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Research-backed strategies for better learning

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Re: Research-backed strategies for better learning

#11

Post by forapurpose »

mockingbirdy wrote: post #4
sedeki wrote: post #3

I enjoyed reading the article; overall good advice and a powerful change of perspective regarding one’s own learning... But I have always wondered how one can find a powerful why to more abstract subjects e.g. topics in mathematics. I’m having a hard time finding intrinsic motivation to study at this (Master’s) level, even if I absolutely know how good it feels when you have internalized a couple of famous results...

This is the most difficult part IMHO. > Adhere to Goals They talk about it like it's easy af. This is the hardest thing. Motivation is the hardest part. I for one use operant conditioning and waterboard myself when I don't adhere to my goals. Just kidding. But I guess I would be much more motivated. Or develop a fetish for waterboarding, the human mind is complex.

I realize you're joking, but from what I understand is that you would be motivated to avoid waterboarding, not to learn math, and your retention and knowledge would suffer (beyond doing exactly what is necessary to avoid punishment). When people abuse kids [EDIT: as punishment/motivation], what they learn is how to avoid the abuse, by hook or crook.

Re: Research-backed strategies for better learning

#12

Post by sagefy »

halayli wrote: post #8

From my personal experience, the #1 factor for better learning is to learn with an objective. Learning is hard and can be demotivating by itself but when I have an objective that requires learning it becomes the driving force/motivation behind it and improves my focus and concentration by a large margins. It also allows me to connect the dots and provides me context.

So true. Most of these ideas are all about setting goals for yourself and finding ways to keep yourself on those goals (Do one thing at a time, Make it Real, etc). I'm glad you're finding way to keep up with your learning goals! If you're into pop-psychology, Daniel Pink's "Drive" https://www.amazon.com/dp/1594484805 is so good!

Re: Research-backed strategies for better learning

#13

Post by zukzuk »

halayli wrote: post #8

From my personal experience, the #1 factor for better learning is to learn with an objective. Learning is hard and can be demotivating by itself but when I have an objective that requires learning it becomes the driving force/motivation behind it and improves my focus and concentration by a large margins. It also allows me to connect the dots and provides me context.

This! I learned more trigonometry in 2 weeks when I was tasked with a digital signal processing project than I did in years and years of (objective-less) schooling.

An important addendum to this is that the objective has to be closely tied to the work — the feedback loop for learning and then seeing some results from that learning has to be tight.

I think this may be why in school grades were not a good objective, for me anyway. They were just too distant a reward from the work.

Re: Research-backed strategies for better learning

#14

Post by sagefy »

sedeki wrote: post #3

I enjoyed reading the article; overall good advice and a powerful change of perspective regarding one’s own learning... But I have always wondered how one can find a powerful why to more abstract subjects e.g. topics in mathematics. I’m having a hard time finding intrinsic motivation to study at this (Master’s) level, even if I absolutely know how good it feels when you have internalized a couple of famous results...

I'm glad you enjoyed the article :) Thanks for reading!

Finding that why for me is (1) go really deep with your goals, (2) find ways to remind yourself daily of the big picture goal, and (3) connect the task at hand to the big goal. For example, maybe you're doing your program to get a job... but what does that job in turn get you? Maybe its more autonomy in your life, or what have you. For my own reminders, I use Stickies on macOs and just always have it there :) I don't always, but sometimes before I start reading a chapter or watching a video, I try to think for a second how what I'm about to do gets me to that bigger picture.

Re: Research-backed strategies for better learning

#15

Post by mockingbirdy »

forapurpose wrote: post #11
mockingbirdy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the most difficult part IMHO. > Adhere to Goals They talk about it like it's easy af. This is the hardest thing. Motivation is the hardest part. I for one use operant conditioning and waterboard myself when I don't adhere to my goals. Just kidding. But I guess I would be much more motivated. Or develop a fetish for waterboarding, the human mind is complex.

