Hey,<\/p>\n
Are you learning to pass tests or truly understand?<\/p>\n
Imagine two students: Billy and Jill.<\/p>\n
Billy wants to pass his calculus test, so he dutifully memorizes the
\nformulas and does the practice problems.<\/p>\n
Jill also wants to pass, but is more interested in understanding
\ncalculus. She believes it can be interesting, even useful. But,
\nonly if she invests time to gather a deep understanding.<\/p>\n
She doesn’t just look at the formulas, but where they originated,
\nhow they are used. She tries to apply the ideas to other problems,
\nand sees if she can create questions she can answer with the new
\nmathematical techniques.<\/p>\n
The day of the exam comes and a large chunk of the mark comes from
\na word problem, phrased in a way that neither Billy or Jill have
\never seen before.<\/p>\n
Who do you think will get the best grade?<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
Concepts Before Facts<\/p>\n
One piece of advice I try to give students is to emphasize getting
\nthe “big” ideas before trying to memorize all the details. There are
\nessentially two reasons for this:<\/p>\n
1. Teachers care more about the big ideas, than the details.
\n2. With the big ideas, the little details are easier to remember.<\/p>\n
I frequently get emails from students who claim that their mean
\nprofessor is forcing them to memorize all these useless facts for
\na particular exam.<\/p>\n
While there are exceptions, I’ve found that this is almost NEVER the
\ncase. I’ve even taken classes where we were expected to memorize
\narticle numbers for law documents and although it seemed
\nmemorization heavy, the majority of testing still focused on whether
\nthe students understood the broader concepts involved.<\/p>\n
Details do matter. If you don’t know the periodic table elements, or
\nwhich events happened before others, you won’t get good marks.<\/p>\n
However the beauty of holistic learning is that it makes learning
\nthe details easier.<\/p>\n
Once you invest in truly grokking the hard concepts, then it is
\neasier to remember the details because they FIT within that picture.<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
Please join us in the forums to post your trials and ask questions:<\/p>\n