Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm • Hacker News Board

Re: Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

#61

Post by msluyter » Sat, Sep 12, 2009, 5:05 PM UTC

btilly wrote: post #2

In grad school I managed to take advantage of the pacing effect in an educational setting. I was teaching linear algebra. What I did was make the homework incremental - 1/3 of homework on today's material, 1/3 on the previous week, and 1/3 anything in the course. Those thirds were in increasing order of difficulty. I also started every class with a question/answer period. The rules were simple, the questioning will l…

Seems related to this Wired article that recently was reposted on Reddit:

http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-05/ff_woznia...

Bottom line is that to maximize retention, there's an optimal time for being re-exposed to information: right before you're about to forget it. Seems like re-covering the previous material in the class may have accomplished this.

Re: Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

#62

Post by wmeredith » Sat, Sep 12, 2009, 5:35 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #50

tocomment wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you made this story into a blog post, people would listen. (I'm actually serious, it's an interesting story and a lot of people might benefit from hearing more of the details and the thought process behind it.

"If you made this story into a blog post, people would listen." That's what I hate about people. What makes people pay attention isn't the ideas themselves, but whether it looks like you worked hard in writing it. I've made comments on HN that no one paid any attention to, and then turned them into blog posts and had them get to the top of Reddit or Digg or whatever. Exact same ideas, all I did was visually change th…

If this is what you hate about people I would advise you to pick your' battles. /snark

Context has always been of the utmost importance for any sort of information to have impact.

Re: Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

#63

Post by wsprague » Sat, Sep 12, 2009, 5:35 PM UTC

btilly wrote: post #2

In grad school I managed to take advantage of the pacing effect in an educational setting. I was teaching linear algebra. What I did was make the homework incremental - 1/3 of homework on today's material, 1/3 on the previous week, and 1/3 anything in the course. Those thirds were in increasing order of difficulty. I also started every class with a question/answer period. The rules were simple, the questioning will l…

The question of why is there so much crappy education is interesting. I think part of the answer is that society is well-served by the failings of the educational system in that widespread educational crappiness helps support the class system. I think it would be fairly straightforward to turn 90% of the population into well educated upper middle class types, using techniques like btilly describes...

... But if we did that, who would drink Coors and drive forklift for Walmart and not complain about it?

So I think that a huge function of the educational system is to educate a large part of the population badly. I think that the teacher training system serves this is as well, by selecting for mediocre teachers and then making them more mediocre via training. Additionally, in the schools themselves a lot of effort is made to classify young people into dumb and smart categories, usually unfairly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect), and this classification stamps them for the rest of their lives and creates a population of hopeless lower class workers.

If there are SOME good teachers in the system like btilly, then SOME kids go on to get out of their class, which is perfect in that (1) we need to claim that it is possible to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and (2) we need to recruit SOME kids to grow up to fill management positions, but not too many that they all can't find careers. Historically, underemployed educated people are the people who become union leaders.

The beauty of it is that the people who fail think it is their fault!

(Sorry to rant about the educational / class system in general, rather than the topic of how to teach advanced math, but I couldn't stop myself.)

Call me paranoid, but there you go.

Re: Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

#64

Post by scott_s » Sat, Sep 12, 2009, 6:17 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #50

tocomment wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you made this story into a blog post, people would listen. (I'm actually serious, it's an interesting story and a lot of people might benefit from hearing more of the details and the thought process behind it.

"If you made this story into a blog post, people would listen." That's what I hate about people. What makes people pay attention isn't the ideas themselves, but whether it looks like you worked hard in writing it. I've made comments on HN that no one paid any attention to, and then turned them into blog posts and had them get to the top of Reddit or Digg or whatever. Exact same ideas, all I did was visually change th…

Context matters: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04...

Further, it's easier to point someone to a blog post than a forum comment.

Re: Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

#65

Post by butterfi » Sat, Sep 12, 2009, 6:49 PM UTC

TobiasCassell wrote: post #37

btilly wrote: post #2

In grad school I managed to take advantage of the pacing effect in an educational setting. I was teaching linear algebra. What I did was make the homework incremental - 1/3 of homework on today's material, 1/3 on the previous week, and 1/3 anything in the course. Those thirds were in increasing order of difficulty. I also started every class with a question/answer period. The rules were simple, the questioning will l…

Hey OP, was your technique influenced by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's Flow? I'm referring to the relationship between ability level and challenge. Do I see similarities with your clearly effective teaching style and some of the elements Video Game designers have almost unanimously implemented to great success?

I'm not sure "the relationship between ability level and challenge" is what MC means by flow, if that's what you're saying.

Q: "What is "the flow experience" and what does it have to do with motivation? A: The flow experience is when a person is completely involved in what he or she is doing, when the concentration is very high, when the person knows moment by moment what the next steps should be, like if you are playing tennis, you know where you want the ball to go, if you are playing a musical instrument you know what notes you want to play, every millisecond, almost. And you get feedback to what you're doing. That is, if you're playing music, you can hear whether what you are trying to do is coming out right or in tennis you see where the ball goes and so on. So there's concentration, clear goals, feedback, there is the feeling that what you can do is more or less in balance with what needs to be done, that is, challenges and skills are pretty much in balance."

http://www.edutopia.org/mihaly-csikszentmihalyi-motivating-p...

