[HN Gopher] Variability, Not Repetition, Is the Key to Mastery
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Variability, Not Repetition, Is the Key to Mastery
 
Author : maksimur
Score  : 75 points
Date   : 2022-10-27 07:27 UTC (2 days ago)
 
web link (www.scotthyoung.com)
w3m dump (www.scotthyoung.com)
 
| abudabi123 wrote:
| Learning and earning to teach is one shortcut.
 
| bandyaboot wrote:
| > Bruce Lee is reported to have said, "I fear not the man who has
| practiced 10,000 kicks once, but the man who has practiced one
| kick 10,000 times." With all due respect to Mr. Lee, he might
| have been wrong about this one.
| 
| Yes, Bruce Lee must be wrong, because obviously it has to be one
| end of the spectrum or the other /s. How about the man who has
| practiced 100 kicks 100 times each? Maybe he's the one to fear.
 
  | naet wrote:
  | I think a better metaphor for the main point of the article
  | might be the man who has practiced one kick in 10,000 different
  | ways.
  | 
  | If he practiced it 10,000 times in the exact same spot on a
  | punching bag he wouldn't have the same understanding of it that
  | he would if he practiced it high, low, with the other leg, in a
  | tournament bout, on the sand, eyes closed, after a punch, etc.
 
| throwaway675309 wrote:
| At the risk of being a little tactless, duh.
| 
| An easy comparison is take a driver who's had three months of
| experience driving versus somebody with three years, they'll be a
| huge gap in proficiency. Now take the three-year driver and
| compare them against someone who's been driving for three
| decades, you're fine surprisingly there's very little difference
| in ability.
| 
| Our brains are ruthlessly efficient and the moment that they can
| optimize away learning, that's when you're no longer acquiring
| skill.
 
| V__ wrote:
| This sounds very much like differential learning (see Wolfgang
| Schollhorn) to me. In my personal experience it is a very potent
| training method when it comes to learning motor skills, and
| having observed two children learn to crawl and walk it also
| seems to be a "natural way" to learn for us.
| 
| I also observed myself learning non-motor skills better when
| applying this method in some form. I think most people here know
| about the yearly Advent of Code challenge. Often people use it to
| try out a new language and have fun. I believe one of the key
| reasons for its success (besides the fun) are the frequently
| similar, but slightly different, problems. Forcing people to
| approach it from slightly different viewpoints and trying out
| small variations, thus resulting in a deep understanding and
| learning effect.
 
| noelwelsh wrote:
| Hmmm ... I'm a fan of differential learning and other techniques
| for variablity of practice. Was just reading through
| https://perceptionaction.com/vp/ earlier today. However I'm not
| convinced motor learning research transfers to all learning,
| which seems to be the basis for the claim made in the blog post.
| My own experience is motor learning is quite different to
| learning symbol manipulation tasks like maths and programming.
 
  | tsumnia wrote:
  | I'd actually disagree and my current research in CS Education
  | is attempting to incorporate sport pedagogy into the learning
  | process! I do plan to read through your link more thoroughly
  | later tonight so thanks for that.
  | 
  | In a nutshell, we knock that CS1 courses have a high number of
  | drop/fail/withdrawals due to several different factors. These
  | include course difficulty, time management skills, and not
  | feeling welcomed in the community (lack of representation,
  | assuming CS students must love video games, etc). I don't focus
  | much in inclusivity (though a number of faculty at NC State
  | do), but I'm looking for methods to reduce difficulty. My
  | thesis stems from methodologies I've used while teaching
  | martial arts - specifically focusing on lower-level "build
  | blocks" practice.
  | 
  | We can represent different learning activities by the amount of
  | "creation" a student must engage in - Passive (watching
  | lectures) require no creation, Active is repeating solution
  | steps, Construction is critiquing steps, and Interactive is a
  | co-creation process between the student and another student,
  | instructor, or system. These form the ICAP framework by Mickie
  | Chi. My arguments are that if a student is struggling with an
  | Interactive exercise, like a traditional coding problem, then
  | they should "downgrade" their practice to something lower level
  | like self-explanation or debugging. However, if THOSE
  | activities are still difficult, we can downgrade to an even
  | lower-level of having them simply repeat (the mindless 'copy
  | the dictionary' activities modern education hates).
  | 
  | My rationale again looks at how technical skills, like martial
  | arts, are learned. Typically we start with warm ups, a brief
  | demonstration on a few movements from the instructor, and then
  | students are asked to pair up and drill the moves. Then the
  | instructor builds on the moves with another demonstration, and
  | then students repeat their process. Eventually, students spar
  | (or apply the technique in a live problem). I argue that
  | traditional coding problems are analogous to live sparring
  | because students need to incorporate writing code, problem
  | solving, debugging, code tracing, etc. If they struggle with
  | some of those skills, they struggle in the activity. Rather
  | than having them learn all the skills "in situ" while coding,
  | maybe lower level deliberate practice targeting a single skill
  | can help strengthen their overall foundation.
 
