5 ms·

Is anyone aware of any learning research which analyses this 5min-by-5min approach to course production? I'm really not a fan of it. There's something not qui

Is anyone aware of any learning research which analyses this 5min-by-5min approach to course production? I'm really not a fan of it. There's something not quite right in treating "conceptual learning" as if it were a sort of follow-these-steps "to tie a knot" problem. Imagine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7DzL2_Na80#t=2m20s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7DzL2_Na80#t=2m20s as a series of 5min videos... It also seems like Microsoft produces a lot of developer videos done in this style, as if the thing to be learned were a wizard ("next, next, next, next"). Consider the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajvipmDMwAg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajvipmDMwAg . Each step is simply a "next step", and the narrator merely describes what is being done. Gilbert would, I'd say begin with the problem: "Suppose we're looking a films. And what is a film? It's these things: ..... Now in Rust we model that with a struct -- ". And so on: the learning here is illustrating the connection between the mindset of programming and the activity. Quite a lot of what I've seen from Microsoft, and increasingly many 5-min-by-5min courses, is very little modelling of thought process. The very thing to be learned.

chobytes 5y ago
Im skeptical of this kind of educational material. It seems like they want to provide the feeling and the aesthetic of learning, but aren't willing to dig in to the hard work of it.
- mjburgess 5y ago
  I think it has a lot to do with the people producing it just not being educators; at least, not for years and not with the 100s/1000s of students necessary to build up those skills. And a lot of the training for technical educators is based around technical learning being tool-based; where you do just need a series of short videos on a GUI. It's a complex problem. I am aware, however, that a lot of people working in online learning think that this is a good style. I believe as it helps with learner engagement. I have to think, however, that this is just because there's nothing actually challenging to engage with.
- chmod600 5y ago
  There is choice overload. People are willing to dig in and learn deep concepts. But they have to get past analysis paralysis first, and start doing something.
chmod600 5y ago
Sometimes people just need to get started by doing something with technology that they are interested in. Once they get past the first hurdle or two, they are more able to absorb the deeper material. I have a lot of books where I read quite a bit about something, but never really did anything. There's a ton of great information about rust, so perhaps they thought getting the right kickstart in front of the right people would be most impactful.
w0m 5y ago
> step is simply a "next step", and the narrator merely describes what is being done I mean; it's listed a Demo. That's a little unfair I think unless they don't go into more detail in the other other 34 (!!) videos in the course.
- mjburgess 5y ago
  If a demo is this, then my view is that it's no good. Here's a demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCs5OvhV9S4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCs5OvhV9S4 Notice in the Rust case the narrator is just "announcing" what's happening. Notice in the Python case the narrator is explaining why they are doing something; what they are doing; critically evaluating it (why its good/bad). Notice also, that David uses humour and brings people on a "journey through a thought process".
  - w0m 5y ago
    You're comparing a 46 minute presentation with single 5 minute slice of a 160 minute course? (I have watched that concurrency pycon session previously - it is good.)
    - mjburgess 5y ago
      Yes, I am. I am rejecting the premise that videos should be 5min. That 10min on traits and a 5min "demo" in this style is actually a productive form of learning. If you can only do 160 min, do a 160 min journey. Consider any of the 3hr tutorial videos done at pycon. 10 min on traits, within that 160min, I think would be very productive. EDIT: from elsewhere in this thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnWGO-tLtLA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnWGO-tLtLA -- c. 3hrs on rust (I havent seen it, but I suspect that it is approached as a journey, will improve its quality).
      - BHSPitMonkey 5y ago
        You can watch as many sequenced 5 minute videos as you wish in a single sitting; The fact that they're divided into separate videos in a playlist is hardly different than taking a longer video and marking the timestamps where different ideas are presented.
jamincan 5y ago
I'm not really a fan of that model either, but for what it's worth, Ryan Levick, one of the presenters, has some good learning material on Youtube that's long form. https://www.youtube.com/c/RyanLevicksVideos/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/RyanLevicksVideos/videos
swyx 5y ago
different people learn in different ways. Microsoft isn't claiming to be the one stop shop for Rust here. I'm a strong believer that programming content should take all lengths and all mediums. It's not about having a randomized controlled trial test comparing effectiveness. It's about reaching the % of the population that is for whatever reason attracted by this format - and by no means is anyone saying they should stop there. tldr; let them make this stuff, it doesnt teach everything but learners will figure that out anyway once they are engaged.
- setr 5y ago
  > different people learn in different ways. That just avoids the discussion altogether. We can’t evaluate any form of education or presentation or description because “different strokes for different folks” — but we know some styles are almost-objectively bad (beating you with a shovel once a minute while I teach you is an all-around terrible idea, even if I can’t prove it — different learning styles!), which means we have an metric we can evaluate by and discuss on, even if it’s largely driven by intuition and anecdotal experience. The question here is, for a novice, does this trick you into thinking you’ve learned something, when you really haven’t? A novice also doesn’t have the knowledge to effectively judge that, because, well, it’s a novice.
  - swyx 5y ago
    i understand that there are some known bad ways. but you are dangerously close to concluding that your way is the One True Way to learn here. neither of us has data so i'm gonna leave it there :)
    - setr 5y ago
      > you are dangerously close to concluding that your way is the One True Way to learn here No I’m not. I’m only arguing that there’s clearly room for discussion. That different strokes for different folks is a cop-out (in fact, I don’t believe it’s ever a useful idiom). In fact, I don’t think I’ve even suggested a preference for any particular strategy — well, other than that beating someone with a shovel is not an effective method of education, but I assume you already agree with that. Unless you’ve determined that any willingness to engage is in itself a signal to extreme preference (or taking an extreme stance against your position) — but I believe thats known as a ridiculous assumption.
tialaramex 5y ago
It's definitely pitched weirdly. Like it thinks maybe a decision maker is viewing these courses to decide if their team should use Rust or learn from these videos, rather than anybody who'd actually need an introductory video. The seventh (of 35) video is about variables. It spends some time justifying the existence of variables. But wait, this series claims that it is intended for existing programmers, and it's a stretch to imagine any of that intended audience get value from being told what variables are. This video introduces mutability, tells viewers Rust's variables are immutable by default, but then it lurches off to talk about constants which, it notes, are also immutable. Why? To do this the video also needs to introduce boilerplate it doesn't have time to explain, because Rust's constants need an explicit type and neither types nor the type inference used already are explained in this video of course. It also makes a false claim - which may even have been true when some of the presenters learned Rust, that Rust's constants can't be defined in terms of a function. In fact today they can be defined using const functions, such as String::new() and function execution happens at compile time (even if you've got a foreign target so it needs to behave differently than local native code). But having introduced constants, and immutability, we don't really learn anything about why Rust has these separately. And that's it, the whole video. I don't know what value somebody gets from this very brief format. Many years ago I helped teach Java to CM1xx undergraduates, and although a double (two hours) is probably too much to digest, an hour is at the short end of what I thought was useful to actually get material out of my head and into the students' heads. I never took that class, it was introduced after I graduated, I learned Standard ML instead, and IMNSHO that was a better choice to learn programming (but industry wanted Java not ML, and industry hires graduates) but even with the much reduced boilerplate in ML, I can't see how I'd have learned anything in five minute chunks. And Rust is not a smaller or easier language than SML. Take currying. Possible but awkward and rarely important in Rust, yet crucial to ML. I can see a one hour class with either experienced programmers who've never seen first class functions before or newbies who hadn't seen any function at all until last week, both getting to a place where the students see that currying is useful. But in five minutes all you can do is rush through some trivial demo that doesn't reveal even to an attentive audience how powerful this idea actually is. Are twelve, five minute segments worth an hour? I think emphatically not. That said, I would like to see someone's attempt at a serious CM1xx style course teaching Programming with Rust as first language. I don't know if that's a good idea, but if anybody tries it I would like to see it anyway.

