An observation on homework problems

[tggzzz]

at school exams i memorised 10 pages of programs that likely to be asked,
i passed the exams knowing nothing about programming.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a perfect way to get ACTUALLY a degree without knowing anything.

No offence towards you obviously, happy you found something you like 

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why some institutions and degrees are more valued than others.

Maybe in the UK, but I have never seen people bothering about it.
As long as you have a Master of Bachelor of Engineering/Science people believe and assume you have some knowledge.

People have always wanted to know where you got your degree in some countries, like the US. There was a time when people in the UK didn't focus much on where you got your degree. They were mostly interested in whether you got a 1st, upper 2nd, etc. Now people do want to know where you studied in the UK. Anyone that didn't attend a Russell Group university (a group of about 40 old and trusted universities) is treated with great skepticism.

Yes, but the degree (ho ho) of skepticism should depend on the job.

You need to match the candidate to the job; there's no point in employing a technician as an engineer or vice versa. Ditto practical skills / theory skills.

[tggzzz]

People have always wanted to know where you got your degree in some countries, like the US. There was a time when people in the UK didn't focus much on where you got your degree. They were mostly interested in whether you got a 1st, upper 2nd, etc. Now people do want to know where you studied in the UK. Anyone that didn't attend a Russell Group university (a group of about 40 old and trusted universities) is treated with great skepticism.

Interesting, never came across these experiences, nor other people I know

Personally when I look for candidates I don't even bother looking for a degree anymore.
I just haven't seen any correlation between having a degree vs knowledge, work mentality and skills.
Well obviously you're also not going to just take a random person, but what I am trying to say (also with my earlier posts), is that are other ways to gain knowledge
For some people it's even more just a prestige thing than anything else.

Depends on the job.

For most of the places I've worked, having a solid grasp of the theory has been absolutely essential. That means a Russell group degree is almost necessary, and a non-Russell group degree is a negative. It does not mean that a Russell group degree is sufficient.

A degree is an indicator, no more. You judge the candidate on what you discover in the interview.

First you let them tell you what they have achieved in the past, and ask questions to verify their statements. Then you ask questions designed to show you how they think and approach problems that will be relevant to the job.

[fourfathom]

I am an EE.
First year of the collage at the C lessons
i think that the first thing that i will fail at my education life will be the programming,
indeed that happened, i failed,
at the summer school exams i memorised 10 pages of programs that likely to be asked,
i passed the exams knowing nothing about programming.

Now i am an embedded programmer,
i love programming, i love problem solving.

That is possible for a technician, not an engineer.

You should read "Profession" by Isaac Asimov, since it is directly relevant to that. I've previously posted a link to it.

I read that Asimov story, and found it interesting that (in the story) it was claimed that only one person in 100,000 were suited to be the inventors, scientists, etc.  I believe that in our world the number is much more generous than that.

And I also think it is possible to self-educate and become an engineer.  Life story:

I dropped out of college after a couple of years and never got a degree of any sort.  I had become interested in electronics before the age of ten, and (when I wasn't trying to be a bass guitar rock star) spent tens of thousands of hours reading books, magazines, and experimenting.  I did take EE Technology courses in my early twenties, but never bothered to finish up and get my degree because I became bored -- I already knew that stuff.  I worked as a technician for a few years and then advanced into an engineering role.  At this point I already had better design chops than many of the "real" engineers I was working with.  Yes, I had blind spots, but I was a good team player and we all worked to complement other's strengths.

Time marches on, and I progress through a few companies -- established and start-ups -- never stopping my self-education.  I took a couple of semesters of Calculus because I wanted to.  I became an engineering manager (small teams), and director of engineering (the last start-up, a fiber-optics networking equipment manufacturer), while still keeping my design and architecture responsibilities.  Our company was acquired in 1999 and I retired in 2001 with the title "Distinguished Engineer" and well over a dozen patents to my name.  Now I'm back to playing with electronics in my garage.

So am I an "Engineer"?  I'm certainly not a scientist, mathematician, or physicist, but my employers and colleagues seem to think that I am a pretty good engineer.  I found myself unable to maintain interest in an academic setting, but found my calling and passion in the hands-on world and became a jack-of-many-trades, master of some.

So I think it's entirely possible to become an effective engineer without traditional formal training.  I wouldn't recommend this path for everyone, but I think there is more than one way to reach your goals.

[coppice]

People have always wanted to know where you got your degree in some countries, like the US. There was a time when people in the UK didn't focus much on where you got your degree. They were mostly interested in whether you got a 1st, upper 2nd, etc. Now people do want to know where you studied in the UK. Anyone that didn't attend a Russell Group university (a group of about 40 old and trusted universities) is treated with great skepticism.

Interesting, never came across these experiences, nor other people I know

Personally when I look for candidates I don't even bother looking for a degree anymore.
I just haven't seen any correlation between having a degree vs knowledge, work mentality and skills.
Well obviously you're also not going to just take a random person, but what I am trying to say (also with my earlier posts), is that are other ways to gain knowledge
For some people it's even more just a prestige thing than anything else.

