I've spent the week reading like 50+ papers on learning to remember what I know about how people learn and this is what I know:
-people are bad at deciding what to learn
-people are bad at studying. We choose the worst ways to study and we hate the most efficient ways
-people give up on learning so much. Like more than anyone believes
-people aren't clear about what their goals really are for learning and if you try to get people to set goals they don't want to
-teachers truly work miracles
I occupy a slight funny space. I have no need/interest to memorize anything. I learn to find interesting new ideas and bring them back to my clients. I don't need to quiz myself, since memorization doesn't matter in my case.
If something is interesting ex. The Catalyst - Jonah Berger, I take extensive notes.
@grimalkina I'm stuck between asking for a paper I could read outlining each of these points and the realization that if I do that I'm proving your point and part of the problem.
But yeah, learning and methods of memory are a very fun topic for me but it's absolutely wild to me how completely alien "learning how to remember" is from how we're taught and "want" to remember things (if I'm remembering the last stuff I read on this topic correctly... heh)
oh and also this is basically a point about relying on generative AI these days. It's literally named the Generation Effect in learning!!
"Basically, any time that you, as a learner, look up an answer or have somebody tell or show you something that you could, drawing on current cues and your past knowledge, generate instead, you rob yourself of a powerful learning opportunity. Retrieval, in effect, is a powerful “memory modifier” (Bjork, 1975)."
The generation effect is really big all things considered, and in a world where it's hard to know what actually helps your cognition and learning, perhaps one to know about
Guess I probably should write an airport book acting like I invented this one effect or whatever but I didn't and you can have it for free
So just imagine my face looking really Thought Leadery on the back cover of a book called GENERATE: THE NEW SCIENCE OF WHY HUMAN MINDS MATTER IN THE AGE OF AI thank you
One likely cognitive reason that small group studio learning and apprenticeships and those kinds of beloved bespoke things seem to work so efficiently for learning, besides the social support (which is a huge huge deal), is copious amounts more time for/space for/culture around doing generation instead of reception.
@nxskok thank you, it's the fans like you that really inspire me in this difficult life of going on podcasts and being insufferable
(this isn't gonna help the household argument I'm involved in right now where my wife is like please just do a newsletter or something professional for your writing and I'm like BUT WHO WILL BE SHARING RANDOM PAPERS ON MASTODON)
@grimalkina I mean, how would I ever have learned about "Making Things Hard on Yourself, But in a
Good Way" if it had not been for SOMEONE SHARING RANDOM PAPERS ON MASTODON?
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