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Thank you for this writeup that peels away a layer of simplification and more vividly and accurately explains what is going on. you have a way with words. The i

Thank you for this writeup that peels away a layer of simplification and more vividly and accurately explains what is going on. you have a way with words. The intoxicated panicked mouse will stay with me forever. That being said, I don't agree that it is a pervasive problem that simplification and abstraction is used in teaching. New concepts have to be introduced piecemeal. If a new topic was explained to an audience of neophytes in all its gory details, the effectiveness of the knowledge transfer would be low. Some may grasp the complicated details and form a valid mental model. However, many will be put off, as it is too much stuff at once. Teaching is about introducing a simpler model first. Such a model is a rough abstraction with tons of simplifications and inaccuracies. Once understood by the student, it is about introducing a more intricate and realistic model, while demolishing parts of the simpler one that no longer fit. Once this more intricate model is internalized, another even more detailed one can be taught. This goes on until you get to the limits of understanding of a certain system or process. At that point, the student has the option of becoming a researcher and forging new models that have not been created before. You can not dump the most detailed and intricate model on new students. At the same time, a good teacher is cognizant of the fact when their students have a solid enough grasp of a given model to start introducing the more intricate one, while dismantling the old one. It's a tough balancing act.

charlieflowers 9y ago
> you have a way with words. The intoxicated panicked mouse will stay with me forever. I like "random walk on a leash" too. Powerful and descriptive.
- mncharity 9y ago
  Thanks everyone for the kind words. I appreciate it.
erasmuse 9y ago
Yes, our understanding gets more refined the more we learn. It remains messy, error-prone and incomplete. So the solution can never be to learn things 'well' or get things right first time or produce perfect teachers/videos or something like that. The solution is to go on correcting misconceptions where we are interested. Ken Shirriff's blog, mncharity's website, comments here and so on simply are part of the ongoing spontaneous correction process. Like the contents of a cell, they may look crazy and disorganised but they get the job done.
- bumbledraven 9y ago
  Hi erasmuse, the Fallible Ideas mailing list (http://fallibleideas.com/discussion http://fallibleideas.com/discussion) would be a more fruitful place to discuss your ideas. There, openness to new ideas is valued, as is being willing to discuss disagreements persistently until resolution. http://fallibleideas.com/paths-forward http://fallibleideas.com/paths-forward
  - erasmuse 9y ago
    I doubt it. New ideas develop slowly and can't be communicated or explained until they are ready. If you look at creative intellectuals they work alone or, rarely, in pairs. Discussion to the point of resolution would be more like politics or opinion-leading; perhaps necessary for defence or for sorting out existing ideas but otherwise harmful to progress.
    - bumbledraven 9y ago
      Work has multiple parts. Some work is done alone, some in pairs, and some in a public group. The public group part has value and importance: for example, getting more variety of criticism and other feedback such as what people don't understand. Work done in a public group also helps others learn, so that's good. If, hypothetically, you should join the group, in what way could you find that out? What would change your mind? Example of Fallible Ideas thinking: http://fallibleideas.com/taking-children-seriously http://fallibleideas.com/taking-children-seriously
      - erasmuse 9y ago
        >What would change your mind? Something like historical examples of fundamental breakthroughs in science or great works of art produced by committee. Criticism is for stuff one doesn't like, which is why it belongs firmly in the public realm of news, politics, etc. A group isn't public. When it comes to your private work, ignore criticism and trust your intuition. Ideas need room to grow just like children do.
mncharity 9y ago
I think of this as the "iterated lying" and "accumulated models constitutes understanding" approach to science education. :) Consider giving a briefing in the military, or to business management, or in a professional consult. Yes, you need to simplify. But distorting results, missing the point, saying things with little connection to reality, and being disorganized and incoherent, rises towards professional misconduct. Describing a foreign culture to generals, or tech to middle management, doesn't seem incomparable to describing the physical world to kids. Science education content currently gives a really wretched briefing on the physical world. > student [...] demolishing parts of the simpler [model] that no longer fit [...] This goes on until you get to [...] becoming a researcher But that doesn't appear to be what's happening now. Chemistry education research describes chemistry education content as incoherent, leaving both teachers and students deeply steeped in misconceptions. But maybe in college? First-tier astronomy graduate students are often unable tell a 5-year old what color the Sun is, without getting it wrong. First-tier medical school graduate students seem to have little grasp of cell size. These misconceptions and gaps then impair other foundational understanding. It is hard to alter misconception ecologies. Think kudzu. But maybe researchers? Active researchers chop back their own kudzu in their specific research area. And variously trim it in areas they teach. But the ramshackleness of people's understanding increases rapidly, even within their field, as you move away from their narrow research area, and off into their kudzu forest. Where everyone else lives. > [paraphrased:] a balancing act of introducing and dismantling increasingly detailed and intricate models What does "teach friction" mean? Does it mean teaching kindergarten kids what can make them slip and fall? And behavioral and engineering strategies for avoiding that? Sock nubbies need to be on the bottom? Or does it mean teaching them, years later, algebraic plug-and-chug of Arrhenius' law of large objects sliding on pig fat? And for the pig fat model, should they develop a feel for reasonable sliding numbers? Should they be able to judge how well unfamiliar situations match the model? Imagine being in a 19th-century one-room schoolhouse with a book or two. You might aspire to teaching plug-and-chug, on models students won't use in the real world. Imagine being in a 2017 classroom. You have plug-and-chug. You might aspire to teaching numeracy and transferable knowledge (can be applied to unfamiliar problems), but it would be hard, given the constraints you face. Now imagine a 2037 classroom. The kids have had AR their entire lives. Hybrid computer-human systems have dropped the currently ghastly-high cost of pulling together insights from very large numbers of busy and expensive domain experts. So what could you aspire to? Might we aspire to a hands-on deep-and-broad understanding of the physical world? It's straightforward to teach early primary students bits of foundational knowledge that graduate students should have, but often don't. It's currently too expensive to scale that. Even considering the positive feedback of getting things "right". But costs are declining. Maybe we'll hit a new regime, as bizarrely unfamiliar, as say expecting peasants to learn to read?