chobytes 5y ago

Im skeptical of this kind of educational material. It seems like they want to provide the feeling and the aesthetic of learning, but aren't willing to dig in to the hard work of it.

mjburgess 5y ago
I think it has a lot to do with the people producing it just not being educators; at least, not for years and not with the 100s/1000s of students necessary to build up those skills. And a lot of the training for technical educators is based around technical learning being tool-based; where you do just need a series of short videos on a GUI. It's a complex problem. I am aware, however, that a lot of people working in online learning think that this is a good style. I believe as it helps with learner engagement. I have to think, however, that this is just because there's nothing actually challenging to engage with.
chmod600 5y ago
There is choice overload. People are willing to dig in and learn deep concepts. But they have to get past analysis paralysis first, and start doing something.

chmod600 5y ago

Sometimes people just need to get started by doing something with technology that they are interested in. Once they get past the first hurdle or two, they are more able to absorb the deeper material. I have a lot of books where I read quite a bit about something, but never really did anything. There's a ton of great information about rust, so perhaps they thought getting the right kickstart in front of the right people would be most impactful.

w0m 5y ago

> step is simply a "next step", and the narrator merely describes what is being done I mean; it's listed a Demo. That's a little unfair I think unless they don't go into more detail in the other other 34 (!!) videos in the course.

