The bottom line is to promote his book Quantum Country. He claims that this book or product is designed to work around the problems he highlighted in the article. For content that is as difficult...
The bottom line is to promote his book Quantum Country. He claims that this book or product is designed to work around the problems he highlighted in the article.
For content that is as difficult as quantum physics, he might be right that lectures and books are not the best teaching tool. He even might be right that his product does a better job.
However, for simpler, more intuitive content, I think books and lectures work just fine. A podcast or YouTube video is basically a lecture and those are very popular .
Efficiency for what purpose? Most nonfiction I read is purely for entertainment, adjusting my general worldview to reflect research and scientific truth, learn new ideas for self improvement. If a...
Efficiency for what purpose? Most nonfiction I read is purely for entertainment, adjusting my general worldview to reflect research and scientific truth, learn new ideas for self improvement. If a nonfiction book leaves me with new concepts and awareness of where to look if I want to find details, it has done it's job, especially if it was also enjoyable to read.
If I decided to become an engineer, or master a language, I would study, not read. I'm a filthy casual for most subjects, but I am still widely curious about the world and people and science
Sure, here's one. It shows that students liked passive lectures more, and self-rated them as more effective for education, but in actuality they retained less information than a lesson in which...
Sure, here's one. It shows that students liked passive lectures more, and self-rated them as more effective for education, but in actuality they retained less information than a lesson in which they were more engaged and challenged.
It’s more likely that they enjoy not the lecture itself, but the passive, easy experience that doesn’t require anything of them. They can take notes, they can sleep, they can goof off, they can...
It’s more likely that they enjoy not the lecture itself, but the passive, easy experience that doesn’t require anything of them. They can take notes, they can sleep, they can goof off, they can handle attendance and skip the rest, whatever they want.
I love Andy but I dont think he is qualified to teach about quantum stuff, afaik he isn’t a researcher in this area or anything tangential. Maybe its just to “show” the learning method he is...
I love Andy but I dont think he is qualified to teach about quantum stuff, afaik he isn’t a researcher in this area or anything tangential.
Maybe its just to “show” the learning method he is espousing…
Just pointing out that the article states he coauthored the book with a Michael Nielsen who seems to have a background in quantum computing based off their website https://michaelnielsen.org/
I love Andy but I dont think he is qualified to teach about quantum stuff, afaik he isn’t a researcher in this area or anything tangential.
Just pointing out that the article states he coauthored the book with a Michael Nielsen who seems to have a background in quantum computing based off their website https://michaelnielsen.org/
So the article is about "why nonfiction books don't work when read with the purpose of acquiring objectively actionable knowledge". There are lots of things books can do that do not require total...
So the article is about "why nonfiction books don't work when read with the purpose of acquiring objectively actionable knowledge". There are lots of things books can do that do not require total recall.
There wasn’t a single new idea in that entire wall of text, which I read in detail because I am deeply invested in the idea of optimizing learning. I’ll summarize: reformulating active recall...
There wasn’t a single new idea in that entire wall of text, which I read in detail because I am deeply invested in the idea of optimizing learning.
I just read that, but how much did I really absorb? In all seriousness, though, some of it resonates. I was a terrible college student until I realized lectures were actually harmful to me. I had...
I just read that, but how much did I really absorb?
In all seriousness, though, some of it resonates. I was a terrible college student until I realized lectures were actually harmful to me. I had to wake up at unpleasant hours, brave the commute to go to campus, run around to find lecture halls, then sit on uncomfortable seats while people talked at me (sometimes very badly). The investment in time and effort was massive, the returns meagre, and it took a toll on my stamina and willpower to do anything else.
I graduated into a merely mediocre college student when I stopped attending lectures entirely and (for years) did my entire degree through practical classes and projects (including group projects), exercises and tests. That worked much better.
I have encountered many non-fiction books that could have been a long blog post. Somebody had one or two ideas that are helpful or provocative, but then bulked it out with stories or filler until...
