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I will agree with you as well as the OP. One thing my comment history shows is that I believe a mixture of technical and conceptual literacy is needed for learn

I will agree with you as well as the OP. One thing my comment history shows is that I believe a mixture of technical and conceptual literacy is needed for learning. My current research is that students rely on copying and pasting and don't write out code enough to experience syntax errors (the first issue many CS students face). I am currently researching the use of retyping worked example code to help low-performing students. The article very much reads as an editorial "the next generation isn't ready" piece. It blames the lack of dexterity on smartphones, yet there is no research on this, just anecdotal accounts. I'm sure there is merit to the professor's claims, but the article does not back up the claims. That being said and tying to OP's comment, expertise does take time; however, when improve skills that an individual is bad/inadequate at, then deliberate practice [1] can be used. This is what motivates my current research. Someone that is not technically literate is unable to write/debug problem-solving solutions, despite being competent in problem-solving. Therefore, require deliberate practice on where they struggle, in writing syntax. All technical skills need to be ingrains to the point of having a "feeling". Whether total immersion or specific practice is better has not be really researched, though I'm sure it is a combination of the two (with specific practice being deliberate in nature). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practice_(learning_method)#Deliberate_practice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practice_(learning_method)#Del...

toss1 8y ago
For sure, both immersion and deliberate practice work -- eventually. The issue is the scale and scope of the remedial project. OP casually shunts off the severely deficient students as an 'invalid concern' and "just [a] transfer of responsibility", as if the schools merely "should teach them". Or, perhaps add an exam that would be solved by some 3rd party exam-cram courses or YouTube videos. OP is wrong in this by orders of magnitude. The training that you propose with immersion and deliberate practice is more, but likely still drastically inadequate. There's little doubt that the surgery professors are observing a new and serious deficiency, even though the article doesn't mention quantifying the observations or research that nails down the exact cause. Moreover, the skill deficit is deceptively simple, and may require years to fix, or even be unfixable in those subjects. Several examples: * A group of monkeys being raised in an indoor arboretum had some injuries, and the scientists installed much more stout sticks and secured the vegetation. No more injuries due to broken branches, but when the monkeys were introduced to the wild, instead of swinging & leaping through the leafy canopies like their wild brothers, they cowered at the trunks. They'd completely failed to learn while young the skills required, and so the release failed for that generation. * Personal experience, in learning a physical skill to an internationally competitive level, starting from being already well-coordinated, it took close to a decade of full immersion & dedication to get to the national team level. Moreover, even having achieved this skill level in certain sports, I've tried to get good at things like juggling and piano, and I have no illusions that even making a similar level of dedication, I'd never get anywhere near a professional level in either -- I didn't build that kind of wiring earlier. * I've made arguments like yours to concert-level musicians, i.e., that simply being dedicated enough and training hard enough would get one to a professional level. Instant response of "NOoooo..." -- they've each seen multiple people pour years of their lives into hard work with top teachers and never get to a professional level, and these weren't people starting with a deficit. * In neuroscience there is observed a period of plasticity for some skills. While it is not absolute, it is phase in brain development where the brain is particularly suited to absorb & learn certain skills. With some skills and animals, it is absolute -- if not exposed during that time, the organism or person will have an unsurmountable lifetime deficit. Languages are like this, where picking up a language between the ages of 4-8yo is almost effortless, but after that... Even if it is a skill that can be overcome in a different period of life, it's much more difficult. Serious professional level manual dexterity and physical skills are not something that can be picked up even with multiple dedicated courses. I'd venture that putting in the courses of immersion & deliberate training you suggest, and at a level of intensity equal to med school itself, might recover 30% of the deficient students in several years, delaying their Med School by the same period. Seems out of scope to me. But the OP's idea of a pre-screening exam is good, not because prep courses would solve it, but because the pre-med students could wash themselves out of contention if they lacked the skills to begin with.
- jacobolus 8y ago
  > A group of monkeys being raised in an indoor arboretum had some injuries, and the scientists installed much more stout sticks and secured the vegetation. No more injuries due to broken branches, but when the monkeys were introduced to the wild, instead of swinging & leaping through the leafy canopies like their wild brothers, they cowered at the trunks. They'd completely failed to learn while young the skills required, and so the release failed for that generation. Do you have a link about this one? Sounds interesting.
  - toss1 8y ago
    I wish I had a link, sorry. Read it probably over 10 years ago
- tsumnia 8y ago
  It's a delicate balance for sure, but I do think time on task lends itself toward mastery. KA Ericsson's deliberate practice has been met with criticism [1], someone born with good genes and having a tailored upbringing will flourish while another person cannot. I've trained someone with functional, but severe mental disabilities and while he'll never be regarded as a 'master', his overall coordination and quality of life have improved. I personally hold the "lifetime learner" mentality, and so I look at it less of becoming a mastery and just getting better. That's a longer term approach. I agree that if I'd started some of my current hobbies at a younger, more malleable age, I would have improved at a faster rate. But I also can't time travel, so should I simply give up my aspirations of learning? Hitting 35 soon, the skills I have are all I can have? If we assume the article is referring to young med students, they are still in their early twenties - is that too late to 'start'? What about any non-traditional student that goes to a community college for a vocational trade, are they SOL? As you mention, it is more difficult, but I'd argue not impossible through specialized training. Pre-screening is a suggestion I'd be very careful towards. The reason being is that Computer Science saw a rapid spike in popularity in the 80s [2]. Unfortunately, academia could not match the demand and so they were faced with an issue of "whom to teach". One approach was to increase the difficulty of entrance exams. I'm sure this eliminated a lot of poor students just going where the money was; however as Roberts puts it, some students took this as a sign that they were "unwanted", causing a sharp decline in enrollment in the field. Interestingly enough, this drop is around the time women in CS took a nosedive [3] that we are only now recovering from. In addition, many underrepresented groups do not pursue CS at a young age, contrary to Caucasian males. Walking into their first CS courses, it's intimidating to be met with peers that have been modding Minecraft since they were 12. We're seeing a similar 'peak interest' in CS due to the dot-com/social media era and many of the same suggestions are getting thrown around. Coupled with the demand for future software developers [4], there is a need to figure out how to teach individuals starting out with an inadequate skill level. Instead of pre-screening, I'd lean more towards placement tests, faded assistance, and teaching discipline (which I've called perseverance/'grit' in other posts). Not everyone enters the classroom at the same ability and so those that need additional work should be given time to hone those skills. Faded assistance (scaffolding) removes the crutches as a student's 'Zone of Proximal Development' increases [5]. The mistake learned from your monkey example is they failed to be properly integrate into real world scenarios where those crutches are nonexistent. Finally, discipline teaches students to continue, even after becoming skilled. Doctors that continued to practice after their time in school were better performers than those that did not [6]. In the martial arts I train, you typically have earned your blue belt after 2 years. By that time, you KNOW every technique; however, many students also quit around this time because they become frustrated they aren't as good as the people nearing 10-20 years of training. Others have mentioned it, but in addition to their neuroplasticity, children are forced to learn because a) they have an empty cup (neuroplasticity), and b) they are forced to (early specialization by parent). It's harder for an adult to learn because of both age and they don't have the same time to devote to becoming skilled like they did as a child. This is why I like the idea of specialized courses and why I prefer academia to something like a MOOC. There is an implicit "forced learning" where the novice is devoting time toward progression. If a student "can't learn CS", I'd say it is because they are ill equipped to learn it at that time. As such, the next step is to identify why they struggle (technical literacy, problem-solving, reasoning, or some combination of those) and seek to improve that skill before moving into CS. Similar to surgery, by identifying what basic skill a student struggles with and then improving it should be the first course of action. WHERE that basic skill should be taught is more political than I'd like to get into, since I've written enough. [1] http://www.chrest.info/fg/Articles-2011-2015/Hambrick-2014-Intelligence-DeliberatePractice.pdf http://www.chrest.info/fg/Articles-2011-2015/Hambrick-2014-I... [2] https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/CSCapacity/ https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/CSCapacity/ [3] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when... [4] https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43061.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43061.pdf [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_proximal_development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_proximal_development [6] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22141427 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22141427

