4 ms·
I was a physics TA in grad school. I was very good at explaining solutions to problems, so of course during exam reviews I would get big crowds to watch the exp
by scottmsul 8y ago
I was a physics TA in grad school. I was very good at explaining solutions to problems, so of course during exam reviews I would get big crowds to watch the explanations. I was also somewhat aware of this principle, so during a review I was trying to get students to come up with approaches or ideas while solving a problem, and they demanded "why don't you just tell us!" It was pretty frustrating.
Watching someone explain solutions well can be dangerous, since it gives you the very real feeling of understanding, without actual understanding. To actually understand, you have to try a problem from scratch. Then you will understand why the solution/approach is what it is, and why other approaches fail, which will give you intuition about which approaches work on future problems. But counter-intuitively, you will get lost in the weeds during the process, which makes you feel like you don't understand!
- imjk 8y agoYeah, I'm kinda on the other end of this. I often didn't do as well as I should have in school because I always "understood" what was going on in the classroom. It was confusing for me when those who struggled to understand what was being taught in class did better on exams. From a cursory glance I always seemed to understand what was being taught, so I never did the deep work where you really learn the subject. I figured out better ways to really learn the subject matters later in academia. It was almost never about reading more on the subject, but rather doing more problems (ideally exams that were use in previous semesters) on the subject.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- keyle 8y agoThat's exactly how you wire your brain to do something. It's that action that will cement it into memory too.