charlieflowers 9y ago

> you have a way with words. The intoxicated panicked mouse will stay with me forever. I like "random walk on a leash" too. Powerful and descriptive.

mncharity 9y ago
Thanks everyone for the kind words. I appreciate it.

erasmuse 9y ago

Yes, our understanding gets more refined the more we learn. It remains messy, error-prone and incomplete. So the solution can never be to learn things 'well' or get things right first time or produce perfect teachers/videos or something like that. The solution is to go on correcting misconceptions where we are interested. Ken Shirriff's blog, mncharity's website, comments here and so on simply are part of the ongoing spontaneous correction process. Like the contents of a cell, they may look crazy and disorganised but they get the job done.

bumbledraven 9y ago
Hi erasmuse, the Fallible Ideas mailing list (http://fallibleideas.com/discussion http://fallibleideas.com/discussion) would be a more fruitful place to discuss your ideas. There, openness to new ideas is valued, as is being willing to discuss disagreements persistently until resolution. http://fallibleideas.com/paths-forward http://fallibleideas.com/paths-forward
- erasmuse 9y ago
  I doubt it. New ideas develop slowly and can't be communicated or explained until they are ready. If you look at creative intellectuals they work alone or, rarely, in pairs. Discussion to the point of resolution would be more like politics or opinion-leading; perhaps necessary for defence or for sorting out existing ideas but otherwise harmful to progress.
  - bumbledraven 9y ago
    Work has multiple parts. Some work is done alone, some in pairs, and some in a public group. The public group part has value and importance: for example, getting more variety of criticism and other feedback such as what people don't understand. Work done in a public group also helps others learn, so that's good. If, hypothetically, you should join the group, in what way could you find that out? What would change your mind? Example of Fallible Ideas thinking: http://fallibleideas.com/taking-children-seriously http://fallibleideas.com/taking-children-seriously
    - erasmuse 9y ago
      >What would change your mind? Something like historical examples of fundamental breakthroughs in science or great works of art produced by committee. Criticism is for stuff one doesn't like, which is why it belongs firmly in the public realm of news, politics, etc. A group isn't public. When it comes to your private work, ignore criticism and trust your intuition. Ideas need room to grow just like children do.

mncharity 9y ago

I think of this as the "iterated lying" and "accumulated models constitutes understanding" approach to science education. :) Consider giving a briefing in the military, or to business management, or in a professional consult. Yes, you need to simplify. But distorting results, missing the point, saying things with little connection to reality, and being disorganized and incoherent, rises towards professional misconduct. Describing a foreign culture to generals, or tech to middle management, doesn't seem incomparable to describing the physical world to kids. Science education content currently gives a really wretched briefing on the physical world. > student [...] demolishing parts of the simpler [model] that no longer fit [...] This goes on until you get to [...] becoming a researcher But that doesn't appear to be what's happening now. Chemistry education research describes chemistry education content as incoherent, leaving both teachers and students deeply steeped in misconceptions. But maybe in college? First-tier astronomy graduate students are often unable tell a 5-year old what color the Sun is, without getting it wrong. First-tier medical school graduate students seem to have little grasp of cell size. These misconceptions and gaps then impair other foundational understanding. It is hard to alter misconception ecologies. Think kudzu. But maybe researchers? Active researchers chop back their own kudzu in their specific research area. And variously trim it in areas they teach. But the ramshackleness of people's understanding increases rapidly, even within their field, as you move away from their narrow research area, and off into their kudzu forest. Where everyone else lives. > [paraphrased:] a balancing act of introducing and dismantling increasingly detailed and intricate models What does "teach friction" mean? Does it mean teaching kindergarten kids what can make them slip and fall? And behavioral and engineering strategies for avoiding that? Sock nubbies need to be on the bottom? Or does it mean teaching them, years later, algebraic plug-and-chug of Arrhenius' law of large objects sliding on pig fat? And for the pig fat model, should they develop a feel for reasonable sliding numbers? Should they be able to judge how well unfamiliar situations match the model? Imagine being in a 19th-century one-room schoolhouse with a book or two. You might aspire to teaching plug-and-chug, on models students won't use in the real world. Imagine being in a 2017 classroom. You have plug-and-chug. You might aspire to teaching numeracy and transferable knowledge (can be applied to unfamiliar problems), but it would be hard, given the constraints you face. Now imagine a 2037 classroom. The kids have had AR their entire lives. Hybrid computer-human systems have dropped the currently ghastly-high cost of pulling together insights from very large numbers of busy and expensive domain experts. So what could you aspire to? Might we aspire to a hands-on deep-and-broad understanding of the physical world? It's straightforward to teach early primary students bits of foundational knowledge that graduate students should have, but often don't. It's currently too expensive to scale that. Even considering the positive feedback of getting things "right". But costs are declining. Maybe we'll hit a new regime, as bizarrely unfamiliar, as say expecting peasants to learn to read?