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MattG comments on Open thread, 23-29 June 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Awhile ago on my blog I broke the process down into three steps that seem to work for me:
Empty your head -Write down distracting thoughts, make important decisions, etc.
Focus your thoughts -Minimize distractions, relaxation techniques, etc.
Engage Your Action Mind -Use triggers, exercise, or a shock to your system.
Seems to work well for me but YMMV.
On an unrelated note it se,ems flow is actually the great state for peak performance, but it turns out to be a poor ideal for learning because it's antithetical to interleaved practice.
Would "because it's insufficiently challenging" be at least as good an explanation?
Only if had a control where I tried to make things harder without using interleaved practice. I haven't done that, I have less reason to suspect that simply making learning harder would make you learn better.
All right. The thing is, I don't see how "flow is antithetical to interleaved practice" leads to "flow is a poor ideal for learning", so for me, the sentence "flow is a poor ideal for learning because flow is antithetical to interleaved practice" doesn't make sense.
Actually, I also don't see how flow is antithetical to interleaved practice. The article you linked to says that the "Mixers" (who used interleaved practice) were more successful than the "Blockers", but it doesn't seem to give much of a reason to think that the Blockers were in a state of flow and the Mixers were not.
I'm not sure if it's been studied specifically, so all I can say is that interleaved practice tends to frustrate me, whereas block practice tends to get me into a rhythm which leads to flow. I'm unsure if this generalizes to others, is placebo, or is confounded by other factors.
Source?
I don't find this to be true for me. Assuming that I'm in more or less flow state when I'm studying, that doesn't stop me from switching to a different subject after a while. As long as you plan ahead how you want to interleave your learning, I can't see how flow would be an issue.
Source is here: http://j2jenkins.com/2013/04/29/interleaved-practice-a-secret-enhanced-learning-technique/
It follows from the study he links, which says that interleaving causes students to do worse during the practice session, but better during the actual test. This seems to imply one of his conclusions, which is that you should avoid flow.
Also, it seems you may misunderstand interleaved practice (or maybe I do?). From my understanding, you should be switching skills every practice question. Your use of the phrase "after a while" seems to suggest that you're doing block practice with smaller blocks, but not getting the full benefits of maximum interleaving.
I just looked over the discussion of interleaving in chapter 3 of Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning (really excellent book by the way - HT to zedzed for the recommendation). The authors describe interleaved practice as switching to a different topic before each practice is complete (pg. 65). That doesn't mean switching every practice question, as you say, but rather practicing one skill just a few times, then switching to a different skill (pg. 50).
Also, you can achieve flow (from my understanding) while still switching between subjects / skills / techniques within an overall subject. Let's say you're practicing baseball. You might practice batting, then catching, then throwing. I don't think you lose flow when switching from one to the other, as long as you keep practicing baseball.
My comment earlier assumed that interleaving also requires switching overall subjects every once in a while. But now that I look over the chapter, I don't see that mentioned at all. So maybe you don't even need that.
It's possible, perhaps just not for me or the person who wrote the article.
Can you link me to the blog post?
Here's the post, blog has since been deleted so had to find it on the wayback machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20110227181131/http://lifeofmatt.net/blog/2009/03/being-in-the-moment-without-all-the-bullshit/
You'll notice that steps 2 and 3 have been reversed above. This is because i found the process to be easier if I first focus, then take action, rather than vice versa.