Chapter 4 - Learning, Fast and Slow
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The First Book: Range by David Epstein
David Epstein examined the world’s most successful athletes, artists, musicians, inventors, forecasters, and scientists. He discovered that in most fields—especially those that are complex and unpredictable—generalists, not specialists, are primed to excel. Generalists often find their path late, and they juggle many interests rather than focusing on one. They’re also more creative, more agile, and able to make connections their more specialized peers can’t see.
Who should read this?
All books have a thesis they attempt to answer, and Range's subtitle gives away the thesis right on the cover!
Why generalists succeed in a specialized world?
If the quote," jack of all trades, master of none." resonates with you, this book will fascinate you. Or if you are a curious person might berate themselves having too many interests. The book is about being broadly curious to solve problems more effectively.
If you missed the previous chapters you can find them here:
Chapter 1 - The Cult of the Headstart
If you would like a PDF of all chapters in one document you can find it here!
Chapter 4 - Learning Fast and Slow
Making-Connection Questions
Types of questions in school
Using procedure - Practicing something that was just learned. The most straightforward example is how much of learning math. The teacher walks us through various examples and then gives practice problems through the same method.
Making connections - These problems aim at teaching a broader concept, getting to a student to articulate why a particular procedure gets the answer it does.
The difference in teaching method emerged with how teachers reacted after asking connection questions. The most common behavior for teachers was to morph connection questions into procedure questions. We've all seen this in our own experience. As soon as a class begins to struggle, the teacher will prod the class and provide hits to the correct answer. Recalling Jack Cecchini, maybe you could show someone something that you've learned, but does that mean they will understand what it is that you showed them?
Bansho Teaching Method - This teaching method, started in Japan and in doing further research, has expanded to parts of Canada. The main components of this method incorporate a more dynamic learning process. Rather than seeking the right answers, it encourages a process of learning, allowing students to participate on the blackboard. Sometimes classes would have the entire board covered with dead ends and all included. This style allows students to see a system when thinking through a problem rather than memorizing the correct answer or procedure.
Hypercorrection is the higher likelihood of correcting a general knowledge error when initially confident that the information they understand is accurate instead of unsure. The phenomenon suggests that once someone confidently misremembers a piece of available knowledge information and learns the correct version after their initial response is corrected, their likelihood of remembering this piece of data will be higher than someone unsure of their initial answer. It refers to the finding that when given corrective feedback, errors that are committed with high confidence are easier to correct than low confidence errors.
Struggle and Spacing
The struggle is key to the learning process. During tests, studies show that students performed better after taking a practice test even when the answers were wrong on the practice test. In trying to find research on this topic, I was able to find some information under the term productive struggle.
The next aspect is spacing - simply put the time between practice sessions. In education terms, this is also known as distributed practice. Trying to find anything concrete on how much spacing between sessions is problematic because it depends on the learner. The best way to implement is when something feels easy, don't practice for longer. Try again on the last day and see how well you do. This will prove how well it's sinking in.
Interleaving
Interleaving is also known as mixed practice, rather than practicing in one fixed setting, applying a skill in varied conditions. By learning concepts with different examples to draw upon, we can better make abstract generalizations of material to learn in the process, becoming less formulaic in our thinking.
For more on this, check out The Interleaving Effect: Mixing It Up Boosts Learning from the Scientific American.
Learning deeply takes time to understand if someone is excelling, testing early, and often is not proof. Instead, it is masqueraded memorization only to data dumped quickly for the round of tests, or so our modern education system is set up.
What we should aim for is a knowledge structure that is called far transfer. As the environments, we live and work in continue to adapt in evolving, so must our ability to apply what we learn.
