I feel like there's something between learn and work. I've always been (hubris alert) far more learned than my peers in nearly every subject, but the things that didn't come easily I was weak on - higher math was really the only thing that didn't.

I think the main problem wasn't learning per se - I learned whatever I needed to do my technical personal projects with ease (chemistry, programming, electronics, etc.), but what I lacked was something like "how to work" which was really a kind of short-term dedicated focus that math so requires. Higher math is banging your head against a concept until ::pop:: - that's easy! I never banged my head enough - so whatever that is - it's a major problem that we need to overcome.

This all goes back to why so many engineering students, like me, dropout of these programs because we have shortcomings in overcoming these initial problems. Schools need to identify this aggressively and provide some kind of scaffold that will allow these students to learn this focus/work type of skill.

Also - the baggage the term "work" in our (US) culture makes it a bad item to focus on when improving a system. "Bad work ethic" is often a symptom of these types of problems.

Re: Mastering Linear Algebra in 10 Days: Astounding Experiments in Ultra-Learning

#69

Post by Strilanc »

tolos wrote: post #54
oz wrote: post #43

Ignoring the semantic controversy on 'mastery' and 'expertise', here's my story. I dropped out of a CS program after first year. I was the classic case of a student who had always been told he was brilliant, so I never worked very hard. In high school, I coasted along simply on a fantastic memory, often 'studying' for the final exams that determine graduation the night before. I never learned how to learn. Going to c…

LessWrong looks like something I'll enjoy reading. Do you have any favorite or recommended articles -- not necessarily related to op? Keep up the good work.

There's quite a lot of philosophical content on less wrong. I liked "Zombies! Zombies?", which is essentially a strong argument against the likelihood of p-zombies.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/p7/zombies_zombies/

> I'd say that if you postulate a mysterious, separate, additional, inherently mental property of consciousness, above and beyond positions and velocities, then, at that point, you have already stuck your neck out as far as it can go. To postulate this stuff of consciousness, and then further postulate that it doesn't do anything—for the love of cute kittens, why?

Re: Mastering Linear Algebra in 10 Days: Astounding Experiments in Ultra-Learning

#70

Post by SkyMarshal »

oz wrote: post #43

Ignoring the semantic controversy on 'mastery' and 'expertise', here's my story. I dropped out of a CS program after first year. I was the classic case of a student who had always been told he was brilliant, so I never worked very hard. In high school, I coasted along simply on a fantastic memory, often 'studying' for the final exams that determine graduation the night before. I never learned how to learn. Going to c…

>PS If y'all have more articles like this, let me know.

Here's one I was just perusing yesterday, on the origin of the concept of "less wrong".

TLDR: our education system teaches us to strive to get the right answer, or be "right". But in truth there is no "right", just progressively less wrong, and there are multiple undesirable consequences of the emphasis of the former in our education system (from rigid beliefs that can't evolve with new data, to people getting dejecting with fields like hard sciences when they can't be "right" easily):

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_cult/lesswrong/lesswrong/

"People in our culture, by and large, tend to presume that someone, somewhere knows what is "right," and that each individual's task is either to be that particular someone or to work as hard as they can to learn from that someone what "right" is ... the mindset long predates science as a social activity, but ... science certainly encourages it, and so it is appropriate that science should contribute to correcting it ...

In an enormous variety of distinct fields of inquiry the same general pattern is becoming clear: there is no such thing as "right," the very concept needs to be replaced with "progressively less wrong." The difference is far from semantic. "Right" is measured by proximity to some fixed idea, "progressively less wrong" by how far people have gotten from where they started. It is the aspiration to be "right" that leads to rigid hierarchical social organizations of all kinds, including educational systems. Wanting to be "progressively less wrong" takes one (and societies) in quite different directions entirely: it encourages life-long inquiry by every individual, a respect for past wisdom and enthusiasm for contributing to future understanding, and an appreciation of the enormous value of interactions between unique individuals each of whom has unique perspectives to contribute."

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