7 ms·

Research-backed strategies for better learning

179 points by sagefy 8y ago

acconrad 8y ago
He links to this in the previous, larger post, but here is the full Coursera course which is pretty great. I took it and I got a lot out of it: https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn
- sagefy 8y ago
  Barbara Oakley's course is so amazing! I think it's still to this day the most popular MOOC. Her books and articles are great too, like "A Mind for Numbers" https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00R5081JU https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00R5081JU
sedeki 8y ago
I enjoyed reading the article; overall good advice and a powerful change of perspective regarding one’s own learning... But I have always wondered how one can find a powerful why to more abstract subjects e.g. topics in mathematics. I’m having a hard time finding intrinsic motivation to study at this (Master’s) level, even if I absolutely know how good it feels when you have internalized a couple of famous results...
- mockingbirdy 8y ago
  This is the most difficult part IMHO. > Adhere to Goals They talk about it like it's easy af. This is the hardest thing. Motivation is the hardest part. I for one use operant conditioning and waterboard myself when I don't adhere to my goals. Just kidding. But I guess I would be much more motivated. Or develop a fetish for waterboarding, the human mind is complex.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - forapurpose 8y ago
    I realize you're joking, but from what I understand is that you would be motivated to avoid waterboarding, not to learn math, and your retention and knowledge would suffer (beyond doing exactly what is necessary to avoid punishment). When people abuse kids [EDIT: as punishment/motivation], what they learn is how to avoid the abuse, by hook or crook.
    - mockingbirdy 8y ago
      I don't really know how intrinsic motivation could be controlled in the same fashion. A motivated and euphoric teacher maybe can achieve the same in the other direction, but I guess there will always be a certain kind of predisposition and "talent" to be motivated for a specific field. Would love to know how I can design those predispositions to change my own behavior. I guess behavioral therapy could work, but that's hellofa lot effort to learn some math.
      - sudouser 8y ago
        ‘thinking fast and slow ‘ talks about this
        mockingbirdy 8y ago
        Yes, I've read this book and liked it, although it has a big mistake: Many cited studies can't be replicated. Kahneman even apologized because of that [1]. It's a bummer, but I still believe in many of the listed cognitive biases. [1]: https://retractionwatch.com/2017/02/20/placed-much-faith-underpowered-studies-nobel-prize-winner-admits-mistakes/ https://retractionwatch.com/2017/02/20/placed-much-faith-und...
      - drjesusphd 8y ago
        I would imagine having the tools to shape your own behavior would pay divedends well beyond "learning some math".
- sagefy 8y ago
  I'm glad you enjoyed the article :) Thanks for reading! Finding that why for me is (1) go really deep with your goals, (2) find ways to remind yourself daily of the big picture goal, and (3) connect the task at hand to the big goal. For example, maybe you're doing your program to get a job... but what does that job in turn get you? Maybe its more autonomy in your life, or what have you. For my own reminders, I use Stickies on macOs and just always have it there :) I don't always, but sometimes before I start reading a chapter or watching a video, I try to think for a second how what I'm about to do gets me to that bigger picture.
sagefy 8y ago
Author here, happy to answer any questions :)
- rdudekul 8y ago
  Any estimates on when you will have sagefy web application relatively ready. I signed up, but not much is usable...
  - sagefy 8y ago
    Thanks for the response :) You can try out my electronic music course to see how the site works currently: https://sgef.cc/emus https://sgef.cc/emus I'd love some feedback too if you have the time to try it out. https://sgef.cc/feedback https://sgef.cc/feedback or here on Hacker News is good too. It's been a long, iterative development process. I started back in April 2013, had the first go live in January 2016. Since then its been iterating and improving the software, getting feedback and making updates as I go. I'm a bit limited in how much time I get to spend on it due to having a full-time job. Getting more content is at the top of my list ( https://sgef.cc/wanthelp https://sgef.cc/wanthelp ). I really want to show what Sagefy -- and these learning ideas -- can do :) Thanks again, cheers!
    - timb07 8y ago
      From a quick look at the Sagefy code, it seems you've written your own web framework, including your own database layer. Was there a particular reason you didn't use a framework like Django?
      - sagefy 8y ago
        Thanks for checking it out and for the question :) I originally started in Flask. I started out using quite a number of libraries, but got a little frustrated back then when I didn't totally grok how the pieces all worked together. And Python 3 then didn't quite have the same support it does today. WSGI was simple enough to understand, so I started from there https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0333/ https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0333/ I've started looking into migrating the services from Python to Golang to make deployments easier. We'll see how it goes :)
