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This seems more like "How Do We Memorize?", as is taught and performed (poorly) in American schools. In contrast we learn by doing, by manipulating things or c

This seems more like "How Do We Memorize?", as is taught and performed (poorly) in American schools. In contrast we learn by doing, by manipulating things or concepts.

tw1010 9y ago
That seems like a very engineering-skewed perspective on knowledge. I'm not sure how that advice could apply to a philosophy or sociology student. If doing means writing research papers, then that is going to be a hugely inefficient way to learn all the things they need to learn. They won't have the resources to write a paper on everything they read. Some of it needs to just go down the subconscious, rapidly and in large quantity, for quick reference later on.
- marnett 9y ago
  I think philosophy and sociology are still poor examples - for the most part those subjects are reading, writing, and thinking. When I think of tedious fields that require mostly memorization, I think of medicine and law.
- giardini 9y ago
  So you get students who can parrot what they memorize but cannot think, reason and solve new problems. Maybe that's OK for philosophy and sociology, but in other fields students will be actually asked to contribute to the world and so must be trained to do rather than to memorize. Except for scholars (who are primarily historians) what of philosophy and sociology is worth remembering anyway? Most of philosophy was written before Darwin and certainly before any significant brain science research was done. Much of sociology is also questionable: https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=half+of+sociology+studiea+are+wrong&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=half+of+sociolo... The only reason education focuses on memorization is because in 1892 a committee chaired by the President of Harvard decided that high school education in the USA should prepare students for collegiate study in particular subjects of his choosing. Should we, today, continue to follow the direction of those professors, who were only interested in ensuring that, when students arrived at their departments, they were sufficiently indoctrinated to be scholars in their fields? https://kamccollum.wordpress.com/2008/06/05/school-is-profoundly-broken-roger-schank-visits-byu/ https://kamccollum.wordpress.com/2008/06/05/school-is-profou...
- trentmb 9y ago
  > I'm not sure how that advice could apply to a philosophy or sociology student. Do reading assignment, discuss/argue about it in class with a TA or professor to mediate and clarify stuff, maybe write a paper afterwards. Engaging with the content is kind of a universal way to learn by doing.
pseudonom- 9y ago
Committing things to long-term memory is an absolutely essential component of any sort of learning. There are many studies talking about how doing doesn't necessarily imply any learning at all and only implies learning insofar as it leads to committing information to long-term memory. Furthermore, there are studies talking about how problem-based/inquiry-based learning (what it sounds like you might be thinking of) generally produces worse outcomes than direct instruction (which places substantial emphasis on committing things to long-term memory). This all makes sense in light of the "human cognitive architecture". Working memory is severely limited while long-term memory is effectively unlimited. Thus, committing things to long-term memory frees up the scarce resource of working memory. In fact, there are many studies which indicate that the key differentiator between experts and novices is that they have a huge long-term store of schemata which can be applied in the problem domain and allow more efficient representation and manipulation in working memory.
- philipps 9y ago
  It would be helpful if you would cite the studies that allegedly support your statements about the poor results of learning-by-doing. As previous poster points out “committing things to long-term memory” is memorization, a small part of learning.
  - pseudonom- 9y ago
    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1207/s15326985ep4102_1 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1207/s15326985ep4102_... "Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching" > Evidence for the superiority of guided instruction is explained in the context of our knowledge of human cognitive architecture, expert–novice differences, and cognitive load. Although unguided or minimally guided instructional approaches are very popular and intuitively appealing, the point is made that these approaches ignore both the structures that constitute human cognitive architecture and evidence from empirical studies over the past half-century that consistently indicate that minimally guided instruction is less effective and less efficient than instructional approaches that place a strong emphasis on guidance of the student learning process. The advantage of guidance begins to recede only when learners have sufficiently high prior knowledge to provide “internal” guidance. Recent developments in instructional research and instructional design models that support guidance during instruction are briefly described.

This seems more like "How Do We Memorize?", as is taught and performed (poorly) in American schools. In contrast we learn by doing, by manipulating things or concepts.

tw1010 9y ago

That seems like a very engineering-skewed perspective on knowledge. I'm not sure how that advice could apply to a philosophy or sociology student. If doing means writing research papers, then that is going to be a hugely inefficient way to learn all the things they need to learn. They won't have the resources to write a paper on everything they read. Some of it needs to just go down the subconscious, rapidly and in large quantity, for quick reference later on.

marnett 9y ago
I think philosophy and sociology are still poor examples - for the most part those subjects are reading, writing, and thinking. When I think of tedious fields that require mostly memorization, I think of medicine and law.
giardini 9y ago
So you get students who can parrot what they memorize but cannot think, reason and solve new problems. Maybe that's OK for philosophy and sociology, but in other fields students will be actually asked to contribute to the world and so must be trained to do rather than to memorize. Except for scholars (who are primarily historians) what of philosophy and sociology is worth remembering anyway? Most of philosophy was written before Darwin and certainly before any significant brain science research was done. Much of sociology is also questionable: https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=half+of+sociology+studiea+are+wrong&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=half+of+sociolo... The only reason education focuses on memorization is because in 1892 a committee chaired by the President of Harvard decided that high school education in the USA should prepare students for collegiate study in particular subjects of his choosing. Should we, today, continue to follow the direction of those professors, who were only interested in ensuring that, when students arrived at their departments, they were sufficiently indoctrinated to be scholars in their fields? https://kamccollum.wordpress.com/2008/06/05/school-is-profoundly-broken-roger-schank-visits-byu/ https://kamccollum.wordpress.com/2008/06/05/school-is-profou...
trentmb 9y ago
> I'm not sure how that advice could apply to a philosophy or sociology student. Do reading assignment, discuss/argue about it in class with a TA or professor to mediate and clarify stuff, maybe write a paper afterwards. Engaging with the content is kind of a universal way to learn by doing.

pseudonom- 9y ago

Committing things to long-term memory is an absolutely essential component of any sort of learning. There are many studies talking about how doing doesn't necessarily imply any learning at all and only implies learning insofar as it leads to committing information to long-term memory. Furthermore, there are studies talking about how problem-based/inquiry-based learning (what it sounds like you might be thinking of) generally produces worse outcomes than direct instruction (which places substantial emphasis on committing things to long-term memory). This all makes sense in light of the "human cognitive architecture". Working memory is severely limited while long-term memory is effectively unlimited. Thus, committing things to long-term memory frees up the scarce resource of working memory. In fact, there are many studies which indicate that the key differentiator between experts and novices is that they have a huge long-term store of schemata which can be applied in the problem domain and allow more efficient representation and manipulation in working memory.

philipps 9y ago
It would be helpful if you would cite the studies that allegedly support your statements about the poor results of learning-by-doing. As previous poster points out “committing things to long-term memory” is memorization, a small part of learning.
- pseudonom- 9y ago
  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1207/s15326985ep4102_1 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1207/s15326985ep4102_... "Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching" > Evidence for the superiority of guided instruction is explained in the context of our knowledge of human cognitive architecture, expert–novice differences, and cognitive load. Although unguided or minimally guided instructional approaches are very popular and intuitively appealing, the point is made that these approaches ignore both the structures that constitute human cognitive architecture and evidence from empirical studies over the past half-century that consistently indicate that minimally guided instruction is less effective and less efficient than instructional approaches that place a strong emphasis on guidance of the student learning process. The advantage of guidance begins to recede only when learners have sufficiently high prior knowledge to provide “internal” guidance. Recent developments in instructional research and instructional design models that support guidance during instruction are briefly described.