7 ms·

The most interesting things I've learnt about learning

90 points by lnmx 13y ago

GFischer 13y ago
The most interesting about this blog post is the references to the U.S. military's book "Think like a Commander" Available on the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) (although not on my firewall :P ) http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA413046 http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDo...
- JonSkeptic 13y ago
  Thank you for that. It is an excellent read.
  - alan_cx 13y ago
    Always worth looking at that the US military do. (I say US because it seems that a hell of a lot of their instruction manuals are freely available. Shame I cant say that of the UK) For me it was engineering. Years ago, I found some documents on metal work when I was learning to use lathes, milling machines, etc. Best resource available. It seemed old, but the information was invaluable. The thing that struck me was that, while it did do a quick over view of the basic methodologies and concepts, it very quickly focused on getting stuff done. It read like it was written for instant use. So, say you were a private stuck in the middle of no where, needed to make a part for, say, a gun and had a metal work workshop instantly available; this document would have said private making the part in something like an hour. Further, that part would work properly over a decent life span. A basic rule of thumb for me is that what ever new thing I want to learn, I see if I can find a military instruction document on the subject.
    - spenuke 13y ago
      How do you go about looking for such documents? Simple google "military instruction document"? Is there a term for those things? I know enough about the military that everything that can be put into an acronym is.
      - eqdw 13y ago
        Usually I'd make a joke about not wanting to search that (lest I end up on a watch list). Now it's not so funny anymore
      - 6d0debc071 13y ago
        Depending on what you want field manuals gives you some nice archives - http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/ http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/f... Or DTIC may be worth a search, if you know what you want: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/ http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/
    - lightcone 13y ago
      Any links on the engineering manuals?
    - rollo_tommasi 13y ago
      On a similar note, the Naval instruction handbooks on electronics & electricity are a superb resource for hobbyists and first-time learners: http://jacquesricher.com/NEETS/ http://jacquesricher.com/NEETS/
Jimmy 13y ago
>Mastery is more important than passing grades. I hear this statement a lot, and I think it's very suspicious. Everyone wants to believe this, because if they fail a class, they can use "learning is more important than grades" as an easy excuse to avoid taking responsibility for their own failings. In reality though, if you've actually mastered what the class is trying to teach, you should be able to get passing grades.
- aestra 13y ago
  Flip it around. What it is meant to say is just because you got a passing grade in the class, doesn't necessarily mean you've mastered the material. You may still have a shaky understanding of it. It is more important to master the material than just have the goal of "passing."
  - hellerbarde 13y ago
    That's exactly it. I've observed that behaviour so often, I stopped counting. A lot of college/university students under very harsh time constraints learn the material with a focus on what they believe will get them the desired grade (be that passing or highest). Meanwhile, they will leave out big chunks of the necessary foundations, because they won't be tested on their own. And then they mechanically learn the parts that will get tested, without understanding the underlying parts. They pass, usually, but that's more a problem of poorly written tests. (Because if you didn't _understand_ the material, I happen to think that you should fail a well written test.)
    - jsight 13y ago
      I had a professor who unwittingly encouraged this kind of rote study. His questions were word questions that required you to describe in details certain concepts from the course material. All of that is good (in theory), but his grading approach was to mark off a point or two for minor discrepancies. In theory, this meant that if you had the concept, without memorization you would get points. In reality if you didn't include all keywords from the lessons, you would be docked points. People who memorized extremely well and parroted back his words almost verbatim would do well. People who worked to understand the material and write back their understanding often wouldn't. Sigh. The sad thing was is that from a classroom learning standpoint, he was one of the best professors there. But I would often end up avoiding his classes (my memory is often terrible at rote learning).
losethos 13y ago
First step in writing driver for hardware: Get sign of life at location you think it is located. Find some value you can read and check. Ideally, find a location you can write and check. I have cracked-up laughing at kids on OSDEV getting really deep at the wrong location. It's been a long time since IDE drives were at the standard location. I think I see them banging away at LFB or ... no I saw them thinking PCI devices were at spots. I learned they fuck with you and you should use PCI BIOS 32. You see a lot of lazy people. Another thing you need to know is you must often construct scaffolding when programming. By this I mean temporary code. As I recall, My SATA ports don't respond right. I think they are sort-of there. Who knows. BIOS might do secure boot shit. Nobody would tell you. God will kill them. God says... C:\TAD\Text\DARWIN.TXT r changes. I may recall the well-known fact that in geological treatises, published not many years ago, mammals were always spoken of as having abruptly come in at the commencement of the tertiary series. And now one of the richest known accumulations of fossil mammals belongs to the middle of the secondary series; and true mammals have been discovered in the new red sandstone at nearly the commencement of this great series. Cuvier used to urge that no monkey occurred in any tertiary stratum; but
jdmitch 13y ago