halayli 8y ago
From my personal experience, the #1 factor for better learning is to learn with an objective. Learning is hard and can be demotivating by itself but when I have an objective that requires learning it becomes the driving force/motivation behind it and improves my focus and concentration by a large margins. It also allows me to connect the dots and provides me context.
- sagefy 8y ago
  So true. Most of these ideas are all about setting goals for yourself and finding ways to keep yourself on those goals (Do one thing at a time, Make it Real, etc). I'm glad you're finding way to keep up with your learning goals! If you're into pop-psychology, Daniel Pink's "Drive" https://www.amazon.com/dp/1594484805 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1594484805 is so good!
- zukzuk 8y ago
  This! I learned more trigonometry in 2 weeks when I was tasked with a digital signal processing project than I did in years and years of (objective-less) schooling. An important addendum to this is that the objective has to be closely tied to the work — the feedback loop for learning and then seeing some results from that learning has to be tight. I think this may be why in school grades were not a good objective, for me anyway. They were just too distant a reward from the work.
  - halayli 8y ago
    Exactly! That's the context I was considering as well (including school) Schools do a pretty bad job at providing context to the problem. What we are taught are solutions. And these solutions came from problems that were objectives to the authors. I need to "live" the problem and relate to it to understand the motivation behind the solutions.
  - jonhendry18 8y ago
    Someone should make a big diagram, showing a variety of "cool things" that require math or which knowing the math helps to use, and the chain of math techniques and areas that lead to it - with granularity finer than "calc III". Sort of like a Civilization tech tree, but for applications of mathematics. "If you want to do 3D graphics, learn this but also this which leads to this which leads to this." That way students can say "I'm hating Taylor series but if I learn that I can use it in X" or "This is hard but if I get through it I can learn quaternions and do Y" or whatever.
abcdcba 8y ago
Before clicking these articles I never know if it's referring to deep learning or human learning
swsieber 8y ago
My book recommendations in this regard: Make it stick Peak Both heavily cite research. I want to get to "a mind for numbers", but haven't actually read it yet. I've heard great things though.
- sagefy 8y ago
  Ericsson (author of Peak) is one of the best. His stories of his own research are so good!
tsumnia 8y ago
"Research-backed" and not a single citation... EDIT: Redacted, but kept up to link to the version WITH citations - https://stories.sagefy.org/eight-big-ideas-of-learning-c17a12da127a https://stories.sagefy.org/eight-big-ideas-of-learning-c17a1...
- sagefy 8y ago
  Thanks for picking up on it :) I wrote the long version first actually. I had a few people review before publishing. There were some concerns about the length (25 minutes). So I made the linked summary version as well. I posted both to Hacker News today. But the summary seems to be getting much more interest :)
santoshmaharshi 8y ago
At Schoolze, we are trying to make K-12 education more research based and wholesome with Parents, Teachers and Schools all participating together. Designed based on extensive research findings 20+ years of research from USA ED.gov has proved beyond doubt how adult involvement and Family & community Engagement impacts student achievement and makes schools perform better. We have baked finding of these research di https://www.schoolze.com/ https://www.schoolze.com/
schuetze 8y ago
For my undergraduate thesis, I researched the science of learning. Many of the ideas put forth by this article have merit, but I would also recommend searching the keywords of "desirable difficulties" and "retrieval practice" (self testing) in Google Scholar as potential avenues for examples of more concrete study strategies. Research shows that the best way to learn is to challenge oneself. Self-testing, in particular, is a highly effective way of avoiding the illusion of fluency (Long-term Learning != Current Performance) and creating durable memories. Further reading: 1. Make it Stick 2. "Making Things Hard on Yourself, But in a Good Way: Creating Desirable Difficulties to Enhance Learning" by Bjork & Bjork [https://teaching.yale-nus.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/sites/25/2016/02/Making-Things-Hard-on-Yourself-but-in-a-Good-Way-2011.pdf https://teaching.yale-nus.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/sites/25...] 3. For a survey of student misconceptions about learning: "Instructor and student knowledge of study strategies" by Morehead et al.
victor106 8y ago
The thing that worked for me is repeat...repeat...repeat

