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Effective learning: Rules of formulating knowledge (1999)

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Re: Effective learning: Rules of formulating knowledge (1999)

#31

Post by groovy2shoes »

MrQuincle wrote: post #8
guizzmo wrote: post #6

The first rule "do not learn what you do not understand" is nonesense in the context of learning mathematics/physics/hard sciences. If you understand a subject, then it means that you have learned it effectively. In my experience with teaching at university, I have found that the wish of students to understand before learning is actually a great barrier to comprehend a subject. In order to build intuition on a subjec…

As a kid I cried at times because learning foreign words, lists of topological places, or events in history was so hard! If I don't get the structure or context I am so lost. At electrical engineering they still tried to teach me in the same way. Giving me assignments with little context. What saved me in the end were textbooks and the internet. The easiest way for me to understand new concepts are the subsequent gen…

I'm the same way. At university, I had an instructor for Calculus I who seemed content with just having us memorize formulas and identities and "shortcuts", only to regurgitate them on demand. I barely passed with a C-. Then, I had an instructor for Calculus II who was much the same. I made a D+ in Calc II, which, since Calculus I-III are considered essential courses for engineering students, was not passing. My second time through Calc II, I barely passed with a C-.

Then, I get to Calculus III, and my instructor introduces each concept by showing us a complicated-but-ultimately-intuitive formula for something, then deriving the "shortcut" step-by-step. While most of the students griped that it was boring, I found it quite interesting, and for the first time in my university career I felt like I could grasp calculus. I made an A-.

There are other instances of this, as well, but that one was probably the most dramatic. I don't know what it is. I came up with a handful of analogies just now, but none of them seemed particularly satisfying, so I gave up. Perhaps it's just a quirk, I dunno :)

Re: Effective learning: Rules of formulating knowledge (1999)

#32

Post by emilga »

iheartmemcache wrote: post #29
Eerie wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Anki has search, tags and hierarchical organization. 2. If you don't remember that you already have something, it means Anki is failing you, because the whole point of it is to help you remember. 3. BUT! it doesn't really matter if you add the same note several times, it will just make it appear for review more often.

It seems like the value of the platform is in the well-classified data made by the community in the same way that emacs "killer feature" is the bazillions of community .el extensions. Is there a Github or some defacto standardized way people publish their Anki notes?

Yes, check out: https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks/

Re: Effective learning: Rules of formulating knowledge (1999)

#33

Post by emilga »

Eerie wrote: post #27
emilga wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you able to keep 10000 notes in Anki organized? With that many notes, how can you tell whether something you want to remember is already in your notes or not? It seems to me that the Anki card browser is quite bad at this, but maybe I'm just bad at using it!

1. Anki has search, tags and hierarchical organization. 2. If you don't remember that you already have something, it means Anki is failing you, because the whole point of it is to help you remember. 3. BUT! it doesn't really matter if you add the same note several times, it will just make it appear for review more often.

Do you mind elaborating a bit on how to do this well?

For example, I know it's possible to create a filtered deck which collects notes from several different decks. I can therefore use each deck to organize the different subjects and practice all of them by reviewing the filtered deck. Or do you mean the hierarchical-tag add-on? Or something else?

Re: Effective learning: Rules of formulating knowledge (1999)

#34

Post by radicsge »

groovy2shoes wrote: post #31
MrQuincle wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a kid I cried at times because learning foreign words, lists of topological places, or events in history was so hard! If I don't get the structure or context I am so lost. At electrical engineering they still tried to teach me in the same way. Giving me assignments with little context. What saved me in the end were textbooks and the internet. The easiest way for me to understand new concepts are the subsequent gen…

I'm the same way. At university, I had an instructor for Calculus I who seemed content with just having us memorize formulas and identities and "shortcuts", only to regurgitate them on demand. I barely passed with a C-. Then, I had an instructor for Calculus II who was much the same. I made a D+ in Calc II, which, since Calculus I-III are considered essential courses for engineering students, was not passing. My seco…

double this. Practicing is useless, if you dont have motivation where you can apply this knowledge. I wish i could go back in time and learn the math in university once again after failing to understand things in stat and ml. just because missing basics things what i "practiced" in the past without understanding it...

