This makes some great points, and Martin Lombell has covered something very similar in a rather timeless one hour engaging lecture here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlU-zDU6aQ0
Some other diamonds I've uncovered or found while working on learning psychology are:
- that students who organise fun and exercise on their schedule before studying, get better grades than the students who start by deciding when to study;
- in principle, a desirable difficulty of varied content given in a medium that isn't lazy (read: you need to be able to get feedback, like a quiz, or rewriting, or tutoring) is the key way to establish viable long term learning; several other effects like Spaced Repetition only have benefits if you can stick to your motivation for learning, so you do need to prioritise motivation first. The article mentioned learning styles not being proven; in fact, one can argue the opposite is true; people who learn with mixed, varied content perform the best. But we also like the learning type which is comfortable for us; this boosts motivation. The problem is that studying students across a whole semester and multiple courses rarely happens, and studies focusing on how varying the learning content within a 10 minute window changed how much students learned, does not replicate the value of being familiar with a learning content style, nor the cost that things within it might blur. There are pros and cons to sticking to one style; variation certainly helps in the short term.
- enjoyment(or motivation) matters. Because almost every student reports procrastinating early in the Semester (95% in one study, and I guess the other 5% didn't fill in the form). A real issue with learning research is that it tends to replicate exam period, exam conditions, and not the 60-80% of students lives where many put off studying, gently attend lectures, socialise and work between semester exam seasons. It is in that time that results are predetermined, not in the final weeks. That's what my learning app for students focuses on, and achievable regular cadence of studying in that period; motivating and fun enough to engage before your peers are. It splits content like your lectures up into memorable emoji-represented exercises, and then sends you notifications using the emoji for one exercise each day, to get you to just study a little each day. This has big downstream effects.
- the quality of learning content is as variable as the quality of laptops; some is poor. Key concepts like the "Minimum Information Principle" - that questions based on building definitions, linking concepts and memorizing should have only one short clear answer - are almost necessary if you want to learn a serious amount without forgetting what matters and blurring answers. Long answers, although they seem better because of detail, will drop your grades as you accidentally confuse or forget part of them, as compared to separating them into different or say follow up cards.
Some other diamonds I've uncovered or found while working on learning psychology are:
- that students who organise fun and exercise on their schedule before studying, get better grades than the students who start by deciding when to study;
- that most of us can learn much better with confusing, misconception-revealing content, over simple content - we all assume too much, as Veritasium covered: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVtCO84MDj8&list=PL772556F1E...
- in principle, a desirable difficulty of varied content given in a medium that isn't lazy (read: you need to be able to get feedback, like a quiz, or rewriting, or tutoring) is the key way to establish viable long term learning; several other effects like Spaced Repetition only have benefits if you can stick to your motivation for learning, so you do need to prioritise motivation first. The article mentioned learning styles not being proven; in fact, one can argue the opposite is true; people who learn with mixed, varied content perform the best. But we also like the learning type which is comfortable for us; this boosts motivation. The problem is that studying students across a whole semester and multiple courses rarely happens, and studies focusing on how varying the learning content within a 10 minute window changed how much students learned, does not replicate the value of being familiar with a learning content style, nor the cost that things within it might blur. There are pros and cons to sticking to one style; variation certainly helps in the short term.
- enjoyment(or motivation) matters. Because almost every student reports procrastinating early in the Semester (95% in one study, and I guess the other 5% didn't fill in the form). A real issue with learning research is that it tends to replicate exam period, exam conditions, and not the 60-80% of students lives where many put off studying, gently attend lectures, socialise and work between semester exam seasons. It is in that time that results are predetermined, not in the final weeks. That's what my learning app for students focuses on, and achievable regular cadence of studying in that period; motivating and fun enough to engage before your peers are. It splits content like your lectures up into memorable emoji-represented exercises, and then sends you notifications using the emoji for one exercise each day, to get you to just study a little each day. This has big downstream effects.
- the quality of learning content is as variable as the quality of laptops; some is poor. Key concepts like the "Minimum Information Principle" - that questions based on building definitions, linking concepts and memorizing should have only one short clear answer - are almost necessary if you want to learn a serious amount without forgetting what matters and blurring answers. Long answers, although they seem better because of detail, will drop your grades as you accidentally confuse or forget part of them, as compared to separating them into different or say follow up cards.