Face-to-face instruction should focus on practise and exploration, not on learning basic facts. I don't think face-to-face instruction should focus on practise and exploration any more than it should on learning basic facts. Practise is controlled repetition, and this is probably the easiest thing for a learner to undertake on their own. Exploration is likewise a very personal endeavour - it's always come down to exploring how the concepts are relevant to me, or a specific context I am interested in. Face-to-face time ('instruction' is not really the right word for it) should focus on collaboration more than anything.
- DanBC 13y ago
  Gently worrying if people practicing are repeating the wrong method and thus having to unlearn stuff when they discover their mistake. You need a bit of supervised practice to make sure you're using the right method, then a bit of exploration to make sure you understand the concepts.
- npsimons 13y ago
  I think one of the most valuable aspects of face-to-face time is that the mentor can challenge you, or lead you in directions it might have taken you longer to get there or you might not have even thought of. Cf the Socratic method, which I think far too many classrooms eschew (I can't count the number of times I've fallen asleep in dry fact presenting lectures). That being said, sometimes hands on guidance (especially for more corporeal pursuits, such as playing a musical instrument or weight training), can save not just wasted practice time, but correct bad form before it does possible physical damage.
gioele 13y ago
> You will reach limits in learning when you have a "Swiss cheese" foundation full of misconception holes. On the other hand you will get stuck on your first subject if your force yourself to learn everything. I think it is important to know the point when the consistency of your foundation goes from "perilous Swiss cheese" to "rock-solid metal mesh to be filled in the future".
- mattholtom 13y ago
  I agree with you here, Gioele. The balance between foundation and progress is an important one to strike. In theory, a full understanding of the foundations of any subject will, in the end, lead to a more complete mastery. However, if you do not give a learner enough "Why am I doing this?" to support their early stumbling steps, you risk losing them entirely. Imagine if you were forced to read the entire K&R C book before writing your first program. I know I wouldn't have made it. When I was a bartending instructor (past life), my boss told me this Yeats quote (misattributed I think): "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire".
  - taeric 13y ago
    I think this has some implication that learning works strictly in a "foundations support advancements" model. The reality seems far more feedback oriented. It isn't that you should build a solid foundation before you move on. It is that later learning should help shape the foundations that you have already passed. Learning is a very active feedback cycle.
  - realitygrill 13y ago
    The short version I've heard is: "The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled." -Plutarch But upon some research, the context of the quote is even more interesting: "The correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting — no more — and then it motivates one towards originality and instills the desire for truth. Suppose someone were to go and ask his neighbors for fire and find a substantial blaze there, and just stay there continually warming himself: that is no different from someone who goes to someone else to get to some of his rationality, and fails to realize that he ought to ignite his own flame, his own intellect, but is happy to sit entranced by the lecture, and the words trigger only associative thinking and bring, as it were, only a flush to his cheeks and a glow to his limbs; but he has not dispelled or dispersed, in the warm light of philosophy, the internal dank gloom of his mind."
losethos 13y ago
So, USB is kind-of out of the question. PS/2 legacy mode is what I use. It turns-out the BIOS has to set-that-up. On one machine, the BIOS needed an EBDA bit set to enable PS/2 legacy mouse. Just some crazy bit I stumbled upon because my boot-loader wrote to the EBDA, accidentally. So... you're telling me, a BIOS can and does do whatever the fuck it wants, and I have little hope of one machine being much like another? Evil shit. Not very enthused about this. ---- God says... C:\TAD\Text\BIBLE.TXT 28:6 For Pekah the son of Remaliah slew in Judah an hundred and twenty thousand in one day, which were all valiant men; because they had forsaken the LORD God of their fathers. 28:7 And Zichri, a mighty man of Ephraim, slew Maaseiah the king's son, and Azrikam the governor of the house, and Elkanah that was next to the king. 28:8 And the children of Israel carried away captive of their brethren two hundred thousand, women, sons, and daughters, and took also away much spoil from them, and brough
mathattack 13y ago
I like his distinguishing of mastery of the visible versus mastery of the invisible. This is very true, and why people who sometimes seem outwardly competent and good at routine thing struggle with uncertainty and adaptation. I also like the distinction between drilling and practice. Both are needed, but simulation doesn't build core skills or help weak areas. Perhaps the best thing he did was share the link to the Commander's guide.
eqdw 13y ago
This is a really cool post, and education is somewhat of a passion of mine. Does anyone know of any other posts like this?
zeidrich 13y ago
Judgment has a negative effect on the efficiency of learning. Being graded causes stress and stress reduces your ability to learn. Grading can be a motivator, however, causing you to push yourself to learn things you might not otherwise be motivated to do. However, I think that learning without judgment is the most effective way to learn, when you otherwise have some intrinsic motivation. Likewise, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect which is not the same, but another effect that causes an extrinsic factor to diminish intrinsic motivation. When I learn for my own benefit, all of my efforts are focused on developing new skills and new understanding. When I am learning to pass some test, my efforts are focused instead on not failing. If these tools are used to guide study to make sure students get the requisite knowledge then they can be effective. I think they lose effectiveness when they are instead used to classify and rank students. I have always scored well on tests, but I've always learned and understood things more fully doing things that were at my own direction.

