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I've learned much more from watching statistics videos from top notch YouTube lectures (I like the Harvard ones) than from statistics at university, although th

I've learned much more from watching statistics videos from top notch YouTube lectures (I like the Harvard ones) than from statistics at university, although there was a lot of it. That said I regularly need to look up statistics, probabilitiy distributions and hypothesis tests in books when I need them twice a year. The main problem I see in startups I coach is they think they are "data driven" but marketing, sales and top management lacks the proper statistical understanding to make useful decisions. They forgot what they have learned at university and feel no need to relearn statistics for their job. They make all the rookie mistakes.

theshadowknows 6y ago
If you have to look them up then you haven’t learned them. You learned about them and know what to look for. But you didn’t really learn them.
- deleted 6y ago
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- KingOfCoders 6y ago
  With 50 I can't remember things I've learned with 20 and need to look up many things from my youth, so I guess I've never learned a thing. Thanks for that cherry blossom thought.
  - jldugger 6y ago
    The point here is that it's easy to mistake understanding in the moment for durable learning. It's not ideal, and I won't say it's intentional, but I expect the repeated, spaced exposure process of reading, lecture, homework, exams and finals to yield a little more durable result than a focused video only curriculum with zero testing for retention. Students are notoriously bad at self-evaluation, conflating mastery in the moment with learning. However, I think if someone tried to partner video lectures with a spaced repetition tool like Anki they _might_ be able to outperform the college treatment group. It's a tool I've been exploring, both personally and professionally. In my youth, I had learned the US state capitals (as many do) and Anki proved pretty quickly I had forgotten that; the same goes for say, bone names, constellations, reading music, foreign languages studied, etc.
- zamalek 6y ago
  My counterpoint is that I know a good amount of people who have a ton of parroted knowledge, and know nothing of how to apply it. I know far, far, fewer people who know how to apply knowledge. There are even fewer people who can start applying freshly acquired knowledge within the same day. A mindless search engine can parrot and rattle off 50 probability distributions. Only a human can tell you the implications of a specific distribution emerging from your data. Google and DuckDuckGo are free, I don't need to hire someone who can do the same as a search engine. My opinion of what you refer to as learning, is that it is the absence of learning. It is one of the longest held misconceptions, spanning hundreds of years. It is why we need to retrain everyone fresh out of college. It is why junior vs. senior roles exist. Juniors have all of the rote knowledge and no practical experience. Seniors have immense practical experience and have probably long forgotten all the rote knowledge. The latter gets paid vastly more, the latter is far rarer.

theshadowknows 6y ago

If you have to look them up then you haven’t learned them. You learned about them and know what to look for. But you didn’t really learn them.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
KingOfCoders 6y ago
With 50 I can't remember things I've learned with 20 and need to look up many things from my youth, so I guess I've never learned a thing. Thanks for that cherry blossom thought.
- jldugger 6y ago
  The point here is that it's easy to mistake understanding in the moment for durable learning. It's not ideal, and I won't say it's intentional, but I expect the repeated, spaced exposure process of reading, lecture, homework, exams and finals to yield a little more durable result than a focused video only curriculum with zero testing for retention. Students are notoriously bad at self-evaluation, conflating mastery in the moment with learning. However, I think if someone tried to partner video lectures with a spaced repetition tool like Anki they _might_ be able to outperform the college treatment group. It's a tool I've been exploring, both personally and professionally. In my youth, I had learned the US state capitals (as many do) and Anki proved pretty quickly I had forgotten that; the same goes for say, bone names, constellations, reading music, foreign languages studied, etc.
zamalek 6y ago
My counterpoint is that I know a good amount of people who have a ton of parroted knowledge, and know nothing of how to apply it. I know far, far, fewer people who know how to apply knowledge. There are even fewer people who can start applying freshly acquired knowledge within the same day. A mindless search engine can parrot and rattle off 50 probability distributions. Only a human can tell you the implications of a specific distribution emerging from your data. Google and DuckDuckGo are free, I don't need to hire someone who can do the same as a search engine. My opinion of what you refer to as learning, is that it is the absence of learning. It is one of the longest held misconceptions, spanning hundreds of years. It is why we need to retrain everyone fresh out of college. It is why junior vs. senior roles exist. Juniors have all of the rote knowledge and no practical experience. Seniors have immense practical experience and have probably long forgotten all the rote knowledge. The latter gets paid vastly more, the latter is far rarer.