Have you ever had a book like this—one you’d read—come up in conversation, only to discover that you’d absorbed what amounts to a few sentences? I’ll be honest: it happens to me regularly.
I have encountered many non-fiction books that could have been a long blog post. Somebody had one or two ideas that are helpful or provocative, but then bulked it out with stories or filler until it reached minimum viable page count.
Certainly there are times when it is valuable to build nuance and detail if the rest ofnthe book actually does that, but so often I find the fluff not adding anything new or interesting. Usually I DNF at that point.
Edited to add this quote:
Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book -
~ Cicero, 43 BC
Despite being widely present on quotation sites, the only information I can find on that quote are discussions between people unable to find a reference for it. Considering that Cicero was one of...
Edited to add this quote:
Despite being widely present on quotation sites, the only information I can find on that quote are discussions between people unable to find a reference for it. Considering that Cicero was one of the most influential and carefully studied writers and orators in Western history, with such profound influences from his day until the present that, for example, St Jerome had visions of being accused by God of being a "follower of Cicero and not of Christ" and Engels argued he was the "most contemptible scoundrel in history", it seems likely that an inability to find reference details means the quote is fake.
Besides, Cicero's writing would have been far more pompous.
Plus he probably didn't speak English! I'm not an expert or anything but that seems pretty likely. As someone who was just using a very difficult to source quote in a presentation and finally just...
Plus he probably didn't speak English! I'm not an expert or anything but that seems pretty likely.
As someone who was just using a very difficult to source quote in a presentation and finally just gave up and called out that it was very difficult to source, I relate.
I feel like you can say this about most non-fiction books. Just going by the author's examples: The Selfish Gene? It's a useful model to think of evolution as happening on the gene level rather...
many non-fiction books that could have been a long blog post
I feel like you can say this about most non-fiction books. Just going by the author's examples: The Selfish Gene? It's a useful model to think of evolution as happening on the gene level rather than the individual or population level, here's a bunch of examples. Thinking Fast and Slow? People make decisions either with instincts/emotions or by thinking through things, here's a bunch of examples. Guns, Germs, and Steel? Differences in technological development between cultures are largely due to environmental/geographical factors, here's a bunch of examples.
Well, I enjoyed reading these books, but there's a pretty short central takeaway for all of them. It's a good idea to have a "bunch of examples" because you never know which one will resonate more with the reader, and just as a mechanism to hammer the central point in repeatedly. Animals like humans need repetition for learning.
The best fictional representation of the desired text/lecture replacement which engages metacognition effectively would be Neal Stephenson's eponymous "Young Ladies' Illustrated Primer" from the...
The best fictional representation of the desired text/lecture replacement which engages metacognition effectively would be Neal Stephenson's eponymous "Young Ladies' Illustrated Primer" from the subtitle of The Diamond Age. The device is interactive, tests and provides supplementary tutoring/experimentation in real time based on a sensory array, and is intended to form the character of the student (yes, there's creepy potential here) beyond the imparted information.
I've seen recent commentary around employing ChatGPT or other AI tools towards implementing a version of this.
The bottom line is to promote his book Quantum Country. He claims that this book or product is designed to work around the problems he highlighted in the article.
For content that is as difficult as quantum physics, he might be right that lectures and books are not the best teaching tool. He even might be right that his product does a better job.
However, for simpler, more intuitive content, I think books and lectures work just fine. A podcast or YouTube video is basically a lecture and those are very popular .
But the popularity of a method says nothing about its efficacy. In fact, there's some evidence that the inverse is true.
Efficiency for what purpose? Most nonfiction I read is purely for entertainment, adjusting my general worldview to reflect research and scientific truth, learn new ideas for self improvement. If a nonfiction book leaves me with new concepts and awareness of where to look if I want to find details, it has done it's job, especially if it was also enjoyable to read.