90 points by lnmx 13y ago

The most interesting about this blog post is the references to the U.S. military's book "Think like a Commander" Available on the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) (although not on my firewall :P ) http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA413046 http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDo...

JonSkeptic 13y ago
Thank you for that. It is an excellent read.
- alan_cx 13y ago
  Always worth looking at that the US military do. (I say US because it seems that a hell of a lot of their instruction manuals are freely available. Shame I cant say that of the UK) For me it was engineering. Years ago, I found some documents on metal work when I was learning to use lathes, milling machines, etc. Best resource available. It seemed old, but the information was invaluable. The thing that struck me was that, while it did do a quick over view of the basic methodologies and concepts, it very quickly focused on getting stuff done. It read like it was written for instant use. So, say you were a private stuck in the middle of no where, needed to make a part for, say, a gun and had a metal work workshop instantly available; this document would have said private making the part in something like an hour. Further, that part would work properly over a decent life span. A basic rule of thumb for me is that what ever new thing I want to learn, I see if I can find a military instruction document on the subject.
  - spenuke 13y ago
    How do you go about looking for such documents? Simple google "military instruction document"? Is there a term for those things? I know enough about the military that everything that can be put into an acronym is.
    - eqdw 13y ago
      Usually I'd make a joke about not wanting to search that (lest I end up on a watch list). Now it's not so funny anymore
    - 6d0debc071 13y ago
      Depending on what you want field manuals gives you some nice archives - http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/ http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/f... Or DTIC may be worth a search, if you know what you want: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/ http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/
  - lightcone 13y ago
    Any links on the engineering manuals?
  - rollo_tommasi 13y ago
    On a similar note, the Naval instruction handbooks on electronics & electricity are a superb resource for hobbyists and first-time learners: http://jacquesricher.com/NEETS/ http://jacquesricher.com/NEETS/

