DebKR

To the Stars

learning about learning

Effective Study Skills 2

Effective Study Skills 2

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This post is a continuation of my summarising of learnings from Dr Oakley’s MOOC on Learning How to Learn (see References below) together with thoughts and reflections on that course in relation to other courses currently being studied. Related posts can be found under the tag Learning About Learning.

 

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The Illusion of Competence

the employing of ineffective study methods which fool the mind into thinking it’s learned the information, when in fact it hasn’t

Overlearning

where the information is engrained in your mind but in unhelpful & inefficient ways, making reaccessing that information more difficult

Interleaving

the strategy of providing variety into your study routine – different subjects, different learning modalities, and so on – to make it more interesting & engaging which helps with information retention

 

References:

Ison, R. (2010) Systems Practice: How To Act In A Climate-Change World, Springer, London.

Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects, University of California, San Diego. Taught by: Dr Barbara Oakley & Dr Terrence Sejnowski. Available at: Coursera.org.

How We Find Out Things

How We Find Out Things

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How We Find Out Things is important. Intelligence is the ability to find things out about a situation or subject, and to apply what we have previously found out to a new or novel situations or subjects.

Machine Learning does this through methods of Computational Statistics. It is powerful, but we still need to be there applying our own Intelligence & Sense-making abilities to ensure the results are logical & consistent with what we would expect.

As Ramon y Cajal, Spanish biologist and father of modern neuroscience, noted in his excellent book of advice for novice scientific researchers (1999), the key stages of a scientific investigation are (1) observation, (2) experimentation, (3) working hypotheses, and (4) proof. [Read more…] about How We Find Out Things

Effective Study Skills

Effective Study Skills

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This post summarises learnings from Dr Oakley’s MOOC on learning How to Learn (see References below for link) together with my own thoughts and reflections on that course together with my Systems Theory post-grad course currently being studied with the Open University and other current studies. Related posts can be found under the tag Learning About Learning.

In particular, I have taken time out from that post-grad module due to feeling really confused, fed up, bored and generally utterly demoralised by my continually unsuccessful attempts to get on with studying that module. Rather than beat myself up about it, I decided to just give myself some time off to go and study a different (albeit, connected) subject. Hopefully it will free up some mind-space and sparks some useful ideas to go towards my next assignment.

Chunking as a Learning Method

Chunking is studying information in small, accessible packages. These chunks are more easily assimilated, since the mind is better able to unite and fit them together into a unified whole. Chunking has been described as a ‘mental leap’ – taking pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and fitting them together to make a whole picture. [Read more…] about Effective Study Skills

Perception

Perception

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Asked question: What else do I need [to study/learn] for AI?
Answer on waking: Perception

Thinking on this a little, I realise perception must be key bcs this is the route/mechanism by (or, gateway through) which one experiences the world (= other) & from this one can begin to sort, categorise, pattern-seek & understand.

A realisation stemming from this is: without perception there can be no cognition (which I say must also be vital for intelligence) bcs perception creates the stimuli which ‘feed’ the cognitive processes.

Another key realisation is: ‘discrimination’ (used in its true sense) is the basis of intelligence. If you can’t perceive difference then you can’t create categories thus you can’t compute anything about either ‘self wrt other’ or ‘other wrt self’ or even ‘other1 wrt other2’, & so on. [Read more…] about Perception

Focussed vs. Diffuse Thinking

Focussed vs. Diffuse Thinking

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Some reading materials (highlighted = likely useful for TU812 TMA03):

Chapters 1-3 of A Mind for Numbers are especially helpful in providing helpful information and additional exercises related to the materials of Module 1.

Worthwhile Additional Popular Works

[Read more…] about Focussed vs. Diffuse Thinking

Learning About Learning

Learning About Learning

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A key theme of part three of the systems module TU812 is ‘learning about learning’, and this course on Coursera by Dr Barbara Oakley – which covers that from one angle – came highly recommended: http://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn. It’s subtitled ‘powerful tools to help you master tough subjects’, which is definitely the kind of help I need right now with this systems course. The MOOC course is, I believe, in the top 3 on Coursera, although it’s worth pointing out the focus is on helping you with mathematical or scientific subjects. Yet the ideas and study tips should be extendable across to more abstract and wordy subjects (the ones I struggle most with).

Two Types of Thinking: Focussed and Diffuse

If we understand something about how the brain works, we can develop and deploy strategies to help us learn more optimally. As humans we have two thinking modes – with Dr Oakley refers to as ‘focussed’ and ‘diffuse’. These are mental states where we’re, respectively, concentrating really hard on something (like reading & note-taking from a course text) or allowing our minds to wander and day-dream (which is, of course, my preferred mental state!). Another way to think of the two different states is that focussed is looking at the details (a church within the landscape), while diffuse is looking at the much bigger picture (drinking in the whole scene as far as the eye can see). [Read more…] about Learning About Learning