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Sensory Input (Visual, Auditory, Tactile) -> Conceptual Understanding (Mental) -> Practice by Repetition (Mental + Physical). "Learning Styles" thinking was ba

Sensory Input (Visual, Auditory, Tactile) -> Conceptual Understanding (Mental) -> Practice by Repetition (Mental + Physical). "Learning Styles" thinking was based on the idea that step one was the most important. However, without conceptual understanding, learning devolves to rote learning. Without practice and repetition, long-term in-depth learning is impossible. As far as approaches to learning, by far the best methods involve a fair amount of one-on-one attention. The quickest way to learn something is to have it directly explained to you by another person, with questions allowed. Similarly, the best way to test your own understanding of a subject is to explain it to someone else. Of course, these are the most expensive methods of education, because they require a large investment in people - skilled teachers and other staff, and parking kids in front of Youtube videos is a lot less expensive (see also computer-automated grading of homework assignments and projects). Note that societies that don't place a high value on education are doomed to stagnation at best. P.S. 'Learning styles' can be very important with dyslexia or dyscalculia, e.g. listening to an audiobook while reading along in a text can help the former, as does allowing calculators for the latter for the same reason. Students without these issues can adapt to different presentation styles without much difficulty, and if their school is any good they'll have access to all kinds of supplemental resources (libraries, tutors, access to online databases etc.). P.P.S "Self-taught" is possible, but realistically it takes much more time and effort. Keep in mind though that an incompetent teacher is worse than no teacher at all.

tetha 3y ago
> "Learning Styles" thinking was based on the idea that step one was the most important. However, without conceptual understanding, learning devolves to rote learning. Without practice and repetition, long-term in-depth learning is impossible. This is something that hampered my progress in music and learning instruments until I understood it. Just learning an instrument without looking at theory behind it wasn't really motivating to me after a while. On the other hand, learning theory without having an instrument to use it on doesn't really click. However, putting these two together and in parallel results in a much more motivating and whole situation for me. Suddenly it's very interesting to understand what a song does at a deeper level, and a desire to be good enough with the guitar to do that, or similar things. > As far as approaches to learning, by far the best methods involve a fair amount of one-on-one attention. The quickest way to learn something is to have it directly explained to you by another person, with questions allowed. Similarly, the best way to test your own understanding of a subject is to explain it to someone else. I'm pretty happy how Spectre Academy does it. The main bulk is a bunch of video lectures and they have a discord server for course owners to ask questions to the lecturers as necessary. Though, as the article said, you need to treat these video lectures as... lectures. Get out that notebook and start writing down the important parts.

tetha 3y ago

> "Learning Styles" thinking was based on the idea that step one was the most important. However, without conceptual understanding, learning devolves to rote learning. Without practice and repetition, long-term in-depth learning is impossible. This is something that hampered my progress in music and learning instruments until I understood it. Just learning an instrument without looking at theory behind it wasn't really motivating to me after a while. On the other hand, learning theory without having an instrument to use it on doesn't really click. However, putting these two together and in parallel results in a much more motivating and whole situation for me. Suddenly it's very interesting to understand what a song does at a deeper level, and a desire to be good enough with the guitar to do that, or similar things. > As far as approaches to learning, by far the best methods involve a fair amount of one-on-one attention. The quickest way to learn something is to have it directly explained to you by another person, with questions allowed. Similarly, the best way to test your own understanding of a subject is to explain it to someone else. I'm pretty happy how Spectre Academy does it. The main bulk is a bunch of video lectures and they have a discord server for course owners to ask questions to the lecturers as necessary. Though, as the article said, you need to treat these video lectures as... lectures. Get out that notebook and start writing down the important parts.