Still reading, but I certainly got off the bus a bit with this paragraph (which seems largely false to me).
Let’s begin by looking at textbooks in practice. It’s striking that academic courses are often structured around textbooks, but lots of people spend the extra time and money to enroll in those courses—rather than just studying the textbooks independently. Indeed, I suspect that textbooks are mostly purchased for course syllabi, not for self-study. Sure: some people take courses because they want a credential. But plenty of students genuinely feel they’ll learn more by taking courses than they would by studying those courses’ textbooks. Assuming students’ feelings aren’t completely misplaced, courses must be offering something extra that’s important to how people learn.
Courses seem to provide people a way to motivate themselves to study that most people wouldn’t have in the same way for reading a textbook (even when in the LW space there are more people who like reading textbooks).
Still reading, but I certainly got off the bus a bit with this paragraph (which seems largely false to me).
Courses seem to provide people a way to motivate themselves to study that most people wouldn’t have in the same way for reading a textbook (even when in the LW space there are more people who like reading textbooks).