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Learnstream Blog.page
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# Topics
## The best education is no education
time_ago_in_words I was completing the research ethics education required for my PhD program. It's one of those that give you a section of reading followed by a quiz (and repeat a couple dozen times). Given my recent interest in training education, I was trying to think of what could make it more engaging and also transfer better to the day-to-day operation. They had clearly made an effort with this by providing images and sometimes videos with interviews and case studies.
So this blog will parallel my time in grad school. One of the major domains we'd like to cover with this blog is learning something isn't a neat and tidy topic, but is actually a real-world complex and evolving system much like the world of research. In other words, learning not "programming language syntax" but computational thinking, programming methodologies, and frequently changing code updates and dependencies. By understanding these systems, we can also have the power to change them to work better automatically. In other words, by designing the world better, we can avoid redundant, boring education and spend more time focusing on the most challenging and exciting problems. But to get there we'll have to do some good old fashioned learning.
## Productivity guide
One of my first examples of this kind of learning that I talked about in the first post. This guide intends to teach you how to design your own life for greater productivity by understanding the systems that govern your attention and energy.
## Why Codecademy works
* Interleaving example and exercise
* Feedback
* Getting started right away
Ways to make it even better:
* Let users track which skills they've learned. And no I don't mean badges!
* Introduce spaced repetition
* (Exploration?)
## Finnish schools
If we can point out something interesting from the article... http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Why-Are-Finlands-Schools-Successful.html
## LifeHacking: n-back games to improve fluid intelligence
Neal: I’m thinking about doing this as a “scientific” lifehacking experiment...
Ryan: Why just in-quotes-scientific? It was verified by experiment and published. The results were reproduced. If that's not science...
## Productivity guide
Getting pretty massive, so I will probably just link to it.
## Why philosophy of learning
* guide what questions to ask science, fit pieces together
* examine some general arguments against philosophy (reality is too counterintuitive?)
## Examining statement at end of Sweller paper
All novel problem solving is means-end analysis.
## Breaking a 10yo habit in 10 minutes
## Peeling hard-boiled eggs
* patience
* fear
* local maximum
* insights
## "Thinking outside the box"
What does this common saying mean and how can we actually do it.
## which heuristics and general techniques are effective
The psychological question is when skills transfer. Studies have found that knowing the solution to one problem did not generalize to a "problem isotope". But this is different from abstract skills being applied in a particular case. How effective is teaching abstract thinking? Seems like a problem is that people aren't able to make analogies to real-life knowledge. However, by learning the most abstract level, it may be easier to go to the abstract model rather than a more realistic one. However, e.g., mathematicians are sometimes supposedly bad at working with real problems.
"cognition machine" project
## Constructionism debate
hard to argue with theme of Lockhart or Papert
## Calculus of time management
When is it worth doing "2x faster" -- does it add up or is it trivial compared to the amount of downtime we'll have anyway
## Shifts in perspective
Modern monetary theory/other economics stuff
## Learning complex systems
* Dieting
* Economics
* Ashok Goel http://home.cc.gatech.edu/dil/3
* Donna Meadows
## Creativity
First mastering the fundamentals, then doing something crazy, sometimes seemingly simple (modern art)
Einstein hiding sources quote
## My Chinese quote
While my first post intends to cover methodology and goals of our style of learning, this one really describes the experience of that process.
* Is categorical shift related?
* Is this process actually a good strategy that helps rewrite old theories?
## Learning categories
* Language/many facts (foreign language, business)
* Language w/ logical patterns (math)
* Technique (sports, music)
Most topics will cover many categories, but the primary work will often be in one
## Self-explanation
Arnov?
## Creativity vs. knowledge
Example: my creative way of doing double sine
## Individualization
* How is it effective
* How to combine with traditional classroom
## Test-driven learning
No, not those kinds of tests!!
## Edupunk's Guide: The good, the bad, and the ugly
My major gripe here is that self-education as presented by this guide generally misses the all-important aspect of validating what you think you are learning. That whole "critical thinking" thing that everyone says we Americans need to learn. I can't say I know how to teach you critical thinking, but your learning process has to involve _something_ that doesn't just assume every bit of expressed knowledge or opinion is making you more enlightened.
