Is it safe to just read the title and be done with this?
Learning needs to be effortful to be effective
121–130 of 152 posts
Re: Learning needs to be effortful to be effective
#122There is a field of education, that studies teaching and learning! In fact many of you who attended university and studied at a "school of computer science" would have been in a building next to a "school of education". This post is interesting, but it reads like a layperson (from a teaching point of view) coming up with some fairly good theories of learning (of which there are quite a few) and discussing how applyin…
> There is a field of education, that studies teaching and learning! In fact many of you who attended university and studied at a "school of computer science" would have been in a building next to a "school of education". Yes, people know. Education schools aren’t held in low esteem by social scientists or the educated public by reason of lack of familiarity. They can’t even manage a detectable effect on teacher effe…
For what it’s worth, the Gates Foundation spent many tens of millions attempting to quantify ‘teacher effectiveness’ and basically concluded that it’s not measurable. Instead, they produced a holistic set of observable behaviors that are generally correlated with ‘great teaching’ - which may be useful, but isn’t the same thing. This is not to say I really disagree with you about the quality of education schools, but knocking them for failing to produce a measurable impact on teacher effectiveness doesn’t resonate with me when we don’t have robust tools for measuring teacher effectiveness in the first place.
Re: Learning needs to be effortful to be effective
#123His explanation of how one can feel like they have knowledge on a subject after engaging in some edutainment but you realize how shallow your knowledge is once you try to discuss it with others is something I find for myself a lot. It is one thing I hope AIs can really help with. It is a common belief that you don't understand something until you can explain it to someone else in simple terms. I've tried this method…
Have you tried this with AI with a topic you are well versed in? I am very optimistic AIs will help people feel they have some sort of understanding but far less optimistic they’ll actually help build it. They’ll try to coerce any of your (or the model’s) mistakes into the correct answer out of politeness, and when you make a mistake it has zero model of the model you used to produce such a mistake, so it has no idea…
It sounds like you are doing something different than what I am suggesting. I am not quizzing the AI looking to determine how well the AI knows the subject. I am using the AI as if it doesn't know the subject at all.
I try to explain a subject to the AI as if I am trying to teach a friend who has no knowledge on the subject. Then I am judging how well I can communicate the idea. In many cases as soon as I try to explain the idea I realize that my own knowledge isn't deep. So I am judging myself, not the quality of the AI.
An analogy is the Rubber Duck method of program debugging. Most programers have been in the situation where when they try to explain an answer to another programmer the answer will suddenly pop into their head. The value isn't the knowledge in the other programmers head, it is in the act of trying to explain. LLMs are patient and unopinionated and make for a good recipient.
Re: Learning needs to be effortful to be effective
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
This relates to learning as much as watching some coding streams on Twitch to an actual coding.
That’s a value judgement which has nothing do to with whether or not listening to a song repeatedly counts as spaced repetition.
Being exposed to a song does not really counts as learning, but another thing is an analysis of chords, lyrics, post-procession effects, rhythm. Intention to repeat that in their own creative project is a judge.
Re: Learning needs to be effortful to be effective
#125I too found this effect in my dissertation research on same-different judgments of figures on a screen. Hard training achieved better and faster judgments than easy. The add from my work is the interaction effect of the cognitive style (holistic vs analytic) of the participant in comparison to the characteristics the task demands. If someone’s style was different than what the task required, hard training worked even better.
I left a $20 bill in my dissertation at the library if you can find it. I did that to see if anyone would read it.
Re: Learning needs to be effortful to be effective
#126There is a field of education, that studies teaching and learning! In fact many of you who attended university and studied at a "school of computer science" would have been in a building next to a "school of education". This post is interesting, but it reads like a layperson (from a teaching point of view) coming up with some fairly good theories of learning (of which there are quite a few) and discussing how applyin…
There's a book called "Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning" that is an excellent read on the science behind learning for lay-people (like myself) who want practical tips based in actual science.
It also argues that easier/faster learning is often worse. Harder learning lasts longer, and a big part of it is what they refer to as finding ways to "interrupt the natural process of forgetting". With this in mind, interleaved/ varied practice, spaced repetition, reflection, are all techniques that both lead to deeper understanding and better retention.
Re: Learning needs to be effortful to be effective
#127I think people vary in this. Just because some people find they learn poorly from pure reading does not make that experience universal. Some can just learn (and retain knowledge) via (uneffortful) absorption, others are better served via a mixture of absorption and putting things into practice. It is just important to recognise what best serves you and others, that people differ, and to develop a vauge sense of the average learning preferences of those you might want to teach.
E.g. at high school I learnt mathematics purely from reading textbooks, and found the requirement of needing to do homework and practice exercises in class hugely frustrating. For context, I did well and went on to do mathematics at university level, where my learning style more or less stayed the same.
While a great friend (who is quite possibly smarter than me) is the opposite, and they were greatly frustrated by the lack of putting things into practice, and felt it hindered their learning.
Re: Learning needs to be effortful to be effective
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s a value judgement which has nothing do to with whether or not listening to a song repeatedly counts as spaced repetition.
Being exposed to a song does not really counts as learning, but another thing is an analysis of chords, lyrics, post-procession effects, rhythm. Intention to repeat that in their own creative project is a judge.
If I have gained the ability to recite the lyrics of a song after being "exposed" to it for some time, it seems that I have indeed learned something.
Re: Learning needs to be effortful to be effective
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
Language classes do work, as long as you participate. Children may appear to be picking up languages effortlessly, but consider how much time they spend to do so: take 2 years of a language, and you will be in advance of a 2 year-old native speaker. > our brains have to process language at speeds too fast for the conscious mind to keep up good point for oral communication, but literacy doesn't have to be done in real…
While I agree that adult capabilities for language learning are often underselled, you need to appreciate that a 2 year-old native speaker hasn't got the capabilities to learn the language to the full extent. Yet a 2-year old is likely to have a better phoneme representation – often much better – in their native language than an adult who has studied 2 years in language classes.
I suspect that environment has a lot more to do with that than innate capability.
A two-year-old lives in a full immersion environment where the only language they can communicate in is the one they are learning and where a large portion of the people they interact with are going out of their way to help them practice. They also have no responsibilities other than learning language and a few other skills.
Put an adult in an environment like that and they will make extremely rapid progress.
Re: Learning needs to be effortful to be effective
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
Being exposed to a song does not really counts as learning, but another thing is an analysis of chords, lyrics, post-procession effects, rhythm. Intention to repeat that in their own creative project is a judge.
If I have gained the ability to recite the lyrics of a song after being "exposed" to it for some time, it seems that I have indeed learned something.
In some genres, such as opera or modern pop songs like "pumped up kicks" or rap with some well-hidden links, or just a song containing some foreign language - this approach is so hard that if you want to learn you just download the lyrics and just read with no distortion of sense.