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I recall a study whose result said that beginners improve faster when they're told the solutions right away, and experts improve faster when they're given time

I recall a study whose result said that beginners improve faster when they're told the solutions right away, and experts improve faster when they're given time to figure things on their own. Struggling as a learning tool is important, but there's a good chance the fastest path to expertise is to start with examples of how to do it, and delay that struggle a bit. What you don't want is to keep the crutch forever and never struggle. That would be a sure path to stagnation.

nerpderp82 3y ago
It would be trivial to configure multiple LLMs to track a student's progress in real time and ensure the optimal difficulty gradient for maximum learning. It could even detect when you should go outside and play. The rejection of LLMs for education by otherwise intelligent people is disheartening.
- nuancebydefault 3y ago
  Indeed I believe the LLMs are an excellent tool to education. Especially because you can ask it questions until you understand. Also, some things are not need to be known anymore, like phone numbers or the inner working of a car. There are plenty of things to learn even if automation made some of knowledge beneign.
saurik 3y ago
I remember a study that I presume is that one as it is so similar to what you are saying not saying that that you are better off being given the answer "right away" but that you are better off being given an answer after a bit of struggle, but not like, just letting you off in the desert and hoping for the best... I'd be shocked if it helped to simply give people the answer right away and I just don't remember the study--at least the one I remember--saying that.
nazka 3y ago
I agree but also I will also argue that the beginners that got all the right answers at the beginning may learn faster in the first steps but will struggle a lot faster later on at the expert level because: - they wouldn’t have yielded all the knowledge of the little kirks, know how, edge cases, etc… they now have to know (and the Pareto rule 20% vs 80%), - created an intuition from all the hours spent just struggling to understand what is wrong or find a solution and little by little honing their intuition from that hard work they would have done by themselves for themselves (compared to having ChatGPT, a teacher, or an expert telling them most of time what to do), - and getting a will to find a solution by themselves even after hours looking at a shell prompt (or logs or whatever else) that is taunting them and will tell them nothing.

nerpderp82 3y ago

It would be trivial to configure multiple LLMs to track a student's progress in real time and ensure the optimal difficulty gradient for maximum learning. It could even detect when you should go outside and play. The rejection of LLMs for education by otherwise intelligent people is disheartening.

nuancebydefault 3y ago
Indeed I believe the LLMs are an excellent tool to education. Especially because you can ask it questions until you understand. Also, some things are not need to be known anymore, like phone numbers or the inner working of a car. There are plenty of things to learn even if automation made some of knowledge beneign.

saurik 3y ago

I remember a study that I presume is that one as it is so similar to what you are saying not saying that that you are better off being given the answer "right away" but that you are better off being given an answer after a bit of struggle, but not like, just letting you off in the desert and hoping for the best... I'd be shocked if it helped to simply give people the answer right away and I just don't remember the study--at least the one I remember--saying that.

nazka 3y ago

I agree but also I will also argue that the beginners that got all the right answers at the beginning may learn faster in the first steps but will struggle a lot faster later on at the expert level because: - they wouldn’t have yielded all the knowledge of the little kirks, know how, edge cases, etc… they now have to know (and the Pareto rule 20% vs 80%), - created an intuition from all the hours spent just struggling to understand what is wrong or find a solution and little by little honing their intuition from that hard work they would have done by themselves for themselves (compared to having ChatGPT, a teacher, or an expert telling them most of time what to do), - and getting a will to find a solution by themselves even after hours looking at a shell prompt (or logs or whatever else) that is taunting them and will tell them nothing.