toss1 8y ago

For sure, both immersion and deliberate practice work -- eventually. The issue is the scale and scope of the remedial project. OP casually shunts off the severely deficient students as an 'invalid concern' and "just [a] transfer of responsibility", as if the schools merely "should teach them". Or, perhaps add an exam that would be solved by some 3rd party exam-cram courses or YouTube videos. OP is wrong in this by orders of magnitude. The training that you propose with immersion and deliberate practice is more, but likely still drastically inadequate. There's little doubt that the surgery professors are observing a new and serious deficiency, even though the article doesn't mention quantifying the observations or research that nails down the exact cause. Moreover, the skill deficit is deceptively simple, and may require years to fix, or even be unfixable in those subjects. Several examples: * A group of monkeys being raised in an indoor arboretum had some injuries, and the scientists installed much more stout sticks and secured the vegetation. No more injuries due to broken branches, but when the monkeys were introduced to the wild, instead of swinging & leaping through the leafy canopies like their wild brothers, they cowered at the trunks. They'd completely failed to learn while young the skills required, and so the release failed for that generation. * Personal experience, in learning a physical skill to an internationally competitive level, starting from being already well-coordinated, it took close to a decade of full immersion & dedication to get to the national team level. Moreover, even having achieved this skill level in certain sports, I've tried to get good at things like juggling and piano, and I have no illusions that even making a similar level of dedication, I'd never get anywhere near a professional level in either -- I didn't build that kind of wiring earlier. * I've made arguments like yours to concert-level musicians, i.e., that simply being dedicated enough and training hard enough would get one to a professional level. Instant response of "NOoooo..." -- they've each seen multiple people pour years of their lives into hard work with top teachers and never get to a professional level, and these weren't people starting with a deficit. * In neuroscience there is observed a period of plasticity for some skills. While it is not absolute, it is phase in brain development where the brain is particularly suited to absorb & learn certain skills. With some skills and animals, it is absolute -- if not exposed during that time, the organism or person will have an unsurmountable lifetime deficit. Languages are like this, where picking up a language between the ages of 4-8yo is almost effortless, but after that... Even if it is a skill that can be overcome in a different period of life, it's much more difficult. Serious professional level manual dexterity and physical skills are not something that can be picked up even with multiple dedicated courses. I'd venture that putting in the courses of immersion & deliberate training you suggest, and at a level of intensity equal to med school itself, might recover 30% of the deficient students in several years, delaying their Med School by the same period. Seems out of scope to me. But the OP's idea of a pre-screening exam is good, not because prep courses would solve it, but because the pre-med students could wash themselves out of contention if they lacked the skills to begin with.