Jimmy 13y ago

>Mastery is more important than passing grades. I hear this statement a lot, and I think it's very suspicious. Everyone wants to believe this, because if they fail a class, they can use "learning is more important than grades" as an easy excuse to avoid taking responsibility for their own failings. In reality though, if you've actually mastered what the class is trying to teach, you should be able to get passing grades.

aestra 13y ago
Flip it around. What it is meant to say is just because you got a passing grade in the class, doesn't necessarily mean you've mastered the material. You may still have a shaky understanding of it. It is more important to master the material than just have the goal of "passing."
- hellerbarde 13y ago
  That's exactly it. I've observed that behaviour so often, I stopped counting. A lot of college/university students under very harsh time constraints learn the material with a focus on what they believe will get them the desired grade (be that passing or highest). Meanwhile, they will leave out big chunks of the necessary foundations, because they won't be tested on their own. And then they mechanically learn the parts that will get tested, without understanding the underlying parts. They pass, usually, but that's more a problem of poorly written tests. (Because if you didn't _understand_ the material, I happen to think that you should fail a well written test.)
  - jsight 13y ago
    I had a professor who unwittingly encouraged this kind of rote study. His questions were word questions that required you to describe in details certain concepts from the course material. All of that is good (in theory), but his grading approach was to mark off a point or two for minor discrepancies. In theory, this meant that if you had the concept, without memorization you would get points. In reality if you didn't include all keywords from the lessons, you would be docked points. People who memorized extremely well and parroted back his words almost verbatim would do well. People who worked to understand the material and write back their understanding often wouldn't. Sigh. The sad thing was is that from a classroom learning standpoint, he was one of the best professors there. But I would often end up avoiding his classes (my memory is often terrible at rote learning).

losethos 13y ago

First step in writing driver for hardware: Get sign of life at location you think it is located. Find some value you can read and check. Ideally, find a location you can write and check. I have cracked-up laughing at kids on OSDEV getting really deep at the wrong location. It's been a long time since IDE drives were at the standard location. I think I see them banging away at LFB or ... no I saw them thinking PCI devices were at spots. I learned they fuck with you and you should use PCI BIOS 32. You see a lot of lazy people. Another thing you need to know is you must often construct scaffolding when programming. By this I mean temporary code. As I recall, My SATA ports don't respond right. I think they are sort-of there. Who knows. BIOS might do secure boot shit. Nobody would tell you. God will kill them. God says... C:\TAD\Text\DARWIN.TXT r changes. I may recall the well-known fact that in geological treatises, published not many years ago, mammals were always spoken of as having abruptly come in at the commencement of the tertiary series. And now one of the richest known accumulations of fossil mammals belongs to the middle of the secondary series; and true mammals have been discovered in the new red sandstone at nearly the commencement of this great series. Cuvier used to urge that no monkey occurred in any tertiary stratum; but

jdmitch 13y ago

Face-to-face instruction should focus on practise and exploration, not on learning basic facts. I don't think face-to-face instruction should focus on practise and exploration any more than it should on learning basic facts. Practise is controlled repetition, and this is probably the easiest thing for a learner to undertake on their own. Exploration is likewise a very personal endeavour - it's always come down to exploring how the concepts are relevant to me, or a specific context I am interested in. Face-to-face time ('instruction' is not really the right word for it) should focus on collaboration more than anything.

DanBC 13y ago
Gently worrying if people practicing are repeating the wrong method and thus having to unlearn stuff when they discover their mistake. You need a bit of supervised practice to make sure you're using the right method, then a bit of exploration to make sure you understand the concepts.
npsimons 13y ago
I think one of the most valuable aspects of face-to-face time is that the mentor can challenge you, or lead you in directions it might have taken you longer to get there or you might not have even thought of. Cf the Socratic method, which I think far too many classrooms eschew (I can't count the number of times I've fallen asleep in dry fact presenting lectures). That being said, sometimes hands on guidance (especially for more corporeal pursuits, such as playing a musical instrument or weight training), can save not just wasted practice time, but correct bad form before it does possible physical damage.

