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Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

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Re: Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

#51

Post by juvenn »

cesare wrote: post #11
kiba wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This remind me of a drawing book called "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain". It teaches people how to draw realistically using techniques like contour drawing among other stuff. However, middle school art teachers seem stuck in their little art project. I am not sure about high school, but it doesn't look like they teach the skills.

> It teaches people how to draw realistically using techniques like contour drawing among other stuff. A great book. One of the exercises is to copy a picture turned 180 degrees, so that you're drawing exactly what you're seeing without the interference of your mind's prior knowledge of the subject.

Yeh, I've remembered it. And I'm thinking on intro it to my best friend.

Re: Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

#52

Post by juvenn »

btilly wrote: post #21
elai wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you go into more details into SRS for math? "Fact Memorizing" type systems seem to fit well with things like supermemo (languages, law, history, biology, a bunch of sciences), but not so much with things like math (other than memorizing formulas). And did you really add homework questions like find the kernel of this subspace in the first few weeks of the course?

I'm not sure what details to go into. Being reminded of something as we're forgetting it pushes that thing into longer term memory. It also internalizes the lesson. This applies to both rote facts and intellectual ideas. If you think of it as fact memorization, then you're missing the real power. There are a lot of things you need to learn to master a mathematical topic. You need to learn definitions and terminology.…

You reminded me of learning abstract algebra, in the last year of my college. The subject is extremely abstract, and I try hard to learn the key ideas, without realizing I need do it intellectually, instead of just thinking it more, and reading it with more care. Besides, I could not make any progress on that book, it just got me frustrated. And then I gave up, I hope to continuing my study in grad school, but I could just not get my feet in.

I'm slow, I think, and I can not do well in math. So I just let math get off my life, and trying to be a computing hacker as well as an entrepreneur.

Re: Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

#53

Post by antipaganda »

btilly wrote: post #23
imajes wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish you were my teacher. That's a theory of education I've been pondering about for ages. Glad to see it formalized like this. Please consider running for office and fixing how we go about learning. :)

Actually you should be glad that I'm not your teacher. I set a number of goals for that course around learning, and forgot to set any around making the students happy. I met the goals I set but... I'm sure that if I had stayed in academia I would have sorted out those kinds of issues. However it is clear to me that I'm much happier not being an academic.

If I learned what you were trying to teach me, I would be happy... afterwards. Being happy during the course is not required.

Re: Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

#54

Post by juvenn »

btilly wrote: post #2

In grad school I managed to take advantage of the pacing effect in an educational setting. I was teaching linear algebra. What I did was make the homework incremental - 1/3 of homework on today's material, 1/3 on the previous week, and 1/3 anything in the course. Those thirds were in increasing order of difficulty. I also started every class with a question/answer period. The rules were simple, the questioning will l…

I think a good self-teacher would be better a teacher than who just hold some fancy degrees. Since good self-teachers always know what students need, and where they failed to grasp the essential, and most importantly how to get them out of obstacles.

And I bet you must be a good self-teacher. I wish I have ever had you as my teacher!

Re: Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

#55

Post by antipaganda »

Alex3917 wrote: post #50
tocomment wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you made this story into a blog post, people would listen. (I'm actually serious, it's an interesting story and a lot of people might benefit from hearing more of the details and the thought process behind it.

"If you made this story into a blog post, people would listen." That's what I hate about people. What makes people pay attention isn't the ideas themselves, but whether it looks like you worked hard in writing it. I've made comments on HN that no one paid any attention to, and then turned them into blog posts and had them get to the top of Reddit or Digg or whatever. Exact same ideas, all I did was visually change th…

It's not what you're given, it's what you do with what you've got.

http://www.mysongbook.de/msb/songs/w/whatyoud.html

Re: Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

#56

Post by antipaganda »

juvenn wrote: post #54
btilly wrote: post #2

In grad school I managed to take advantage of the pacing effect in an educational setting. I was teaching linear algebra. What I did was make the homework incremental - 1/3 of homework on today's material, 1/3 on the previous week, and 1/3 anything in the course. Those thirds were in increasing order of difficulty. I also started every class with a question/answer period. The rules were simple, the questioning will l…

I think a good self-teacher would be better a teacher than who just hold some fancy degrees. Since good self-teachers always know what students need, and where they failed to grasp the essential, and most importantly how to get them out of obstacles. And I bet you must be a good self-teacher. I wish I have ever had you as my teacher!

There is one glaring fault that a self-taught teacher may have; people learn in different ways. What works for one may not work for all. So the self-taught teacher may not realise that their own personal methods are not necessarily valid for everyone.

Re: Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

#57

Post by briancooley »

Alex3917 wrote: post #50
tocomment wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you made this story into a blog post, people would listen. (I'm actually serious, it's an interesting story and a lot of people might benefit from hearing more of the details and the thought process behind it.

"If you made this story into a blog post, people would listen." That's what I hate about people. What makes people pay attention isn't the ideas themselves, but whether it looks like you worked hard in writing it. I've made comments on HN that no one paid any attention to, and then turned them into blog posts and had them get to the top of Reddit or Digg or whatever. Exact same ideas, all I did was visually change th…

* all I did was visually change the text to make it look more professionally laid out, and carefully rework some of the phrasing to make it sound better to the ear. (Plus add a couple really good first sentences and a good headline.)*

Those changes are non-trivial. Layout and writing style are integral components in the user interface for comprehending text.

Re: Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

#58

Post by gherlein »

tocomment wrote: post #14
btilly wrote: post #2

In grad school I managed to take advantage of the pacing effect in an educational setting. I was teaching linear algebra. What I did was make the homework incremental - 1/3 of homework on today's material, 1/3 on the previous week, and 1/3 anything in the course. Those thirds were in increasing order of difficulty. I also started every class with a question/answer period. The rules were simple, the questioning will l…

If you made this story into a blog post, people would listen. (I'm actually serious, it's an interesting story and a lot of people might benefit from hearing more of the details and the thought process behind it.

It is a blog post!

Re: Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

#59

Post by morphir »

btilly wrote: post #2

In grad school I managed to take advantage of the pacing effect in an educational setting. I was teaching linear algebra. What I did was make the homework incremental - 1/3 of homework on today's material, 1/3 on the previous week, and 1/3 anything in the course. Those thirds were in increasing order of difficulty. I also started every class with a question/answer period. The rules were simple, the questioning will l…

I recently heard that newly educated teachers come to schools with a strong desire to teach their specialties. And to transmit some of their true passion over to their students. But since being a teacher (here in Norway) means they have to administrate and organize the kids so much, they have little energy left for teaching. Meaning the teacher appears as a boring, pale fuck (not very inspiring). This is of course a organizational problem, and not a pedagogical one.

Re: Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

#60

Post by scharan »

btilly wrote: post #2

In grad school I managed to take advantage of the pacing effect in an educational setting. I was teaching linear algebra. What I did was make the homework incremental - 1/3 of homework on today's material, 1/3 on the previous week, and 1/3 anything in the course. Those thirds were in increasing order of difficulty. I also started every class with a question/answer period. The rules were simple, the questioning will l…

Please do a more detailed version, if it makes sense to do so. You actually managed to say a lot in this little space. I had a teacher too who did this on a small scale - the first 5 mins was a summary of the previous calls. The first day of each week he summarized the entire chapter or section in the first 10 mins. This bird's eye view of the material went a long way in keeping the concepts 'live',
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