Re: Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

#66

Post by tigerthink » Sat, Sep 12, 2009, 7:02 PM UTC

gwern wrote: post #36

tigerthink wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As mentioned above, Anki and Supermemo are two free implementations. As for ready-made flashcards, here are some I made for a calculus class: http://www.spicyelephant.com/decks/523 http://www.spicyelephant.com/decks/577 http://www.spicyelephant.com/decks/659 You probably have to register for an account if you want the site to apply supermemo-type techniques. I don't recommend using the site in the long term because i…

Supermemo isn't really free - maybe you meant 'Anki & Mnemosyne'? That's the big 2 in the Free SRS space.

Right. Sorry.

Re: Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

#67

Post by qeorge » Sat, Sep 12, 2009, 7:20 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #50

tocomment wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you made this story into a blog post, people would listen. (I'm actually serious, it's an interesting story and a lot of people might benefit from hearing more of the details and the thought process behind it.

"If you made this story into a blog post, people would listen." That's what I hate about people. What makes people pay attention isn't the ideas themselves, but whether it looks like you worked hard in writing it. I've made comments on HN that no one paid any attention to, and then turned them into blog posts and had them get to the top of Reddit or Digg or whatever. Exact same ideas, all I did was visually change th…

I like Seth's writing, but I don't like this post. He's missed the point entirely.

In the Chris Bliss video, he's on a stage with all kinds of lights and scenery, performing an original routine in front of a crowd. In the Jason Garfield video, he's copying someone else's routine in a high school gym with no crowd. Sure, Jason's performance may be harder, but Chris Bliss's performance is more interesting. Its not that Jason made it look too easy, its that he made it boring.

Instead the takeaway could be this:

You users don't care if what you did was hard, they care about whether they like the product. And that's as much presentation (i.e. UI) as nuts and bolts.

Re: Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

#68

Post by kalid » Sat, Sep 12, 2009, 7:27 PM UTC

btilly wrote: post #2

In grad school I managed to take advantage of the pacing effect in an educational setting. I was teaching linear algebra. What I did was make the homework incremental - 1/3 of homework on today's material, 1/3 on the previous week, and 1/3 anything in the course. Those thirds were in increasing order of difficulty. I also started every class with a question/answer period. The rules were simple, the questioning will l…

That's really awesome. I'm a huge proponent of finding the real, actual insights and lessons behind a subject (plug: I blog at betterexplained.com).

The dirty little secret of education is that it's "ok" to cram and forget. Most classes reward that; education is about "being able to do something once" vs. actually remembering and applying it.

I hope you write more about your findings!

Re: Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

#69

Post by omouse » Sat, Sep 12, 2009, 7:37 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #50

tocomment wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you made this story into a blog post, people would listen. (I'm actually serious, it's an interesting story and a lot of people might benefit from hearing more of the details and the thought process behind it.

"If you made this story into a blog post, people would listen." That's what I hate about people. What makes people pay attention isn't the ideas themselves, but whether it looks like you worked hard in writing it. I've made comments on HN that no one paid any attention to, and then turned them into blog posts and had them get to the top of Reddit or Digg or whatever. Exact same ideas, all I did was visually change th…

That's what I hate about people. What makes people pay attention isn't the ideas themselves, but whether it looks like you worked hard in writing it.

You're bitching that people consume ideas in different media, in different forms? I'm confused by this.

Re: Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

#70

Post by nostrademons » Sat, Sep 12, 2009, 7:54 PM UTC

btilly wrote: post #2

In grad school I managed to take advantage of the pacing effect in an educational setting. I was teaching linear algebra. What I did was make the homework incremental - 1/3 of homework on today's material, 1/3 on the previous week, and 1/3 anything in the course. Those thirds were in increasing order of difficulty. I also started every class with a question/answer period. The rules were simple, the questioning will l…

When I was learning to play the violin, my teacher had a very strict method for going through the repertoire. You had your working piece, which was supposed to be hard - it was stretching the abilities of what you could do as a violinist. You had your polishing piece, which was your previous working piece where you were finessing all the fine points of technique and musicality. You had review, which was all the other pieces you'd learned so far. And you had your preps, which were little passages (4 measures or so) from your working piece that were so hard that you played them over and over again, way slowed down, until you got them right and could speed them up and incorporate them into your working piece.

I've tried to do something similar with my work so far - a working codebase that I'm just learning, a polishing codebase that I basically know my way around in, and various tweaks and bugfixes that I have to do for previous projects. It's a bit harder in the corporate world though - while Google engineers are given a lot of freedom to pick their projects, they're still subject to the needs of the business, and sometimes a project will come up that's such a great opportunity for professional visibility that I'd want to take it even if it involves working hard on something I already know well and dropping the polishing of stuff I just learned.