179 points by sagefy 8y ago

He links to this in the previous, larger post, but here is the full Coursera course which is pretty great. I took it and I got a lot out of it: https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn

sagefy 8y ago
Barbara Oakley's course is so amazing! I think it's still to this day the most popular MOOC. Her books and articles are great too, like "A Mind for Numbers" https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00R5081JU https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00R5081JU

sedeki 8y ago

I enjoyed reading the article; overall good advice and a powerful change of perspective regarding one’s own learning... But I have always wondered how one can find a powerful why to more abstract subjects e.g. topics in mathematics. I’m having a hard time finding intrinsic motivation to study at this (Master’s) level, even if I absolutely know how good it feels when you have internalized a couple of famous results...

mockingbirdy 8y ago
This is the most difficult part IMHO. > Adhere to Goals They talk about it like it's easy af. This is the hardest thing. Motivation is the hardest part. I for one use operant conditioning and waterboard myself when I don't adhere to my goals. Just kidding. But I guess I would be much more motivated. Or develop a fetish for waterboarding, the human mind is complex.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- forapurpose 8y ago
  I realize you're joking, but from what I understand is that you would be motivated to avoid waterboarding, not to learn math, and your retention and knowledge would suffer (beyond doing exactly what is necessary to avoid punishment). When people abuse kids [EDIT: as punishment/motivation], what they learn is how to avoid the abuse, by hook or crook.
  - mockingbirdy 8y ago
    I don't really know how intrinsic motivation could be controlled in the same fashion. A motivated and euphoric teacher maybe can achieve the same in the other direction, but I guess there will always be a certain kind of predisposition and "talent" to be motivated for a specific field. Would love to know how I can design those predispositions to change my own behavior. I guess behavioral therapy could work, but that's hellofa lot effort to learn some math.
    - sudouser 8y ago
      ‘thinking fast and slow ‘ talks about this
      - mockingbirdy 8y ago
        Yes, I've read this book and liked it, although it has a big mistake: Many cited studies can't be replicated. Kahneman even apologized because of that [1]. It's a bummer, but I still believe in many of the listed cognitive biases. [1]: https://retractionwatch.com/2017/02/20/placed-much-faith-underpowered-studies-nobel-prize-winner-admits-mistakes/ https://retractionwatch.com/2017/02/20/placed-much-faith-und...
    - drjesusphd 8y ago
      I would imagine having the tools to shape your own behavior would pay divedends well beyond "learning some math".
sagefy 8y ago
I'm glad you enjoyed the article :) Thanks for reading! Finding that why for me is (1) go really deep with your goals, (2) find ways to remind yourself daily of the big picture goal, and (3) connect the task at hand to the big goal. For example, maybe you're doing your program to get a job... but what does that job in turn get you? Maybe its more autonomy in your life, or what have you. For my own reminders, I use Stickies on macOs and just always have it there :) I don't always, but sometimes before I start reading a chapter or watching a video, I try to think for a second how what I'm about to do gets me to that bigger picture.

sagefy 8y ago

Author here, happy to answer any questions :)

rdudekul 8y ago
Any estimates on when you will have sagefy web application relatively ready. I signed up, but not much is usable...
- sagefy 8y ago
  Thanks for the response :) You can try out my electronic music course to see how the site works currently: https://sgef.cc/emus https://sgef.cc/emus I'd love some feedback too if you have the time to try it out. https://sgef.cc/feedback https://sgef.cc/feedback or here on Hacker News is good too. It's been a long, iterative development process. I started back in April 2013, had the first go live in January 2016. Since then its been iterating and improving the software, getting feedback and making updates as I go. I'm a bit limited in how much time I get to spend on it due to having a full-time job. Getting more content is at the top of my list ( https://sgef.cc/wanthelp https://sgef.cc/wanthelp ). I really want to show what Sagefy -- and these learning ideas -- can do :) Thanks again, cheers!
  - timb07 8y ago
    From a quick look at the Sagefy code, it seems you've written your own web framework, including your own database layer. Was there a particular reason you didn't use a framework like Django?
    - sagefy 8y ago
      Thanks for checking it out and for the question :) I originally started in Flask. I started out using quite a number of libraries, but got a little frustrated back then when I didn't totally grok how the pieces all worked together. And Python 3 then didn't quite have the same support it does today. WSGI was simple enough to understand, so I started from there https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0333/ https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0333/ I've started looking into migrating the services from Python to Golang to make deployments easier. We'll see how it goes :)

halayli 8y ago

From my personal experience, the #1 factor for better learning is to learn with an objective. Learning is hard and can be demotivating by itself but when I have an objective that requires learning it becomes the driving force/motivation behind it and improves my focus and concentration by a large margins. It also allows me to connect the dots and provides me context.