mjburgess 5y ago
If a demo is this, then my view is that it's no good. Here's a demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCs5OvhV9S4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCs5OvhV9S4 Notice in the Rust case the narrator is just "announcing" what's happening. Notice in the Python case the narrator is explaining why they are doing something; what they are doing; critically evaluating it (why its good/bad). Notice also, that David uses humour and brings people on a "journey through a thought process".
- w0m 5y ago
  You're comparing a 46 minute presentation with single 5 minute slice of a 160 minute course? (I have watched that concurrency pycon session previously - it is good.)
  - mjburgess 5y ago
    Yes, I am. I am rejecting the premise that videos should be 5min. That 10min on traits and a 5min "demo" in this style is actually a productive form of learning. If you can only do 160 min, do a 160 min journey. Consider any of the 3hr tutorial videos done at pycon. 10 min on traits, within that 160min, I think would be very productive. EDIT: from elsewhere in this thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnWGO-tLtLA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnWGO-tLtLA -- c. 3hrs on rust (I havent seen it, but I suspect that it is approached as a journey, will improve its quality).
    - BHSPitMonkey 5y ago
      You can watch as many sequenced 5 minute videos as you wish in a single sitting; The fact that they're divided into separate videos in a playlist is hardly different than taking a longer video and marking the timestamps where different ideas are presented.

jamincan 5y ago

I'm not really a fan of that model either, but for what it's worth, Ryan Levick, one of the presenters, has some good learning material on Youtube that's long form. https://www.youtube.com/c/RyanLevicksVideos/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/RyanLevicksVideos/videos

swyx 5y ago

different people learn in different ways. Microsoft isn't claiming to be the one stop shop for Rust here. I'm a strong believer that programming content should take all lengths and all mediums. It's not about having a randomized controlled trial test comparing effectiveness. It's about reaching the % of the population that is for whatever reason attracted by this format - and by no means is anyone saying they should stop there. tldr; let them make this stuff, it doesnt teach everything but learners will figure that out anyway once they are engaged.

setr 5y ago
> different people learn in different ways. That just avoids the discussion altogether. We can’t evaluate any form of education or presentation or description because “different strokes for different folks” — but we know some styles are almost-objectively bad (beating you with a shovel once a minute while I teach you is an all-around terrible idea, even if I can’t prove it — different learning styles!), which means we have an metric we can evaluate by and discuss on, even if it’s largely driven by intuition and anecdotal experience. The question here is, for a novice, does this trick you into thinking you’ve learned something, when you really haven’t? A novice also doesn’t have the knowledge to effectively judge that, because, well, it’s a novice.
- swyx 5y ago
  i understand that there are some known bad ways. but you are dangerously close to concluding that your way is the One True Way to learn here. neither of us has data so i'm gonna leave it there :)
  - setr 5y ago
    > you are dangerously close to concluding that your way is the One True Way to learn here No I’m not. I’m only arguing that there’s clearly room for discussion. That different strokes for different folks is a cop-out (in fact, I don’t believe it’s ever a useful idiom). In fact, I don’t think I’ve even suggested a preference for any particular strategy — well, other than that beating someone with a shovel is not an effective method of education, but I assume you already agree with that. Unless you’ve determined that any willingness to engage is in itself a signal to extreme preference (or taking an extreme stance against your position) — but I believe thats known as a ridiculous assumption.

tialaramex 5y ago

It's definitely pitched weirdly. Like it thinks maybe a decision maker is viewing these courses to decide if their team should use Rust or learn from these videos, rather than anybody who'd actually need an introductory video. The seventh (of 35) video is about variables. It spends some time justifying the existence of variables. But wait, this series claims that it is intended for existing programmers, and it's a stretch to imagine any of that intended audience get value from being told what variables are. This video introduces mutability, tells viewers Rust's variables are immutable by default, but then it lurches off to talk about constants which, it notes, are also immutable. Why? To do this the video also needs to introduce boilerplate it doesn't have time to explain, because Rust's constants need an explicit type and neither types nor the type inference used already are explained in this video of course. It also makes a false claim - which may even have been true when some of the presenters learned Rust, that Rust's constants can't be defined in terms of a function. In fact today they can be defined using const functions, such as String::new() and function execution happens at compile time (even if you've got a foreign target so it needs to behave differently than local native code). But having introduced constants, and immutability, we don't really learn anything about why Rust has these separately. And that's it, the whole video. I don't know what value somebody gets from this very brief format. Many years ago I helped teach Java to CM1xx undergraduates, and although a double (two hours) is probably too much to digest, an hour is at the short end of what I thought was useful to actually get material out of my head and into the students' heads. I never took that class, it was introduced after I graduated, I learned Standard ML instead, and IMNSHO that was a better choice to learn programming (but industry wanted Java not ML, and industry hires graduates) but even with the much reduced boilerplate in ML, I can't see how I'd have learned anything in five minute chunks. And Rust is not a smaller or easier language than SML. Take currying. Possible but awkward and rarely important in Rust, yet crucial to ML. I can see a one hour class with either experienced programmers who've never seen first class functions before or newbies who hadn't seen any function at all until last week, both getting to a place where the students see that currying is useful. But in five minutes all you can do is rush through some trivial demo that doesn't reveal even to an attentive audience how powerful this idea actually is. Are twelve, five minute segments worth an hour? I think emphatically not. That said, I would like to see someone's attempt at a serious CM1xx style course teaching Programming with Rust as first language. I don't know if that's a good idea, but if anybody tries it I would like to see it anyway.