Learning needs to be effortful to be effective • Hacker News Board

Re: Learning needs to be effortful to be effective

#51

Post by Tomte » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 5:35 AM UTC

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…

You mean Education Science? I'm currently studying it (besides my day job), probably writing my bachelor's thesis next semester.

Unfortunately, in my experience there are several shortcomings of the field (or at least typical bachelor's master's programs outside teachers's preparation, which is separate in Germany).

They love to talk about interdisciplinarity, and will even call out neuroscience and psychology often. In practice, it's mostly a social sciences field, and as such has been taken over by constructivism. Now, while learning is obviously (IMO) a constructive activity, they will "explain" everything with "handwave... social construction... handwave", while dismissing e.g. neuroscience aspects as "not a learning theory" and thus not worthy of discussion.

The statistical sophistication is very, very low. It's not all linear regression, but mostly, and even when it isn't there is no (even implicit) discussion of causality, just adding all variables (what McElreath calls "causal salad).

Re: Learning needs to be effortful to be effective

#52

Post by wesapien » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 5:51 AM UTC

The other day I heard someone describe learning should be about getting 80% of the results with 20% of the effort. What do we say about that?

Re: Learning needs to be effortful to be effective

#53

Post by fastball » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 5:55 AM UTC

This is one reason we haven't yet added "AI Features" to our note-taking app.

Our app was originally built with students in mind, and when building it I wanted as much as possible to build a tool that helped students learn. Not just make them feel like it was helping, but actually helping. Although we are no longer specifically targeting students, that goal is still in my mind.

So we have been slow to integrate "AI" into our app because I worry about the effects of having an LLM do an appreciable amount of your writing for you. To me, an important aspect of using a tool for knowledge management is to actually do much of that management yourself, otherwise it won't stick.

There are certainly a number of ways that I think LLMs can be quite useful without hindering that goal, but I need to spend a bit more time working that out for myself rather than just jumping on the "let GPT-4 finish the note for you" bandwagon.

Re: Learning needs to be effortful to be effective

#54

Post by talonx » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 6:05 AM UTC

chrismartin wrote: post #46

I recently picked up a delightfully pre-digital habit: read books with a red pen in your hand (or any color different from the print). In the margins of the pages, ask questions, note points of confusion, or challenge the author. Mark sections to revisit (or skip entirely) later. Fidget with the pen to engage your motor neurons. At the end of each chapter, there's usually a mostly-blank page. That's your spot to summ…

I take similar notes in post-its on the relevant pages. They don't damage the book and can be easily removed later. The other advantage is that I can easily read the notes later as a way to revisit key ideas.

Writing in a book is abhorrent to me, but it's a personal preference.

Re: Learning needs to be effortful to be effective

#55

Post by dmvdoug » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 6:13 AM UTC

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…

Yeah, that was painful. How does memory work? Me, teacher who took graduate school classes on educational psychology: he’s going to talk about short-term memory, etc. now. Him: NEURONS!

Also, the article never mentioned the one absolutely knock down, finding that has been confirmed over and over again as effective for learning (or at least remembering): spaced repetition.

Re: Learning needs to be effortful to be effective

#56

Post by dr_dshiv » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 6:21 AM UTC

Tomte wrote: post #51

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…

You mean Education Science? I'm currently studying it (besides my day job), probably writing my bachelor's thesis next semester. Unfortunately, in my experience there are several shortcomings of the field (or at least typical bachelor's master's programs outside teachers's preparation, which is separate in Germany). They love to talk about interdisciplinarity, and will even call out neuroscience and psychology often.…

Check out programs and communities of practice in the field of “learning engineering.” Strong attention to controlled experiments, data mining, human-centered design, among other things. Carnegie Mellon is one center.

Re: Learning needs to be effortful to be effective

#57

Post by ghufran_syed » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 6:27 AM UTC

Or as mathematician Paul Halmos said: "Don't just read it; fight it! Ask your own questions, look for your own examples, discover your own proofs. Is the hypothesis necessary? Is the converse true? What happens in the classical special case? What about the degenerate cases? Where does the proof use the hypothesis?"

https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Halmos/quo....

Re: Learning needs to be effortful to be effective

#58

Post by hkab » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 6:31 AM UTC

Learning needs effort, and that's pretty clear, but not many folks truly understand this. Particularly when it comes to reading, some individuals only focus on the quantity of books they consume rather than the insights they can gain from them. Personally, I prefer using my Kindle to read, where I highlight noteworthy points and then transcribe those highlights into Notion. I'm not sure if writting down the highlights is better than speaking them out, but I find it to be quite effective.

The concept of a "learning box" sounds interesting, and it would be great if there were an extension for it.

Re: Learning needs to be effortful to be effective

#59

Post by tobr » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 6:42 AM UTC

whartung wrote: post #30

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…

Well, regarding this, I can’t speak to the theory behind it. But as a general rule, specifically when it comes to programming, I’ve always advocated that when presented with an example, someone should type the code in and not copy paste it. That the act of typing gives you time to briefly consider each element of the text and their relationships to each other, rather than as an opaque blob pasted all at once. Sure, f…

Beginner programmers are also often uncomfortable with the sheer amount of typing required to do anything. They might try to use copy and paste as a shortcut. So practicing just the typing, rather than both thinking and typing at the same time and feeling like the slow typing is limiting your thinking, is probably a good idea for that reason too.

Re: Learning needs to be effortful to be effective

#60

Post by inciampati » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 6:44 AM UTC

markus_zhang wrote: post #10

This was exactly what I realized lately. I was like the author (and still am to some extent) that I'd scratch an itch but only in a superficial way and then drop it when my energy could not hold. These superficial learnings essentially become my escape from real world: family responsibility, work and others. I guess I need to grow up and somehow indulge myself with real life but heck I refuse to do that even at 40+.

As someone with what seems like unbounded, overwhelming energy, I use learning as a way to tire myself out. The alternative is overwhelming everyone around me. Or spending many hours a day exercising, which I can't organize due to my life situation.

But until reading your comment I had never thought about how most people might just not have the energy to dig endlessly after every new idea. It didn't click.