doing the real thing<\/a>.<\/p>\nTo recap my position: Most learning occurs by doing the thing you want to get good at. Skills are narrower than people think, and transfer is tricky. Practicing the real activity in real projects, real jobs, or for real results is more effective than many substitute or purely preparatory efforts.<\/p>\n
The applications of this idea are broad-ranging. Some examples of doing the real thing include:<\/p>\n
\n- Taking on projects at work outside your current abilities to advance your career.<\/li>\n
- Pairing study with real-world use through co-op and apprenticeship programs in school.<\/li>\n
- Focus on training what you want to be good at, rather than doing an unrelated activity for the purpose of strengthening mental \u201cmuscles.\u201d (e.g. Brain training doesn\u2019t work. Learning programming doesn\u2019t make you a more \u201clogical\u201d thinker. Bilingualism doesn\u2019t make you generally smarter.)<\/li>\n
- Speaking a language instead of tapping through exercises in DuoLingo.<\/li>\n
- Practicing mindfulness in daily life rather than only in seated meditation.<\/li>\n
- Doing homework problems instead of just watching lectures.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Here, I\u2019ll be focusing on arguments drawn from cognitive science, instead of practical concerns like convenience or cost. Not because practical considerations don\u2019t matter, but because they\u2019re more apparent. The idea that doing the real thing is harder is obvious; subtle contradictions from a research paper nobody has read are easier to sweep under the rug.<\/p>\n
So let\u2019s look under the rug and see what the best arguments I\u2019ve heard against this view are:<\/p>\n
1. Discovery Learning Doesn\u2019t Work Very Well<\/h3>\n\n
Listen to this article<\/small>
\n