1. you know what you don’t know so if you need some preceding information you can find that for yourself (in large part thanks to the internet)
2. teaching is centered around the idea that a teacher knows what you should know better than you do. In many cases, I don’t think this makes much sense. If I want to learn how to make x thing, getting a general education on the field x falls into (field y) doesn’t make sense. Learning a bunch of useless things in field y is a waste of my time. If I’m deciding what to learn by myself, I can make sure that I’m not only learning things efficiently but that I’m choosing what to learn effectively.
This is the approach advocated by Scott Young in the book Ultralearning. You build out a learning project for the thing you actually want to learn, learn by doing, and you fill in obvious gaps that are ‘rate-limiting’ to the learning ‘reaction’ as you go along. Learning by working on the end result that you actually want directly also sidesteps the issues with transfer learning—students are typically able to apply the abstract classroom skills they’ve been taught to real world situations.
I see you link to SuperMemo and ask about it a lot. Do you use that software, and do you generally subscribe to Wozniak’s ideas?
Interesting about ultralearning, I will need to skim that in more detail some point. Without spaced repetition/incremental reading, that looks like the best method of learning to me. I get the feeling this is why my generation (2000s onwards) lack practical skills, we almost never learn for a purpose so we end up lacking the notion that we can do things yourselves. There are plenty of things I really wanted to do (like building a table from scratch [I really love big tables]) that I never did because I had no experience and had never had any experience that would tell me where to start.
Regarding SuperMemo, yes, I use the software and incremental reading extensively (if you have an interest in learning it, I would happily teach you). I would go insane learning without it, especially because I have ADHD and incremental reading makes managing what to learn easy.
I also subscribe heavily to Woz’s ideas. I like them because they tend to be much closer to global maximas (e.g. free running sleep) because societal/academic norms do not restrict his views.
A lot of them, especially about learning, really changed my life. Though I also love what he has written about sleep, stress, ADHD, addiction amongst other things.
Interesting about ultralearning, I will need to skim that in more detail some point. Without spaced repetition/incremental reading, that looks like the best method of learning to me.
His book touches on spaced repetition (he’s a big proponent of the testing effect) and other things. It’s really about how to put together effective learning projects, from the research phase, through execution.
Regarding SuperMemo, yes, I use the software and incremental reading extensively (if you have an interest in learning it, I would happily teach you).
I am interested in IR, but I don’t have a windows machine (MacOS/Linux) and don’t think the overhead of maintaining a VM would be worth it. Do you IR everything you read online, or do you reserve it for materials in your field? I mostly take notes in roam, and add particularly salient things that I think I’ll want to remember to anki.
I also subscribe heavily to Woz’s ideas. I like them because they tend to be much closer to global maximas (e.g. free running sleep) because societal/academic norms do not restrict his views.
Noted. The SuperMemo wiki has always seemed quite unwieldy to me, but I’ll take closer to what he says to say on topics outside of spaced repetition.
His book touches on spaced repetition (he’s a big proponent of the testing effect) and other things. It’s really about how to put together effective learning projects, from the research phase, through execution.
Oh I didn’t know that. Raises priority a bit then.
I am interested in IR, but I don’t have a windows machine (MacOS/Linux) and don’t think the overhead of maintaining a VM would be worth it. Do you IR everything you read online, or do you reserve it for materials in your field? I mostly take notes in roam, and add particularly salient things that I think I’ll want to remember to anki.
If you use IR well, in my opinion it would increase long-term potential by at least 1,5-2 times. If you don’t trust me and take my claim at say 1.2 times, I think even then it’s worth the time investment of trying a VM and trying SM for a while to verify the claim (I don’t think there are any other interventions that would improve long-term potential as much as SM).
I’m actually using it on a Mac in parallels and it works pretty well. VMWare on Linux is also mostly good though in the end I ended up switching from Linux because VMWare has this weird behavior where it exists fullscreen everytime you change workspaces. It drove me crazy. You can run SM through wine with this with a few constraints. I haven’t tried it personally though.
I don’t have a particular field (I am in university but I don’t care about it very much), I learn based on what I find interesting and applicable. I’ve found a lot of golden nuggets I otherwise would never have with incremental reading. I tend to just import everything I see that looks shiny but it’s still manageable because of SuperMemo’s priority system. I’ll probably never get to all the things I import because of the rate of new things vs. rate of review but I’m slowly making peace with that. At the least, priority system makes it possible to import as much as you want but still be certain that you focus most of your time on the things that matter more.
