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I find two things help me learn: A top down description: start with what something is, why it's important, and how it fits in with other things, then an outlin
by dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
I find two things help me learn:
A top down description: start with what something is, why it's important, and how it fits in with other things, then an outline of the details, then the finer details and so on. This is almost impossible to find in textbooks or lectures, which for the most part are bottom up.
Trying to figure out the thing without any help, or very little help, at each step of the above. This sounds pointless, but it actually works really well. If I try my best to figure out how something works without knowing anything I end up "priming" my brain for the answer, and end up getting a (relatively) instant understanding. It's like you make a hole that is the rough shape of the answer in your mind and the answer fills the void. Put another way you motivate your brain to wanting to know what it is. The best bit is how far you can get by yourself and the positive feeling that gives you.
This might just be me, I've never met anyone who feels the same way about learning.
- Avicebron 3y agoI don't think it's just you, I have a similar need for a holistic understanding of the process/needs before I feel that I'm learning/contributing in an organized way. I left the biotech startup world a while ago because I found that in the organizations I was working with, there was an extreme siloing happening from top down management, and I chafed under the unspoken assumption that I was expected to operate as a black box transforming data from input to output without knowing the whole process This isn't helped by how the biotech world stratifies itself into PhDs and non-PhDs
- danielbln 3y agoTowards your first point, I love interacting with LLMs (ignoring all the issues about confabulation etc.) because I can ask it for top down, high level outlines and drill down to the bottom however I please, and ask for multiple paths down as well.
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y agoI agree, that's a bright spot which I've just started to get into. It's a real boon for personalised learning. Even mistakes by LLMs are helpful: you know that they're unreliable and you have to stay on your toes, so what they're telling you makes sense. That only benefits actual understanding, rather than rote learning.
- dilawar 3y ago> Trying to figure out the thing without any help, or very little help, at each step of the above. This sounds pointless, but it actually works really well I found it to be very effective though time consuming. Even if you don't figure out the solution, when you read other solution later, everything just clicks.
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y agoI like to think about it when I'm doing something else that doesn't require thinking. You also have to let it percolate. It kind of reflects the focused/diffused thinking modes of actual learning.