If I decided to become an engineer, or master a language, I would study, not read. I'm a filthy casual for most subjects, but I am still widely curious about the world and people and science
Sure, here's one. It shows that students liked passive lectures more, and self-rated them as more effective for education, but in actuality they retained less information than a lesson in which they were more engaged and challenged.
It’s more likely that they enjoy not the lecture itself, but the passive, easy experience that doesn’t require anything of them. They can take notes, they can sleep, they can goof off, they can handle attendance and skip the rest, whatever they want.
I love Andy but I dont think he is qualified to teach about quantum stuff, afaik he isn’t a researcher in this area or anything tangential.
Maybe its just to “show” the learning method he is espousing…
Just pointing out that the article states he coauthored the book with a Michael Nielsen who seems to have a background in quantum computing based off their website https://michaelnielsen.org/
Oh yeah, look at the number of citations on this bad boy: google scholar
So the article is about "why nonfiction books don't work when read with the purpose of acquiring objectively actionable knowledge". There are lots of things books can do that do not require total recall.
There wasn’t a single new idea in that entire wall of text, which I read in detail because I am deeply invested in the idea of optimizing learning.
I’ll summarize:
I just read that, but how much did I really absorb?
In all seriousness, though, some of it resonates. I was a terrible college student until I realized lectures were actually harmful to me. I had to wake up at unpleasant hours, brave the commute to go to campus, run around to find lecture halls, then sit on uncomfortable seats while people talked at me (sometimes very badly). The investment in time and effort was massive, the returns meagre, and it took a toll on my stamina and willpower to do anything else.
I graduated into a merely mediocre college student when I stopped attending lectures entirely and (for years) did my entire degree through practical classes and projects (including group projects), exercises and tests. That worked much better.
I have encountered many non-fiction books that could have been a long blog post. Somebody had one or two ideas that are helpful or provocative, but then bulked it out with stories or filler until it reached minimum viable page count.
Certainly there are times when it is valuable to build nuance and detail if the rest ofnthe book actually does that, but so often I find the fluff not adding anything new or interesting. Usually I DNF at that point.
Edited to add this quote:
Despite being widely present on quotation sites, the only information I can find on that quote are discussions between people unable to find a reference for it. Considering that Cicero was one of the most influential and carefully studied writers and orators in Western history, with such profound influences from his day until the present that, for example, St Jerome had visions of being accused by God of being a "follower of Cicero and not of Christ" and Engels argued he was the "most contemptible scoundrel in history", it seems likely that an inability to find reference details means the quote is fake.
Besides, Cicero's writing would have been far more pompous.
At the risk of taking things too far, I will answer you with another:
Plus he probably didn't speak English! I'm not an expert or anything but that seems pretty likely.
As someone who was just using a very difficult to source quote in a presentation and finally just gave up and called out that it was very difficult to source, I relate.
I feel like you can say this about most non-fiction books. Just going by the author's examples: The Selfish Gene? It's a useful model to think of evolution as happening on the gene level rather than the individual or population level, here's a bunch of examples. Thinking Fast and Slow? People make decisions either with instincts/emotions or by thinking through things, here's a bunch of examples. Guns, Germs, and Steel? Differences in technological development between cultures are largely due to environmental/geographical factors, here's a bunch of examples.
Well, I enjoyed reading these books, but there's a pretty short central takeaway for all of them. It's a good idea to have a "bunch of examples" because you never know which one will resonate more with the reader, and just as a mechanism to hammer the central point in repeatedly. Animals like humans need repetition for learning.
The best fictional representation of the desired text/lecture replacement which engages metacognition effectively would be Neal Stephenson's eponymous "Young Ladies' Illustrated Primer" from the subtitle of The Diamond Age. The device is interactive, tests and provides supplementary tutoring/experimentation in real time based on a sensory array, and is intended to form the character of the student (yes, there's creepy potential here) beyond the imparted information.
I've seen recent commentary around employing ChatGPT or other AI tools towards implementing a version of this.
A brilliant and terrifying book, though I read it before I had kids. I suspect it would hit different now.