Roam seems pretty nice to me and I really wish there was an SM plugin to replicate graph connection functionality. I write a lot in SuperMemo and while it is extremely useful to be able to write things incrementally, graph view would be likely a better way to work on things.
Noted. The SuperMemo wiki has always seemed quite unwieldy to me, but I’ll take closer to what he says to say on topics outside of spaced repetition.
For SuperMemo documentation, I would definitely agree. It is not fun figuring it out on your own. From recent experiences teaching people, I think being taught 1-1 is a far easier way to get started with it. I can generally teach people in 1-2 hours what it took me around a fair while (at least a month) to figure out.
For other subjects on supermemo.guru blog, I think the articles are pretty good though not many people seem to be aware of them which is unfortunate.
This is the approach advocated by Scott Young in the book Ultralearning. You build out a learning project for the thing you actually want to learn, learn by doing, and you fill in obvious gaps that are ‘rate-limiting’ to the learning ‘reaction’ as you go along. Learning by working on the end result that you actually want directly also sidesteps the issues with transfer learning—students are typically able to apply the abstract classroom skills they’ve been taught to real world situations.
I see you link to SuperMemo and ask about it a lot. Do you use that software, and do you generally subscribe to Wozniak’s ideas?
Interesting about ultralearning, I will need to skim that in more detail some point. Without spaced repetition/incremental reading, that looks like the best method of learning to me. I get the feeling this is why my generation (2000s onwards) lack practical skills, we almost never learn for a purpose so we end up lacking the notion that we can do things yourselves. There are plenty of things I really wanted to do (like building a table from scratch [I really love big tables]) that I never did because I had no experience and had never had any experience that would tell me where to start.
Regarding SuperMemo, yes, I use the software and incremental reading extensively (if you have an interest in learning it, I would happily teach you). I would go insane learning without it, especially because I have ADHD and incremental reading makes managing what to learn easy.
I also subscribe heavily to Woz’s ideas. I like them because they tend to be much closer to global maximas (e.g. free running sleep) because societal/academic norms do not restrict his views.
A lot of them, especially about learning, really changed my life. Though I also love what he has written about sleep, stress, ADHD, addiction amongst other things.
His book touches on spaced repetition (he’s a big proponent of the testing effect) and other things. It’s really about how to put together effective learning projects, from the research phase, through execution.
I am interested in IR, but I don’t have a windows machine (MacOS/Linux) and don’t think the overhead of maintaining a VM would be worth it. Do you IR everything you read online, or do you reserve it for materials in your field? I mostly take notes in roam, and add particularly salient things that I think I’ll want to remember to anki.
Noted. The SuperMemo wiki has always seemed quite unwieldy to me, but I’ll take closer to what he says to say on topics outside of spaced repetition.
Oh I didn’t know that. Raises priority a bit then.
If you use IR well, in my opinion it would increase long-term potential by at least 1,5-2 times. If you don’t trust me and take my claim at say 1.2 times, I think even then it’s worth the time investment of trying a VM and trying SM for a while to verify the claim (I don’t think there are any other interventions that would improve long-term potential as much as SM).
I’m actually using it on a Mac in parallels and it works pretty well. VMWare on Linux is also mostly good though in the end I ended up switching from Linux because VMWare has this weird behavior where it exists fullscreen everytime you change workspaces. It drove me crazy. You can run SM through wine with this with a few constraints. I haven’t tried it personally though.
I don’t have a particular field (I am in university but I don’t care about it very much), I learn based on what I find interesting and applicable. I’ve found a lot of golden nuggets I otherwise would never have with incremental reading. I tend to just import everything I see that looks shiny but it’s still manageable because of SuperMemo’s priority system. I’ll probably never get to all the things I import because of the rate of new things vs. rate of review but I’m slowly making peace with that. At the least, priority system makes it possible to import as much as you want but still be certain that you focus most of your time on the things that matter more.
Roam seems pretty nice to me and I really wish there was an SM plugin to replicate graph connection functionality. I write a lot in SuperMemo and while it is extremely useful to be able to write things incrementally, graph view would be likely a better way to work on things.
For SuperMemo documentation, I would definitely agree. It is not fun figuring it out on your own. From recent experiences teaching people, I think being taught 1-1 is a far easier way to get started with it. I can generally teach people in 1-2 hours what it took me around a fair while (at least a month) to figure out.
For other subjects on supermemo.guru blog, I think the articles are pretty good though not many people seem to be aware of them which is unfortunate.