Depends on the job.

For most of the places I've worked, having a solid grasp of the theory has been absolutely essential. That means a Russell group degree is almost necessary, and a non-Russell group degree is a negative. It does not mean that a Russell group degree is sufficient.

A degree is an indicator, no more. You judge the candidate on what you discover in the interview.

First you let them tell you what they have achieved in the past, and ask questions to verify their statements. Then you ask questions designed to show you how they think and approach problems that will be relevant to the job.

Degrees are only important when recruiting a fresh graduate, or someone with little experience. The importance of formal education gradually gives way to what they can convince you they have achieved in the real world.

The UK used to have more nuanced qualifications for people of differing ability, suitable for different kinds of jobs. Now so many things are called a degree, you have to look behind that term to see what actual study occurred.

[tggzzz]

I am an EE.
First year of the collage at the C lessons
i think that the first thing that i will fail at my education life will be the programming,
indeed that happened, i failed,
at the summer school exams i memorised 10 pages of programs that likely to be asked,
i passed the exams knowing nothing about programming.

Now i am an embedded programmer,
i love programming, i love problem solving.

That is possible for a technician, not an engineer.

You should read "Profession" by Isaac Asimov, since it is directly relevant to that. I've previously posted a link to it.

I read that Asimov story, and found it interesting that (in the story) it was claimed that only one person in 100,000 were suited to be the inventors, scientists, etc.  I believe that in our world the number is much more generous than that.

And I also think it is possible to self-educate and become an engineer.  Life story:

I dropped out of college after a couple of years and never got a degree of any sort.  I had become interested in electronics before the age of ten, and (when I wasn't trying to be a bass guitar rock star) spent tens of thousands of hours reading books, magazines, and experimenting.  I did take EE Technology courses in my early twenties, but never bothered to finish up and get my degree because I became bored -- I already knew that stuff.  I worked as a technician for a few years and then advanced into an engineering role.  At this point I already had better design chops than many of the "real" engineers I was working with.  Yes, I had blind spots, but I was a good team player and we all worked to complement other's strengths.

Time marches on, and I progress through a few companies -- established and start-ups -- never stopping my self-education.  I took a couple of semesters of Calculus because I wanted to.  I became an engineering manager (small teams), and director of engineering (the last start-up, a fiber-optics networking equipment manufacturer), while still keeping my design and architecture responsibilities.  Our company was acquired in 1999 and I retired in 2001 with the title "Distinguished Engineer" and well over a dozen patents to my name.  Now I'm back to playing with electronics in my garage.

So am I an "Engineer"?  I'm certainly not a scientist, mathematician, or physicist, but my employers and colleagues seem to think that I am a pretty good engineer.  I found myself unable to maintain interest in an academic setting, but found my calling and passion in the hands-on world and became a jack-of-many-trades, master of some.

So I think it's entirely possible to become an effective engineer without traditional formal training.  I wouldn't recommend this path for everyone, but I think there is more than one way to reach your goals.

I wouldn't take too much notice about a precise number in a work of fiction!

It certainly is possible to become an effective engineer without formal training, but it takes a long time, is difficult and rare. I've known one individual like that; he had stunning theoretical and practical expertise.

Having said that, there are too many people that loudly make statements along the lines of "theory skills are useless, all that matters are practical skills", or "I knew a PhD that measured the impedance of the mains with an avometer, therefore...". Usually such people have no theoretical qualifications (and hence understanding), often because they failed at them.

The very important point to me is that engineers are not better than technicians any more than technicians are better than engineers. You need a range of skills, and no one person will have them all. That is true of personality traits as well, and getting a well-balanced team where one person's weakenesses are covered by another person's strengths is very important to success.

If you have all technicans and no engineers, then you may end up with something that fails for subtle reasons. Conversely, with all engineers you may end up with something that would work reliably if bits stopped falling off.

Analogy: when diagnosing a serious condition, I wouldn't use a nurse. Similarly when inserting a needle, I wouldn't want a doctor. Horses for courses.

I too chose to be a jack of all trades and master of none. I have seen many systems containing fundamental flaws which work unreliably. But if you want fast reliable soldering or a neat enclosure, don't come to me

[tggzzz]

People have always wanted to know where you got your degree in some countries, like the US. There was a time when people in the UK didn't focus much on where you got your degree. They were mostly interested in whether you got a 1st, upper 2nd, etc. Now people do want to know where you studied in the UK. Anyone that didn't attend a Russell Group university (a group of about 40 old and trusted universities) is treated with great skepticism.

Interesting, never came across these experiences, nor other people I know

Personally when I look for candidates I don't even bother looking for a degree anymore.
I just haven't seen any correlation between having a degree vs knowledge, work mentality and skills.
Well obviously you're also not going to just take a random person, but what I am trying to say (also with my earlier posts), is that are other ways to gain knowledge
For some people it's even more just a prestige thing than anything else.

Depends on the job.