Re: Effective learning: Rules of formulating knowledge (1999)

#35

Post by cle »

emilga wrote: post #24
cle wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SuperMemo has a lot more advanced features (e.g. incremental reading). But the tradeoffs are pretty significant, in my opinion. Anki's decisive features for me are its mobile apps, its simplicity, and its open source license. I've been using Anki for 5 years now and have about 10,000 notes. I don't use it for foreign language learning. I would not feel comfortable investing that much effort into a closed-source platf…

How are you able to keep 10000 notes in Anki organized? With that many notes, how can you tell whether something you want to remember is already in your notes or not? It seems to me that the Anki card browser is quite bad at this, but maybe I'm just bad at using it!

I mostly put everything in the same deck. There are a handful of notes that are similar or contain the same information, it's not really a big deal. If it really bothers me, I just suspend the duplicate while studying and I never see it again (this is trivial to do in the mobile app).

I have a custom note format that I use, with custom fields and custom formatting. It looks something like this:

  Front
  Back
  Context
  Source
  Date
  Author
  Hint
  Extra
  Reverse
"Front" and "Back" are self-explanatory. "Context" is shown on the front of the card, if specified, and is a reminder of the broad context of the note (if it's a note about Python, for example, then I'd put "Python" in the Context). If "Reverse" contains any text, then Anki will generate two cards: front->back and a back->front, which lets me test both directions of the knowledge (it's really helpful to be able to recall information in either direction).

Here's the note template I use (sans formatting, which is standard CSS):

Front:

  
    Deck: {{Deck}} {{#Tags}}♦ Tags: {{Tags}}{{/Tags}}
  

  {{#Context}}
  {{Context}}
  {{/Context}}

  {{Front}}

  {{#Hint}}{{hint:Hint}}{{/Hint}}
Back:

  {{FrontSide}}
  
    
    {{Back}}
  
  

  {{#Extra}}{{Extra}}{{/Extra}}

  


  
    {{#Source}}Source: {{Source}} 
{{/Source}}
    {{#Author}}Author: {{Author}} 
{{/Author}}
    {{#Date}}Date: {{Date}}{{/Date}}

Re: Effective learning: Rules of formulating knowledge (1999)

#36

Post by pasbesoin »

groovy2shoes wrote: post #31
MrQuincle wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a kid I cried at times because learning foreign words, lists of topological places, or events in history was so hard! If I don't get the structure or context I am so lost. At electrical engineering they still tried to teach me in the same way. Giving me assignments with little context. What saved me in the end were textbooks and the internet. The easiest way for me to understand new concepts are the subsequent gen…

I'm the same way. At university, I had an instructor for Calculus I who seemed content with just having us memorize formulas and identities and "shortcuts", only to regurgitate them on demand. I barely passed with a C-. Then, I had an instructor for Calculus II who was much the same. I made a D+ in Calc II, which, since Calculus I-III are considered essential courses for engineering students, was not passing. My seco…

Calc I, I had the "hard" professor ("Oh, you have A.? Sorry."). I found he was challenging, but also a good instructor. A.

Calc II, I had a guest/evaluation professor. Disorganized. Poor descriptions. No context. I really struggled with that class.

They didn't renew the Calc II professor's contract. But the damage was done, for my class.

Re: Effective learning: Rules of formulating knowledge (1999)

#37

Post by emilga »

cle wrote: post #35
emilga wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you able to keep 10000 notes in Anki organized? With that many notes, how can you tell whether something you want to remember is already in your notes or not? It seems to me that the Anki card browser is quite bad at this, but maybe I'm just bad at using it!

I mostly put everything in the same deck. There are a handful of notes that are similar or contain the same information, it's not really a big deal. If it really bothers me, I just suspend the duplicate while studying and I never see it again (this is trivial to do in the mobile app). I have a custom note format that I use, with custom fields and custom formatting. It looks something like this: Front Back Context Sou…

Thank you! :)
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