Owen_Richardson comments on What Direct Instruction is - Less Wrong

49 [deleted] 04 September 2011 11:03PM

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Comment author: Owen_Richardson 05 September 2011 05:19:59AM *  0 points [-]

Or the 2-4-6 game 'reversed', yes. Before Misha's post, I was actually going to try and straighten out the confusion over "logically faultless communication" by showing how it would apply to the 2-4-6 game 'reversed' as an example. I might still, depending.

Although the thing is that I'd say the best way to communicate something like '2-4-6' isn't as one of the simpler concepts in the hierarchy, but as a 'cognitive routine', which is made of a chain (possibly branching) of various simpler concepts that have already been taught.

As Misha said:

For instance, teaching integration by substitution might first involve a simple sequence of examples about identifying when the method is appropriate, then a sequence about choosing the correct substitution, before actually teaching students to solve an integration problem using the method.

(Which doesn't even get into the hidden complexity of all parts 'black boxed' together in the sentence as assumed already taught)

Of course it is easier to explain "logically faultless communication" by showing how it applies to more basic concepts, than to complex concepts that are made up of many of those basic concepts connected together.

The problem is that when you just show the very basic concepts as the AthabascaU module on DI does, people say stuff like this:

And, more generally, all examples given may be used for teaching categorization of objects. How do you teach algorithms (such as multiplication)? How do you teach history and geography? How do you teach calculus? How do you teach scientific method? Not every knowledge can be reduced to questions of form "does X have property Y" taught by presenting series of objects which either are or aren't Y. In the whole presentation there was not a single practically applicable example. Children don't need to go to school to learn what "is longer than" or "not horizontally aligned" means.

(Prase, in comment on first DI post.)

I anticipated this, and had tried to avoid it by injecting a little excitement, like: 'Hey y'all, here's something extremely valuable but complex and non-obvious. It will seem confusing and/or trivial at first, but it really is valuable!'

And in actual fact, looking back, that probably did help, because I got plenty of people going, 'What the hell are you talking about? Give us some meat!' rather than just, 'Huh. Whatever.'

I'm sure there was a much better way possible of achieving the same goal, but what were the chances of me ever finding it without any feedback on actual attempts?

Comment author: gwern 05 September 2011 02:38:22PM 2 points [-]

And in actual fact, looking back, that probably did help, because I got plenty of people going, 'What the hell are you talking about? Give us some meat!' rather than just, 'Huh. Whatever.'

I'm sure there was a much better way possible of achieving the same goal, but what were the chances of me ever finding it without any feedback on actual attempts?

Editors. You are not the first person I've seen who could really use an editor on their material.

Comment author: Owen_Richardson 05 September 2011 05:49:02PM *  2 points [-]

Editors are feedback. The only place I was gonna find suitable editors was LW. Rather than PMing people, I posted it to the section called "discussion".

For heaven's sake, what else was I supposed to do?! :P

Comment author: gwern 05 September 2011 05:58:48PM *  1 point [-]

Editors are feedback.

A very specific kind of feedback, with understood social roles and norms of interaction; it is a 'kind' of person, which you can solicit for. If you cannot think how else to do it because PMing random LWers (a perfectly valid way! Just ask politely and take no for an answer.), there are many other ways. Just off the top of my head:

  • Fanfiction has an ancient tradition of 'beta' readers, and well-developed mechanisms for soliciting beta readers.
  • General and literary writers have an even more ancient tradition of workshops and reviewing, which has migrated online; I seriously considered submitting my own material to one of the most active online editing communities, Critters Workshop.
  • University students (aren't you one?) have free access to their fellow students (I helped out one such friend extensively with his writing), and more importantly, they have unlimited access to 'writing centers' or other such establishments on campus, whose job is helping students out with editing and reviewing their reports, essays, etc. (I've talked to a few people who work in them; they complain about how few students ever turn to them. The ESL students sometimes make heavy use of them, but no one else.)

And this isn't even thinking outside the box a little; for example, I bet you could find plenty of editors/reviewers if you posted a Bitcoin advertisement.

(Also, little in your original post was LW-specific. Any intelligent college grad, for example, could offer good feedback on that. It's not like you were discussing the finer details of UDT or something.)

Comment author: Owen_Richardson 05 September 2011 06:14:08PM *  0 points [-]

No, I'm on a full time internship as an elementary teacher. The theory I'm studying by myself.

I'm surrounded by people who know how to deliver DI programs, how to do superb classroom management, etc, but not by anyone who could read Theory of Instruction in one weekend and write a report on it (How many posts of lorem ipsum would Misha have to make for me to upvote for the karma system to accurately reflect the props he deserves :P).

But yeah, "Just Try It", right?

And it's the LW community that I have a strong emotional desire to get involved in, and the eventual intended audience anyway.

