
Do "interesting details" really hurt learning? - sant0sk1
http://www.slash7.com/articles/2009/1/3/do-interesting-details-really-hurt-learning
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rp
I recommend the original post and related comments over the link provided
above:

[http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/12/against-interesting-
pr...](http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/12/against-interesting-
presentations.html)

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russell
Hard to tell if there is anything meaningful in the study. Like most
psychological studies it used students as subjects. I am not surprised that
the only thing they could remember was the remark about sex. Quite likely the
"meat" wasn't anything of particular interest. Contrast that with a lecture to
professional programmers on Hadoop. An OT story or remark would be just an ice
breaker and not the main take-away.

Take-away here: psychological studies on students tell you something about
students, not necessarily about the rest of us.

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rp
The counter-argument is as follows: what better subject group for a study
about learning than a group immersed in learning activity (i.e., students)?

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ahoyhere
rp, in theory, that makes sense. But I think there's a category error possibly
at work. Hung out with many average (read: normal) college kids lately? :)

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yan
I am starting a project that is pinned to present information that is based on
the opposite philosophy: The goal isn't to properly summarize data to appeal
to students, but to offer as much details as possible and let the 'consumer'
of information to choose how they navigate it.

There are some questions that are representative of a science that can be
presented in such a fashion and properly presenting details can be the closing
of the gap between "getting it" and "not getting it."

This is both content and content presentation and I'm still chewing over the
details. This is mostly based on how some people I've spoken to and myself
learn and is inspired by writings/philosophy of data presentation from Tufte.

If anyone is interested in joining the effort or hearing me out, contact me. I
feel fairly strongly on the topic.

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parenthesis
Anecdotally: at university I observed that my fellow students tended to prefer
philosophy lecturers who told interesting little stories, jokes and asides.
But whilst entertaining at the time, I always preferred the lecturers who just
got down to the arguments etc., because they provided a constant stream of
substantive points and arguments for me to write in my notes. And getting
relevant material written down is actually useful for learning and getting
good grades, whereas thinking 'what a caution that lecturer is', and expanding
one's repertoire of philosophy jokes and anecdotes isn't.

On the other hand, I did have a couple of maths lecturers who managed to
combine getting down to the nitty-gritty with some effective crowd-pleasing
moments, which afforded one a break from concentrating for a moment.

So, for my part, I would tend to agree that if helping people learn is the
goal, tangential 'interesting details' should be minimised.

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ahoyhere
I don't agree with your unstated assumption that "interesting details" must
necessarily be off-topic.

Of course, I still have a little collection of quotes from my old Photographic
Design professor, including, among others, "That's why it pays to know your
guano" and "There are as many types of breast as there are types of women."
Useless bugger.

But as a writer and a speaker, I am always trying to take the basic facts and
make them more interesting, more palatable, & more immediate by spicing them
up -- with diagrams, pictures, good metaphors, whatever. Done right, these are
both on-topic and helpful.

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DaniFong
In my experience, it's often the interesting, flagrantly off-topic details
that are remembered, and help me later on. Human beings are _wired_ to
remember the surprising, and I don't seem to be much different in this regard.

The absorption of material isn't really what I get from a lecture. Rather,
like the taper in a train's wheels, I use it to gently pull my experimental
wandering thought on track.