sagefy 8y ago
So true. Most of these ideas are all about setting goals for yourself and finding ways to keep yourself on those goals (Do one thing at a time, Make it Real, etc). I'm glad you're finding way to keep up with your learning goals! If you're into pop-psychology, Daniel Pink's "Drive" https://www.amazon.com/dp/1594484805 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1594484805 is so good!
zukzuk 8y ago
This! I learned more trigonometry in 2 weeks when I was tasked with a digital signal processing project than I did in years and years of (objective-less) schooling. An important addendum to this is that the objective has to be closely tied to the work — the feedback loop for learning and then seeing some results from that learning has to be tight. I think this may be why in school grades were not a good objective, for me anyway. They were just too distant a reward from the work.
- halayli 8y ago
  Exactly! That's the context I was considering as well (including school) Schools do a pretty bad job at providing context to the problem. What we are taught are solutions. And these solutions came from problems that were objectives to the authors. I need to "live" the problem and relate to it to understand the motivation behind the solutions.
- jonhendry18 8y ago
  Someone should make a big diagram, showing a variety of "cool things" that require math or which knowing the math helps to use, and the chain of math techniques and areas that lead to it - with granularity finer than "calc III". Sort of like a Civilization tech tree, but for applications of mathematics. "If you want to do 3D graphics, learn this but also this which leads to this which leads to this." That way students can say "I'm hating Taylor series but if I learn that I can use it in X" or "This is hard but if I get through it I can learn quaternions and do Y" or whatever.

abcdcba 8y ago

Before clicking these articles I never know if it's referring to deep learning or human learning

swsieber 8y ago

My book recommendations in this regard: Make it stick Peak Both heavily cite research. I want to get to "a mind for numbers", but haven't actually read it yet. I've heard great things though.

sagefy 8y ago
Ericsson (author of Peak) is one of the best. His stories of his own research are so good!

tsumnia 8y ago

"Research-backed" and not a single citation... EDIT: Redacted, but kept up to link to the version WITH citations - https://stories.sagefy.org/eight-big-ideas-of-learning-c17a12da127a https://stories.sagefy.org/eight-big-ideas-of-learning-c17a1...

sagefy 8y ago
Thanks for picking up on it :) I wrote the long version first actually. I had a few people review before publishing. There were some concerns about the length (25 minutes). So I made the linked summary version as well. I posted both to Hacker News today. But the summary seems to be getting much more interest :)

santoshmaharshi 8y ago

At Schoolze, we are trying to make K-12 education more research based and wholesome with Parents, Teachers and Schools all participating together. Designed based on extensive research findings 20+ years of research from USA ED.gov has proved beyond doubt how adult involvement and Family & community Engagement impacts student achievement and makes schools perform better. We have baked finding of these research di https://www.schoolze.com/ https://www.schoolze.com/

schuetze 8y ago

For my undergraduate thesis, I researched the science of learning. Many of the ideas put forth by this article have merit, but I would also recommend searching the keywords of "desirable difficulties" and "retrieval practice" (self testing) in Google Scholar as potential avenues for examples of more concrete study strategies. Research shows that the best way to learn is to challenge oneself. Self-testing, in particular, is a highly effective way of avoiding the illusion of fluency (Long-term Learning != Current Performance) and creating durable memories. Further reading: 1. Make it Stick 2. "Making Things Hard on Yourself, But in a Good Way: Creating Desirable Difficulties to Enhance Learning" by Bjork & Bjork [https://teaching.yale-nus.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/sites/25/2016/02/Making-Things-Hard-on-Yourself-but-in-a-Good-Way-2011.pdf https://teaching.yale-nus.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/sites/25...] 3. For a survey of student misconceptions about learning: "Instructor and student knowledge of study strategies" by Morehead et al.

victor106 8y ago

The thing that worked for me is repeat...repeat...repeat