jacobolus 8y ago
> A group of monkeys being raised in an indoor arboretum had some injuries, and the scientists installed much more stout sticks and secured the vegetation. No more injuries due to broken branches, but when the monkeys were introduced to the wild, instead of swinging & leaping through the leafy canopies like their wild brothers, they cowered at the trunks. They'd completely failed to learn while young the skills required, and so the release failed for that generation. Do you have a link about this one? Sounds interesting.
- toss1 8y ago
  I wish I had a link, sorry. Read it probably over 10 years ago
tsumnia 8y ago
It's a delicate balance for sure, but I do think time on task lends itself toward mastery. KA Ericsson's deliberate practice has been met with criticism [1], someone born with good genes and having a tailored upbringing will flourish while another person cannot. I've trained someone with functional, but severe mental disabilities and while he'll never be regarded as a 'master', his overall coordination and quality of life have improved. I personally hold the "lifetime learner" mentality, and so I look at it less of becoming a mastery and just getting better. That's a longer term approach. I agree that if I'd started some of my current hobbies at a younger, more malleable age, I would have improved at a faster rate. But I also can't time travel, so should I simply give up my aspirations of learning? Hitting 35 soon, the skills I have are all I can have? If we assume the article is referring to young med students, they are still in their early twenties - is that too late to 'start'? What about any non-traditional student that goes to a community college for a vocational trade, are they SOL? As you mention, it is more difficult, but I'd argue not impossible through specialized training. Pre-screening is a suggestion I'd be very careful towards. The reason being is that Computer Science saw a rapid spike in popularity in the 80s [2]. Unfortunately, academia could not match the demand and so they were faced with an issue of "whom to teach". One approach was to increase the difficulty of entrance exams. I'm sure this eliminated a lot of poor students just going where the money was; however as Roberts puts it, some students took this as a sign that they were "unwanted", causing a sharp decline in enrollment in the field. Interestingly enough, this drop is around the time women in CS took a nosedive [3] that we are only now recovering from. In addition, many underrepresented groups do not pursue CS at a young age, contrary to Caucasian males. Walking into their first CS courses, it's intimidating to be met with peers that have been modding Minecraft since they were 12. We're seeing a similar 'peak interest' in CS due to the dot-com/social media era and many of the same suggestions are getting thrown around. Coupled with the demand for future software developers [4], there is a need to figure out how to teach individuals starting out with an inadequate skill level. Instead of pre-screening, I'd lean more towards placement tests, faded assistance, and teaching discipline (which I've called perseverance/'grit' in other posts). Not everyone enters the classroom at the same ability and so those that need additional work should be given time to hone those skills. Faded assistance (scaffolding) removes the crutches as a student's 'Zone of Proximal Development' increases [5]. The mistake learned from your monkey example is they failed to be properly integrate into real world scenarios where those crutches are nonexistent. Finally, discipline teaches students to continue, even after becoming skilled. Doctors that continued to practice after their time in school were better performers than those that did not [6]. In the martial arts I train, you typically have earned your blue belt after 2 years. By that time, you KNOW every technique; however, many students also quit around this time because they become frustrated they aren't as good as the people nearing 10-20 years of training. Others have mentioned it, but in addition to their neuroplasticity, children are forced to learn because a) they have an empty cup (neuroplasticity), and b) they are forced to (early specialization by parent). It's harder for an adult to learn because of both age and they don't have the same time to devote to becoming skilled like they did as a child. This is why I like the idea of specialized courses and why I prefer academia to something like a MOOC. There is an implicit "forced learning" where the novice is devoting time toward progression. If a student "can't learn CS", I'd say it is because they are ill equipped to learn it at that time. As such, the next step is to identify why they struggle (technical literacy, problem-solving, reasoning, or some combination of those) and seek to improve that skill before moving into CS. Similar to surgery, by identifying what basic skill a student struggles with and then improving it should be the first course of action. WHERE that basic skill should be taught is more political than I'd like to get into, since I've written enough. [1] http://www.chrest.info/fg/Articles-2011-2015/Hambrick-2014-Intelligence-DeliberatePractice.pdf http://www.chrest.info/fg/Articles-2011-2015/Hambrick-2014-I... [2] https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/CSCapacity/ https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/CSCapacity/ [3] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when... [4] https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43061.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43061.pdf [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_proximal_development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_proximal_development [6] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22141427 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22141427