| bumblebritches5 wrote:
 
| freemrkt8 wrote:
| Such an idea has been discussed for centuries. Adam Smith warned
| division of labor would lead people to become "...as stupid and
| ignorant as it is for a human creature to become." by repeating
| the same career behaviors for too long.
| 
| IMO this explains a great deal about current society stuck on the
| idea re-training is a waste, the habit of re-electing politicians
| for decades being one outcome of living life "on the career
| escalator."
| 
| Such an inner monologue becomes a default state of being.
| 
| Accepting simple memes like "will work for money" become the norm
| and "will work to acquire knowledge" becomes vulgar language.
 
| gre wrote:
| A common tactic in practicing music is to play a passage slowed
| down, sped up, with varying rhythms, up/down an octave, etc, with
| the idea that if you have complete mastery you can also play it
| the way it's written.
 
  | hammock wrote:
  | Interesting that this works on piano but is not practiced in
  | singing.
 
    | lloeki wrote:
    | Not my experience. I'm learning to sing, my spouse is a pro
    | singer, she told me "pick a song, preferably one you don't
    | know well so as not to be biased, sing it a thousand ways
    | over and over, try it right, try it wrong, try whacky stuff,
    | try nonsense stuff, talk it, rap it, twist it, warp it
    | around, then do it all over again a thousand times, and
    | finally, sing it your way."
 
| Silverback_VII wrote:
| Seems to be an argument more for spaced repetition and
| incremental reading.
| 
| "If your collection combines knowledge pertaining to different
| subject domains, the stream of new ideas and unexpected
| associations coming to your mind may surprise you"
| https://help.supermemo.org/wiki/Incremental_learning
 
  | maksimur wrote:
  | Spaced repetition and incremental reading don't have to be a
  | conscious effort or implemented with flashcard systems, in fact
  | it might be better not to, depending on your goals.
  | 
  | After extensive practice with such systems (talking years
  | between physical flaschards, supermemo and anki), I found it
  | leads to shallow understanding and bad linking between
  | knowledge bits, even though I make sure I understand before
  | committing something to spaced repetition. The valuable part
  | looks like to be in the effort of understanding, thinking
  | deeply and widely and summarizing. If you frequently read,
  | practice and revise your knowledge and see how it interlinks,
  | you will approximate spaced repetition at the very least.
  | 
  | All in all flashcard systems taught me how to study effectively
  | by being forced to understand and "atomize" knowledge, so it
  | wasn't useless.
 
    | lhuser123 wrote:
    | To me is more about the balancing act. Memorization +
    | understanding. Find the right combination that works for you.
 
    | throwamon wrote:
    | > Spaced repetition and incremental reading don't have to be
    | a conscious effort
    | 
    | > The valuable part looks like to be in the effort of
    | understanding, thinking deeply and widely and summarizing.
    | 
    | Which part of this is not conscious effort? You just made a
    | stronger case for such automated systems, especially for
    | people who don't have good memory or abnormal levels of
    | discipline and motivation.
 
    | tsumnia wrote:
    | > After extensive practice with such systems (talking years
    | between physical flaschards, supermemo and anki), I found it
    | leads to shallow understanding and bad linking between
    | knowledge bits
    | 
    | The issue with flashcard style practice is that it doesn't
    | offer much in "application"-learning, which may help explain
    | the shallow understanding. Spaced repetition needs to be
    | repetition of applying the concept, not reviewing it. I know
    | that its not easy to do for all domains, but if you look at
    | musicians (as another poster described), actors, artists,
    | athletes, and martial artists (to borrow the article's
    | reference), their spaced repetition is more about applying
    | their craft to build muscle memory as well as create "a-ha"
    | moments of insight.
 
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