I'm going to cover a range of the resources and techniques mentioned here, not because the particular resource is very good or very bad but to point out how it is presented.
* Google. The guide starts with the tip "Start with Google". Hey, Google is usually my first bet too. Today I searched for "Kirschner minimally guided instruction". How did I know I was interested in minimally guided instruction, to use that particular wording, and why the heck did I add some random dude's name in there? Because I actually have been following this area for several months, which has led me to learn the terminology, community, and important tenants of the field. So don't "start with Google". [1]
* Dan Diebolt. If I were to put together my own guide, I would definitely include the "immersion theory" that is suggested in Dan's box, which is generally what got me those terms and names to search for. Dan basically suggests an approach to this by bootstrapping with Google search, but Dan here proves it isn't enough by misspelling the name of JQuery's creator John Resig ("Rezick"). Normally, I wouldn't care about typos, but his *entire point* here is that he's learned all about this guy through his method. Actually I don't know how you screw that up through Googling either...
* Waiting for Superman. I enjoy documentaries and really liked watching Waiting for Superman. But we're talking about learning, and what did you learn from Waiting for Superman. I hope very little; as you can see in [this excellent review](http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/nov/11/myth-charter-schools/), the movie gives a very misleading portrayal of the "public vs. charter" situation (a portrayal that is influencing millions of dollars from the likes of the Gates Foundation. Drama is enhanced when we know it's real footage, but that doesn't mean it portrays a nuanced and comprehensive viewpoint.
* Online communities. After watching Waiting for Superman, you go to your online community and everyone can agree how great it was. It takes a horrible, meanie professor to tell you to check your sources and look beyond anecdotal information. Of course those people sometimes exist in online communities as well; some of them are even great as a whole. Just use discretion.
* Github. Github is an excellent education resource; it's absolutely worthless if you don't know how to use it. Do you really want to approach learning programming like humanity has approached astronomy? Get back to me in a few hundred years when you've discovered whether the while loop revolves around the rest of the program or vice versa.
I wouldn't do all that bickering without some retribution. So here's my mini-guide for Edupunks (or, as I call, it Indie Learning):
* Get inspired. Watch your documentaries, TED talks, YouTube rantings of crazy people. Go local: art festivals, plays, public places. Go far away. Watch a super epic movie. One rule: if it's boring, stop. Here's your chance for pure self-indulgence because I subscribe to the belief that we can excel at and become passionate about anything. So enjoy it because the hard work is ahead. You can revisit this phase many times throughout your life, but it. isn't. your. education.
* Who is good at this thing? The criterion for good is simply that they've succeeded in the same way that you want to. Figure it out and hunt them down. Depending on the thing, they may be professors, they may exist on a forum or website, they may be teaching lessons in your neighborhood, they may be hard to track down. The Edupunk guide has some good advice about contacting people (I don't because I'm a social recluse), but depending on the nature of it, you may respond in various ways: personal contact, reading their blog/forum/etc, getting into a job or educational program with them.
* Find a deliberate practice that others have used to succeed.
* Find a metric to, as objectively as possible, evaluate yourself. Do this periodically. Set numerical goals for yourself. When you aren't meeting those goals, go to your mentor and/or community and tell them what problem you have and ask how to fix it.
* Stay immersed
* Improve yourself in many dimensions. Most importantly, learn how to learn: future posts on this site will help. Get enough money: Ramit Sethi talks about how to do this with whatever talents you are now developing (and he's more relentless than a report card).
[1] Start with our First Step guides; coming soon! Of course, it will be hand-picked for methods with proven results, so they'll come slowly. In the meantime... Google it?
[2] Incidentally, the Gates foundation also funds the author of this guide. Hmm... watch my open education YouTube lectures where I further unfold this conspiracy
# Recurring features
## Learning log
kinda like GosuGuides but personal examples, not as strict format
## First step
also like GosuGuides but we just provide the (sometimes unexpected!) very first step to diving into something new
...notice a pattern here?
# Background reading
* lesswrong
* general philosophy
* eastern philosophy (zen of learning? tao of learning?)