

Deliberate Practice: How Education Fails to Produce Expertise - cwan
http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/05/04/deliberate-practice-how-education-fails-to-produce-expertise/

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jerf
Times are dark now, but I'm actually excited about what kind of education
system we'll produce when we finally tear down the 19th century one we have
now and build a 21st century one. Can you imagine what kind of 20-year-olds
would come out of a system that successfully produced deliberative practice
across a wide variety of disciplines by harnessing the power of computers
melded with the strengths of human instruction to build custom curricula for
everybody?

The country that cracks this and builds this system instead of incrementally
tweaking our 19th century system will own the rest of this century and most of
the next.

~~~
gatlin
We are already working on that in the education community - project based
learning. It has its detractors but the fundamental tenets are: 1) learning is
the product of the work of learners, 2) students learn by doing. Science
classrooms taught this way typically produce students who go on to be very
successful academically and professionally in the maths and sciences. The
secret? Integrate multiple disciplines, let students explore facets of the
subject which appeal to them, and have them work on something - with each
other (!!) - which has a tangible result or artifact. We have cracked it, and
we have peer-reviewed papers to prove it. Now we just have to get the
troglodytes in charge of public education to adopt it.

[Edit]

Some citations:

Rivet, Krajcik:"Achieving Standards in Urban Systemic Reform: An Example of a
Sixth Grade Project-Based Science Curriculum"

Hmelo-Silver et al. " Scaffolding and Achievement in Problem-Based and Inquiry
Learning: A Response to Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark (2006)"

~~~
tokenadult
_We have cracked it, and we have peer-reviewed papers to prove it._

Citations, please? (An edit to your original post rather than a new reply
would be fine.)

 _Science classrooms taught this way typically produce students who go on to
be very successful academically and professionally in the maths and sciences._

Where are some of the schools that operate this way now?

~~~
gatlin
I will find citations and put them in my original post. As for schools which
operate this way now, the New Tech Network (<http://www.newtechnetwork.org/>)
of schools operate this way. I can speak most specifically for Manor New Tech
HS in Manor, Texas, as it is the most accessible to me.

I also know that LASA in Austin ISD has a number of classes taught this way
though they do not have any sort of project-based "ideology" that they follow
across the board like New Tech schools.

~~~
paulitex
you should put contact info in your HN profile page! I would love to follow up
with you privately on this.

~~~
aik
Paul, could you explain here or through a private e-mail what your company
Matygo is doing and how it is a catalyst? The tagline on the blog is a tease
:).

~~~
paulitex
I rewrote the tagline earlier today, I'll take that as positive feedback. :)

A catalyst speeds up a reaction, sometimes essentially so. The coming
education revolution is going to be much larger than any single organization
but we think we can help bring it about a little bit quicker. Sal Khan is
definitely a catalyst in this respect.

We do this through two complimentary features sets:

1) Learning about learning. These are tools to track student progress, judge
the effectiveness of different techniques, etc... Think an education
effectiveness dashboard. By providing high-quality information we can shorten
and improve the feedback loop by better understanding what works and what
doesn't.

2) Online learning delivery. As a starting point, think an LMS like
Instructure/Moodle/Blackboard, etc... but designed to work with the previous
point - try new things and measure. The key here is enabling teacher
creativity. It's all well and fine for us to implement and measure new tools
in house but that's not fast enough (and gives us no particular advantage).
The Instructors on our system need to be able to easily implement their own
thoughts on how to improve teaching (and then see the results). They are much
smarter than we will ever be about this. We need our instructors to see this
'LMS' as their playground for teaching experimentation. And, of course, when
one of them makes a breakthrough they will share it and everyone will be
better off.

Innovation is experimentation that results in an improvement. We help teachers
experiment and judge the success of their experiments, shortening the feedback
loop and increasing the rate of innovation. This is what we mean by "be a
catalyst".

~~~
aik
Very interesting. Anything having to do with disrupting the current model
excites me to no end.

Have a few more questions if you don't mind:

1\. What's your motivation for doing this?

2\. Is there a particular level of education (or type of subject) you're
targeting? Would you find the product more geared towards being effective in
some subjects than others, or generic enough for any?

3\. Is UBC somehow part of this project?

4\. Could I play with it (I'm in no way affiliated with UBC)?

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Tibbes
From the article:

 _Those problem-set hours total almost a whole other working week laid on top
of the other academic tasks of attending lectures and reading notes. In
college as in grade school, where is the time for deliberate practice?_

I can't help but think that this is a case of not seeing the wood for the
trees. In a good university problem-sets obey most of the requirements of
deliberate practice: they are designed, there is repetition, they are mentally
demanding, and they gradually get harder so that you are working at the edge
of your abilities.

The remaining requirements of deliberate practice are to do with meta-
cognition - i.e. thinking about what you are doing - and that is down to you.

It reminds me of stories my mum (who's a teacher) tells about pupils
complaining that they had no time for revision because of the practice exams
she set. I mean, what do they think revision is?

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jochu
Sanjoy Mahajan, the author of this article, is the Associate Director at the
Teaching and Learning Laboratory @ MIT. If you're interested in education, he
has an excellent OCW course [1] where you can hear more about his techniques
for teaching.

[1] [http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/chemistry/5-95j-teaching-
college-...](http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/chemistry/5-95j-teaching-college-
level-science-and-engineering-spring-2009/video-discussions/)

~~~
huherto
There it goes the rest of my week :-(

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hasenj
I find that programming courses tend to force deliberate practice. Think about
first year CS course: you're taught about loops and if statements, then you're
asked to write a program. There's no direct connection between the material
and the assignments: you have to think and practice and fail.

This is one of the reasons perhaps for why so many people quit computer
science after the first year. So many people in my family expressed their
frustration at programming assignments (none of them took more than one or two
courses).

~~~
MaxGabriel
This is actually exactly the reason I love my CS courses as opposed to, say,
trig

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michael_michael
Is there any information about what constitutes deliberate practice in math?
Clearly the article takes serious umbrage with problem sets.

~~~
Splines
I feel like I'm in the minority here but rote practice has a role, just like
playing scales or dribbling a basketball does. It lets you ingrain into your
muscle memory the foundation-level skills. Once you're able to multiply
arbitrary two digit numbers in your head or dribble a ball without really
thinking about it, it frees you for when you're thinking about higher level
problems.

~~~
GaryOlson
Many of us won't disagree with the need for building skills thru standard
exercises. But, when the maximum efficiency/minimum-personal-commitment
bureaucrats have too much input, risk based learning is replaced with no-
personal-risk rote learning for all education -- with the obvious failure to
society.

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wnoise
The Gutenberg method linked to in that article is a fantastic read:
<http://entropysite.oxy.edu/morrison.html>

~~~
wnoise
And it's been submitted, with comments here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2515044>

