Notes from /Strengthening the Student Toolbox/
- authors
- Dunlosky, J.
- url
- https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Strengthening-the-Student-Toolbox-s-t-udy-s-tr-to-Dunlosky/3bcb9ab46b6efd80fc3a016860ff2cc9a8649663
Practice testing
Epistemic status: works really well. Works really well.
Structure notes to generate practice tests on the side really easily.
Flashcards are good for this. So is leaving space, like wide margins or the backs of papers, to make up questions.
Prompting recall is better than multiple-choice.
Schedule review sessions, and use these for test-answering instead of rereading.
Distributed practice
Epistemic status: established awesome. Hour for hour, distributing practice over days or weeks is better.
Massed practice leads to false gains. Distribution is better for retention.
Massed practice feels better, but distributed practice sticks better.
Cumulative testing, because that forces repetition.
Study planner; schedule brief review sessions. Use them for test-answering.
Interleaved practice
Epistemic status: Promising.
Mix up the problem types.
Pay switching costs to improve switching times
Pay problem type identification costs, because identifying problem types is hard and practicing it makes you better at it
Doesn't seem to work for everything - not French verbs or comma rules, for instance. But worth trying anyway, since it's cheap and sometimes very effective.
A natural consequence of spaced repetition. Pumps against compartmentalizing.
Elaborative interrogation and self explanation
Epistemic status: mixed, awaiting further study; anecdotally strong, preliminary results strong
Elaborative interrogation: Explain why the new fact is true.
Benefits understanding and retention, even when not entirely right.
This is wacky as fuck, but I can think of reasons why it's true. (Ironic?)
Reasons why it's true:
Connecting up the concept to the existing map is like getting it on the grid. It's less likely to die/fall off, because it's tightly coupled with an already-useful pattern.
Placing the concept in context highlights misunderstandings/important implications fast.
This is the babble step, and iit invites the prune step. Babble and Prune - LessWrong
You're only ever explaining your own perceptions. Getting practice with that is building PCK.
Argument form authority: Given that a resource has told you a fact, it's worth trusting the fact as well as you trust the resource.
Of course, this needs to backpropagate - if the fact is untrustgworthy, the resource should be less trustworthy.
Getting into the habit of explaining the truth of things seems like a dangerous choice. It needs to be kept in mind at the very least, that the authority is trustworthy.
treating truth as non-exclusive-middle - a thing told to you is possibly true, because no contradiction has been found yet - seems like a decent way to go about trusting a thing that might later be overturned.
It might be wise to attempt to do the opposite very once in a while, as an exercise in hypothesis-generating and to keep one's credence limber.
"Why do I think something is true?" is a question that breaks a statement down to its cruxes This makes belief-failure more graceful and helps it hug reality better. See ProofsRefutations.
Good calibration doesn't arise from featureless beliefs.
Aversion to this is part of the arms race that gets built on top of Gendlin error. Sticking to something now, and tying it to its foundations, is scary if the thing you're tying down can become necessary.
It is not safe to believe.
This is a tragedy, should you define tragedy by the pain that cannot be healed.
You do it anyway.
This is semiotics.
Self explanation gives you the joy of returning to things.
Rereading and highlighting
Epistemic status: well damn established, across a variety of learner profiles. Apparently fairly useless for retention, inference. Well disconfirmed.
I like rereading sometimes, I don't highlight. THis is like, kay.
Summarizing
Epistemic status: one study mentioned. consensus, litrev??? Useful, but requires extensive training in summarization.
I...note-take? This seems adequately akin to summarizing.
Maybe look into how-to-summarize at one point.
Keyword mnemonic and imagery for text
Epistemic status: Dunno. One study is mentioned. Short-term gains, not widely applicable.