I think one of the things that makes learning things hard, given this interpretation, would be difficulty in actually updating the model. It may be that large amounts of surprise, being related to large differences in model produced by updating, make it hard to update, and this is certainly one level of hardness felt when learning. But additionally, there is also likely to be some variance in general ability to update certain models: some people have limited kinesthetic senses would not only be operating with less data to update on, but may also have a more rigid model.
Model rigidity seems to me like a good candidate for the variance between students’ subjective experience of the hardness of learning certain things. It also seems like it would be strongly correlated to the appropriate types of intelligence- kinesthetic intelligence relates to a more easily changed model of physical syntax, procedural intelligence relates to a more easily changed model of procedural syntax, &c.
This also seems to correspond well to my own personal experiences with what is hard and easy to learn- my understanding of how the different elements of the problem can interact changes with speed proportional to how easy the subject seems, eg I can change my understanding of how abstract quantities/​qualities interact fairly quickly making math easy to learn, my understanding of systems of social interaction changes very slowly (due in part to difficulty collecting evidence) and thus I was socially awkward for a long time, and it took a lot of effort to overcome.
I think one of the things that makes learning things hard, given this interpretation, would be difficulty in actually updating the model. It may be that large amounts of surprise, being related to large differences in model produced by updating, make it hard to update, and this is certainly one level of hardness felt when learning. But additionally, there is also likely to be some variance in general ability to update certain models: some people have limited kinesthetic senses would not only be operating with less data to update on, but may also have a more rigid model.
Model rigidity seems to me like a good candidate for the variance between students’ subjective experience of the hardness of learning certain things. It also seems like it would be strongly correlated to the appropriate types of intelligence- kinesthetic intelligence relates to a more easily changed model of physical syntax, procedural intelligence relates to a more easily changed model of procedural syntax, &c.
This also seems to correspond well to my own personal experiences with what is hard and easy to learn- my understanding of how the different elements of the problem can interact changes with speed proportional to how easy the subject seems, eg I can change my understanding of how abstract quantities/​qualities interact fairly quickly making math easy to learn, my understanding of systems of social interaction changes very slowly (due in part to difficulty collecting evidence) and thus I was socially awkward for a long time, and it took a lot of effort to overcome.