This post made me realize just how important it is to completely integrate the new things you learn.
I have been reading a lot of books and blogs on the subject of students that finish school with honors, but don’t seem to work very hard while doing so. I also met one of those people in person (he finished an entire 4 year curriculum with honors in just 3 months and is now a professor of that content)
It all boils to the same thing: Whatever the textbook is trying to tell you, make sure you integrate that in your life. Only then will you see if you really understood what it was saying and if you are missing any extra information, or if the information in the book is wrong. Once integrated you do not need any extra studying to get an A/10 for the exam.(because you will have recursively updated all your beliefs to include the thing you where supposed to learn)
Some of these books and blogs go into detail on how to how to do this.
One of the methods i read was making a doodle of the idea in your notebook. This doodle borrows heavily from your current state of knowledge.
An example of what I did:
To model the process of taking a raw resource and making it into a profitable end product i drew a mine with rocks coming out, then a table with a chisel on the rock and finally a diamond with a price-tag. I know how diamonds are made so i could use that to represent this process.
EDIT: I’m having a hard time explaining what i am trying to say, i will post a new comment or top level post if i manage to figure it out. Basically I’m trying to say that there already well working and documented methods for connecting and updating beliefs in the world of outlier student research.
I am one such person. I finished college at the age of 16, and I knew I was merely very good at guessing the teacher’s password. People’s remarks about my intelligence were dismissed by me internally, because I was aware of my own ignorance.
However, what you say can be difficult to apply in practice during a semester. I see formal education as a method for gathering data, which you can use for Bayesian propagation after the fact. This is why it can feel like you learn much more thinking between semesters, rather than during.
Your notion of necessity of integration is uncorrelated to outlier students. Given an outlier student, I would be surprised if active integration of textbook data was lower than given a non-outlier student. In both cases this conditional probability is, sadly, very small.
I too am very good at guessing the teachers password in addition to really learning the textbook contents. I am talking specifically about those students that do not use guessing the teacher’s password as a way to finish with honors. I always do the propagation during the learning itself and improve upon it after the fact (i’ll suddenly realize that something is off or changed days later)
I said i had a hard time explaining it and your comment makes extra clear that i failed. I will use your feedback to improve the text i have in mind.
EDIT: I’m having a hard time explaining what i am trying to say, i will post a new comment or top level post if i manage to figure it out. Basically I’m trying to say that there already well working and documented methods for connecting and updating beliefs in the world of outlier student research.
I have stumbled on links to his books and blogs, many on the IRC channel where rather sceptical of the usefulness of his advice. My own prior was rather low.
Nevertheless I would very like LWers to share their impressions on this, since there is something there that looks almost like it could work.
This post made me realize just how important it is to completely integrate the new things you learn.
I have been reading a lot of books and blogs on the subject of students that finish school with honors, but don’t seem to work very hard while doing so. I also met one of those people in person (he finished an entire 4 year curriculum with honors in just 3 months and is now a professor of that content)
It all boils to the same thing: Whatever the textbook is trying to tell you, make sure you integrate that in your life. Only then will you see if you really understood what it was saying and if you are missing any extra information, or if the information in the book is wrong. Once integrated you do not need any extra studying to get an A/10 for the exam.(because you will have recursively updated all your beliefs to include the thing you where supposed to learn)
Some of these books and blogs go into detail on how to how to do this. One of the methods i read was making a doodle of the idea in your notebook. This doodle borrows heavily from your current state of knowledge. An example of what I did: To model the process of taking a raw resource and making it into a profitable end product i drew a mine with rocks coming out, then a table with a chisel on the rock and finally a diamond with a price-tag. I know how diamonds are made so i could use that to represent this process.
There are many more methods, another that i have not yet tried to use is basically making a flashcard.: Question/Evidence/Conclusion http://calnewport.com/blog/2009/04/06/4-weeks-to-a-40-streamline-your-notes/
EDIT: I’m having a hard time explaining what i am trying to say, i will post a new comment or top level post if i manage to figure it out. Basically I’m trying to say that there already well working and documented methods for connecting and updating beliefs in the world of outlier student research.
I am one such person. I finished college at the age of 16, and I knew I was merely very good at guessing the teacher’s password. People’s remarks about my intelligence were dismissed by me internally, because I was aware of my own ignorance.
However, what you say can be difficult to apply in practice during a semester. I see formal education as a method for gathering data, which you can use for Bayesian propagation after the fact. This is why it can feel like you learn much more thinking between semesters, rather than during.
Your notion of necessity of integration is uncorrelated to outlier students. Given an outlier student, I would be surprised if active integration of textbook data was lower than given a non-outlier student. In both cases this conditional probability is, sadly, very small.
I too am very good at guessing the teachers password in addition to really learning the textbook contents. I am talking specifically about those students that do not use guessing the teacher’s password as a way to finish with honors. I always do the propagation during the learning itself and improve upon it after the fact (i’ll suddenly realize that something is off or changed days later)
I said i had a hard time explaining it and your comment makes extra clear that i failed. I will use your feedback to improve the text i have in mind.
I would find such a post very useful.
This video tries to explain what i mean, i hope the inferential distance is not too far
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1F3vmNeyOvU
I have stumbled on links to his books and blogs, many on the IRC channel where rather sceptical of the usefulness of his advice. My own prior was rather low.
Nevertheless I would very like LWers to share their impressions on this, since there is something there that looks almost like it could work.
I would also be interested and upvoted both this post and the parent for encouragement.
I found a video that explains what i mean at a very basic level http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1F3vmNeyOvU