Comment author: gwern 05 September 2011 06:45:34PM 0 points [-]

But yeah, "Just Try It", right?

I'm not sure that advice is very good when the consequences of failure apparently made you contemplate suicide.

And when your post is sufficiently bad that a single editor could have diagnosed most of the problems, it's a little contemptuous of peoples' time to - in effect - run it simultaneously past dozens/hundreds of editors.

Comment author: [deleted] 05 September 2011 06:58:43PM 3 points [-]

You know, it's also possible to learn a totally different lesson here: We should be gentle with people, because they are often much more vulnerable than we assume. I would argue that this lesson is much more generally applicable than "Be more scared of failure."

Comment author: gwern 05 September 2011 07:02:35PM 3 points [-]

It's far easier to get the person with vivid memories of contemplating suicide to be more cautious than to get everyone in general to be more gentle.

Comment author: [deleted] 05 September 2011 07:21:48PM 1 point [-]

Well, that's certainly a good point, but I wasn't talking to everyone in general, either.

Comment author: Owen_Richardson 05 September 2011 07:38:59PM 0 points [-]

Please see "I wasn't contemplating suicide per se". I knew in advance that I would decide to keep fighting, as I always do. It is actually a technique I use to cheer myself up, rather like being underwater, and dipping down just a bit so that you can kick off the ground in order to spring back to the surface.

Comment author: Owen_Richardson 05 September 2011 07:36:04PM 0 points [-]

I certainly know I'm very careful thanks to my own experiences to avoid causing unnecessary pain to others, and in fact to try very hard to make people happier.

But I am not fragile. I hurt, but I never break.

I thanked people for their harsh criticism, remember.

Comment author: Owen_Richardson 05 September 2011 07:28:26PM *  2 points [-]

I wasn't contemplating suicide per se, I was just wondering seriously whether the reason I wasn't was essentially a form of akrasia.

And I have major past issues. I have an intellectual belief that I will one day be able to share true mutual understanding, love, and trust with other people. Relationships that make life worthwhile.

However, due to some traumatic experiences with people I thought I had that with just completely disappearing, even though I can see in retrospect how to discriminate such unreliable people from the real deal, it takes a lot of mental pumping for me to keep up the corresponding emotional belief.

LessWrong is my HOPE. A community that makes me feel that I could expect to find that understanding, love, and trust.

So I certainly wasn't being "contemptuous of peoples' time" on purpose, and given that my original post had 20 upvotes at one time, I don't think the community feels that way either.

If you understand where I'm coming from now and have changed your mind that I did make the right choice, please tell me that.

Comment author: gwern 05 September 2011 07:43:57PM 2 points [-]

So I certainly wasn't being "contemptuous of peoples' time" on purpose, and given that my original post had 20 upvotes at one time, I don't think the community feels that way either.

I stand by my comments; DI is interesting enough that even a badly written post is still a net benefit which could get 20 net votes. However, it would have been much better all around - for you and the readers both - if you had gotten someone to edit it, in any of the 3 or 5 ways I've outlined. There's no reason a well-done DI article couldn't be promoted to the main page, eg.

(In a related issue, I am also bothered that you apparently could not think of any way to get editors. You should work on that.)

Comment author: Owen_Richardson 05 September 2011 07:55:34PM 3 points [-]

I... this is one of those issues that if I am in the wrong, I will have to take a break and apply some more intense techniques for getting around my own defensiveness than I usually need to use.

But I really honestly feel no "small note of discord" in my mind that should make me expect to find that I am wrong.

At any rate, since it's over and done with now, what say the both of us just put the issue far in the back of our minds to allow any potentially useful new thoughts to crystallize by themselves, and refocus our attention on the future of what we need to write about DI?

Comment author: gwern 05 September 2011 08:31:30PM 2 points [-]

But I really honestly feel no "small note of discord" in my mind that should make me expect to find that I am wrong.

So you don't care that most of the reaction to your article was about how it was written? You don't care about how much time you've spent discussing it with me alone? (Or how much time I've spent, hoping that future material will be better?) You don't care about how much the impact was muted because of all that? You don't care about what you've learned about the value of clear writing? You don't care about building a reputation as a guy who knows about something interesting but can't write for beans? You don't care about your apparent ignorance of editing done either by yourself or another, or how to get it, or that you were ignorant of being ignorant, or that you might be generally miscalibrated about your competence? You don't care about sending the message that you don't care about all the foregoing?

I'm not asking for a large note of discord, but I definitely think there should be a small note there somewhere.

refocus our attention on the future of what we need to write about DI?

I'd rather discuss you. DI is just one topic, and hopefully just the first of many topics you might discuss here. Someone else will sooner or later pick up the DI baton, but if you ignore any lessons to be learned here, when will you learn them? Sooner would be better than later.