I realize you're joking, but from what I understand is that you would be motivated to avoid waterboarding, not to learn math, and your retention and knowledge would suffer (beyond doing exactly what is necessary to avoid punishment). When people abuse kids [EDIT: as punishment/motivation], what they learn is how to avoid the abuse, by hook or crook.

I don't really know how intrinsic motivation could be controlled in the same fashion. A motivated and euphoric teacher maybe can achieve the same in the other direction, but I guess there will always be a certain kind of predisposition and "talent" to be motivated for a specific field.

Would love to know how I can design those predispositions to change my own behavior. I guess behavioral therapy could work, but that's hellofa lot effort to learn some math.

Re: Research-backed strategies for better learning

#16

Post by halayli »

zukzuk wrote: post #13
halayli wrote: post #8

From my personal experience, the #1 factor for better learning is to learn with an objective. Learning is hard and can be demotivating by itself but when I have an objective that requires learning it becomes the driving force/motivation behind it and improves my focus and concentration by a large margins. It also allows me to connect the dots and provides me context.

This! I learned more trigonometry in 2 weeks when I was tasked with a digital signal processing project than I did in years and years of (objective-less) schooling. An important addendum to this is that the objective has to be closely tied to the work — the feedback loop for learning and then seeing some results from that learning has to be tight. I think this may be why in school grades were not a good objective, fo…

Exactly! That's the context I was considering as well (including school)

Schools do a pretty bad job at providing context to the problem. What we are taught are solutions. And these solutions came from problems that were objectives to the authors. I need to "live" the problem and relate to it to understand the motivation behind the solutions.

Re: Research-backed strategies for better learning

#17

Post by timb07 »

sagefy wrote: post #9
rdudekul wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any estimates on when you will have sagefy web application relatively ready. I signed up, but not much is usable...

Thanks for the response :) You can try out my electronic music course to see how the site works currently: https://sgef.cc/emus I'd love some feedback too if you have the time to try it out. https://sgef.cc/feedback or here on Hacker News is good too. It's been a long, iterative development process. I started back in April 2013, had the first go live in January 2016. Since then its been iterating and improving the so…

From a quick look at the Sagefy code, it seems you've written your own web framework, including your own database layer. Was there a particular reason you didn't use a framework like Django?

Re: Research-backed strategies for better learning

#18

Post by sagefy »

timb07 wrote: post #17
sagefy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the response :) You can try out my electronic music course to see how the site works currently: https://sgef.cc/emus I'd love some feedback too if you have the time to try it out. https://sgef.cc/feedback or here on Hacker News is good too. It's been a long, iterative development process. I started back in April 2013, had the first go live in January 2016. Since then its been iterating and improving the so…

From a quick look at the Sagefy code, it seems you've written your own web framework, including your own database layer. Was there a particular reason you didn't use a framework like Django?

Thanks for checking it out and for the question :) I originally started in Flask. I started out using quite a number of libraries, but got a little frustrated back then when I didn't totally grok how the pieces all worked together. And Python 3 then didn't quite have the same support it does today. WSGI was simple enough to understand, so I started from there https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0333/

I've started looking into migrating the services from Python to Golang to make deployments easier. We'll see how it goes :)

Re: Research-backed strategies for better learning

#19

Post by sudouser »

mockingbirdy wrote: post #15
forapurpose wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realize you're joking, but from what I understand is that you would be motivated to avoid waterboarding, not to learn math, and your retention and knowledge would suffer (beyond doing exactly what is necessary to avoid punishment). When people abuse kids [EDIT: as punishment/motivation], what they learn is how to avoid the abuse, by hook or crook.

I don't really know how intrinsic motivation could be controlled in the same fashion. A motivated and euphoric teacher maybe can achieve the same in the other direction, but I guess there will always be a certain kind of predisposition and "talent" to be motivated for a specific field. Would love to know how I can design those predispositions to change my own behavior. I guess behavioral therapy could work, but that'…

‘thinking fast and slow ‘ talks about this
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