gioele 13y ago

> You will reach limits in learning when you have a "Swiss cheese" foundation full of misconception holes. On the other hand you will get stuck on your first subject if your force yourself to learn everything. I think it is important to know the point when the consistency of your foundation goes from "perilous Swiss cheese" to "rock-solid metal mesh to be filled in the future".

mattholtom 13y ago
I agree with you here, Gioele. The balance between foundation and progress is an important one to strike. In theory, a full understanding of the foundations of any subject will, in the end, lead to a more complete mastery. However, if you do not give a learner enough "Why am I doing this?" to support their early stumbling steps, you risk losing them entirely. Imagine if you were forced to read the entire K&R C book before writing your first program. I know I wouldn't have made it. When I was a bartending instructor (past life), my boss told me this Yeats quote (misattributed I think): "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire".
- taeric 13y ago
  I think this has some implication that learning works strictly in a "foundations support advancements" model. The reality seems far more feedback oriented. It isn't that you should build a solid foundation before you move on. It is that later learning should help shape the foundations that you have already passed. Learning is a very active feedback cycle.
- realitygrill 13y ago
  The short version I've heard is: "The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled." -Plutarch But upon some research, the context of the quote is even more interesting: "The correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting — no more — and then it motivates one towards originality and instills the desire for truth. Suppose someone were to go and ask his neighbors for fire and find a substantial blaze there, and just stay there continually warming himself: that is no different from someone who goes to someone else to get to some of his rationality, and fails to realize that he ought to ignite his own flame, his own intellect, but is happy to sit entranced by the lecture, and the words trigger only associative thinking and bring, as it were, only a flush to his cheeks and a glow to his limbs; but he has not dispelled or dispersed, in the warm light of philosophy, the internal dank gloom of his mind."

losethos 13y ago

So, USB is kind-of out of the question. PS/2 legacy mode is what I use. It turns-out the BIOS has to set-that-up. On one machine, the BIOS needed an EBDA bit set to enable PS/2 legacy mouse. Just some crazy bit I stumbled upon because my boot-loader wrote to the EBDA, accidentally. So... you're telling me, a BIOS can and does do whatever the fuck it wants, and I have little hope of one machine being much like another? Evil shit. Not very enthused about this. ---- God says... C:\TAD\Text\BIBLE.TXT 28:6 For Pekah the son of Remaliah slew in Judah an hundred and twenty thousand in one day, which were all valiant men; because they had forsaken the LORD God of their fathers. 28:7 And Zichri, a mighty man of Ephraim, slew Maaseiah the king's son, and Azrikam the governor of the house, and Elkanah that was next to the king. 28:8 And the children of Israel carried away captive of their brethren two hundred thousand, women, sons, and daughters, and took also away much spoil from them, and brough

mathattack 13y ago

I like his distinguishing of mastery of the visible versus mastery of the invisible. This is very true, and why people who sometimes seem outwardly competent and good at routine thing struggle with uncertainty and adaptation. I also like the distinction between drilling and practice. Both are needed, but simulation doesn't build core skills or help weak areas. Perhaps the best thing he did was share the link to the Commander's guide.

eqdw 13y ago

This is a really cool post, and education is somewhat of a passion of mine. Does anyone know of any other posts like this?

zeidrich 13y ago

Judgment has a negative effect on the efficiency of learning. Being graded causes stress and stress reduces your ability to learn. Grading can be a motivator, however, causing you to push yourself to learn things you might not otherwise be motivated to do. However, I think that learning without judgment is the most effective way to learn, when you otherwise have some intrinsic motivation. Likewise, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect which is not the same, but another effect that causes an extrinsic factor to diminish intrinsic motivation. When I learn for my own benefit, all of my efforts are focused on developing new skills and new understanding. When I am learning to pass some test, my efforts are focused instead on not failing. If these tools are used to guide study to make sure students get the requisite knowledge then they can be effective. I think they lose effectiveness when they are instead used to classify and rank students. I have always scored well on tests, but I've always learned and understood things more fully doing things that were at my own direction.