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Learning needs to be effortful to be effective

giansegato.com

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Re: Learning needs to be effortful to be effective

#31

Post by downboots »

mighmi wrote: post #7

As a child, I was able to simply read through things (history books, forum discussions about motors and cars, wiki.c2.com...) barely understanding them - but half way words would begin making sense. I could then reread the same things with understanding and keep reading through until bored - which seemingly implied understanding. Nowadays, I need comprehensible input the whole time, hooks to actually understand what'…

> I need comprehensible input

The safer bet. Children and adult cognitive loads are assigned different in Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Re: Learning needs to be effortful to be effective

#34

Post by magnifyhim »

Yes, learning requires effort. Does it need to be _effortful_?

After a bookish childhood, I spent years as an adult trying to "learn more." Mnenomic tricks, Anki, active note-taking, exercises, trying a different book if the first one doesn't stick. It didn't work very well and I probably wasted a lot of time. Two things became clear: 1) I was focusing on the process as a way to procrastinate on the real effort involved, 2) I was compensating for a lack of real curiosity about the subject matter. Yes, learning is hard work, but does it need to _feel hard_? When I've felt truly engrossed in something, I don't need to remind myself to exert effort, and I'm not really thinking about whatever X% of learning gain I can get from doing it better.

Deep down, I think like seeing myself as the kind of person who is "really into learning" -- math, theology, classics of literature, CS, art history, whatever. Keeping up the identity I developed as a nerdy kid. Of course, it's important to be gritty about learning because... why? Hustle culture?

Now, I'm trying the opposite approach: enjoy as much entertainment as I want, avoid exerting any effort or discipline in learning, and stop immediately if I'm not feeling it. Part of this is not beating myself up when I naturally lose interest in something (95% of things). Yes, it's easy to get distracted by low-effort scrolling and such. Ultimately, though, avoiding exertion makes it easier to focus on those rare things that truly spark wonder.

Re: Learning needs to be effortful to be effective

#35

Post by wdutch »

hiisukun wrote: post #29

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". 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…

Thanks for taking the time to write this. Could you recommend any reading material for someone interested in theory of learning?

Re: Learning needs to be effortful to be effective

#36

Post by vsnf »

hiisukun wrote: post #29

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". 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…

> 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".

Is this a reference to some specific university?

Re: Learning needs to be effortful to be effective

#37

Post by s1artibartfast »

mathgeek wrote: post #11
mighmi wrote: post #7

As a child, I was able to simply read through things (history books, forum discussions about motors and cars, wiki.c2.com...) barely understanding them - but half way words would begin making sense. I could then reread the same things with understanding and keep reading through until bored - which seemingly implied understanding. Nowadays, I need comprehensible input the whole time, hooks to actually understand what'…

It’s almost certainly dependent on age. I see the same youthful development in my own children that I no longer have.

I think there's a lot of possible explanations which may be true to different degrees and for different people.

One possibility is that it becomes more challenging to integrate information the more you know, and the more that you are aware of your limitations.

The child might read something and pick up the general idea of what things are from the context. An adult might realize that the context definition is incomplete.

A child might read an instruction that says to use a box wrench to tighten the bolt and pick up from contacts that that's just the tool that you use.

An adult night Wonder what kind of box wrench, metric or imperial ratcheting or not. What about other times where I use the socket for this type of work, is that better

Re: Learning needs to be effortful to be effective

#38

Post by mandmandam »

I think you can be highly engaged, and learning strongly and rapidly, without experiencing 'effort' whatsoever. The flow state I'm describing can be playful, productive, or both - and I don't know if it's ever really pointless.

... I also think that this is usually a difficult experience to guide people into, especially in a classroom. In many ways, the classroom seems almost designed to prevent this state:

* You're surrounded by people, often noisy

* You do not often get to choose your subject matter

* If you zone out (ie, zone in), and do something weird (sit funny, pick your nose, rock back and forth, doodle, whatever) then students and even the teacher will break your flow. This means you need to be watching yourself, which is antithetical to flow.

* Regular interruptions, lack of physical activity, disconnection from nature, etc, etc.

* As the author very rightly points out, the lack of movement in most 'learning' situations is more harmful than most realize.

This leads to people associating learning with work, with effort, with strife. People decide they don't like math, or music, or art, or reading, because their school experiences are so, so bad.

It's kind of grotesque.

Re: Learning needs to be effortful to be effective

#39

Post by nomilk »

> I was spending tens of hours listening to politics on the radio. But when I tried to use any of those points in a conversation, I found that I didn't actually know enough to make a coherent argument.

Interesting to hear this. For me it's the opposite; while listening I conduct mini arguments with the presenters in my head, and come up with counter arguments, and counter-counter arguments, and counter-counter-counter arguments.

But a better habit is first check if it matters. Most of the time standing back and asking "why are we even talking about this?" - is the correct question, because usually there's no good reason; it's 'news' aka noise (definitely not education).

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