For most of the places I've worked, having a solid grasp of the theory has been absolutely essential. That means a Russell group degree is almost necessary, and a non-Russell group degree is a negative. It does not mean that a Russell group degree is sufficient.

A degree is an indicator, no more. You judge the candidate on what you discover in the interview.

First you let them tell you what they have achieved in the past, and ask questions to verify their statements. Then you ask questions designed to show you how they think and approach problems that will be relevant to the job.

Degrees are only important when recruiting a fresh graduate, or someone with little experience. The importance of formal education gradually gives way to what they can convince you they have achieved in the real world.

As time goes on the "quality" of the degree becomes less important, but it can still be used as an indicator of what they ought to be capable of. Not everybody uses their degree in their current job, but might be able to in their next job.

You give job candidates a chance to explain (and justify!) what they have achieved, and then probe what they might be able to do for you. That's both theory and practical skills, as appropriate.

The UK used to have more nuanced qualifications for people of differing ability, suitable for different kinds of jobs. Now so many things are called a degree, you have to look behind that term to see what actual study occurred.

Yes. In spades

One size doesn't and shouldn't fit all.

I really hate that the polytechs rebranded themselves as unis. Polys clearly signalled that they were offering different paths and different skills for different people - and that was very important to both the student and the employer. I think the rebranding was principally a case of academic inferiority complex, which annoys me intensely.

[coppice]

As time goes on the "quality" of the degree becomes less important, but it can still be used as an indicator of what they ought to be capable of.

Sure. In the UK having gone to a prestige university will always say you are either very smart or your parents had the money to send you to public school.

I really hate that the polytechs rebranded themselves as unis. Polys clearly signalled that they were offering different paths and different skills for different people - and that was very important to both the student and the employer. I think the rebranding was principally a case of academic inferiority complex, which annoys me intensely.

Go back to the 1980s. Industrially Britain was falling apart, and Japan was doing well. British politicians tended to think the answer was to be more like Japan. Japan put 18% of its young through university, while Britain put a much lower percentage through university. The politician's answer was more universities. This ignored 2 key issues here. The first is that Japan called most tertiary education "university", while Britain had polys,technical colleges and other things offering HNCs, HNDs and other non-degree tertiary qualifications. If you took the total percentage of British youngsters who went through some kind of tertiary education it wasn't far from Japan's figures. The other point is that anyone who hasn't grown up in some kind of intellectual bubble knows that due to talent or inclination most of the people around them at school were either not prepared or not inclined to go through a traditional degree course.

[tggzzz]

As time goes on the "quality" of the degree becomes less important, but it can still be used as an indicator of what they ought to be capable of.

Sure. In the UK having gone to a prestige university will always say you are either very smart or your parents had the money to send you to public school.

The current covid/brexit news management deflection fiasco apart, I'll note that public school does not mean university material.

As Waugh put it in "Decline and Fall", "We class schools into four grades: leading school, first-rate school, good school and school." Guess where the hero went to teach!

[coppice]

As time goes on the "quality" of the degree becomes less important, but it can still be used as an indicator of what they ought to be capable of.

Sure. In the UK having gone to a prestige university will always say you are either very smart or your parents had the money to send you to public school.

The current covid/brexit news management deflection fiasco apart, I'll note that public school does not mean university material.

As Waugh put it in "Decline and Fall", "We class schools into four grades: leading school, first-rate school, good school and school." Guess where the hero went to teach!

Well, duh, whoda thought? The figures are clearly different now, but when I went to university in the early 70s about half of university students came from the 5% of the population at public schools, and half came from the 95% at state schools. Those people from public schools were of mixed ability, but had been well trained to get through the exams needed for university. Any numbskull you met with a degree from Oxford or Cambridge had clearly been to an excellent public school. Now the school exams have been massively dumbed down, so it must be far easier for anyone from a public school to get a place in a good university.

[tggzzz]

As time goes on the "quality" of the degree becomes less important, but it can still be used as an indicator of what they ought to be capable of.

Sure. In the UK having gone to a prestige university will always say you are either very smart or your parents had the money to send you to public school.

The current covid/brexit news management deflection fiasco apart, I'll note that public school does not mean university material.

As Waugh put it in "Decline and Fall", "We class schools into four grades: leading school, first-rate school, good school and school." Guess where the hero went to teach!

Well, duh, whoda thought? The figures are clearly different now, but when I went to university in the early 70s about half of university students came from the 5% of the population at public schools, and half came from the 95% at state schools. Those people from public schools were of mixed ability, but had been well trained to get through the exams needed for university. Any numbskull you met with a degree from Oxford or Cambridge had clearly been to an excellent public school. Now the school exams have been massively dumbed down, so it must be far easier for anyone from a public school to get a place in a good university.

I don't know the actual percentages, but the 60s really broke down the barrier that pretty much excluded the working class from university.

I must be odd, because I chose to not accept a scholarship to a local public school, and go to the local Grammar School. Ditto Cambridge vs Southampton Uni.

The major difference between the 70s and now is that in the 70s ~8% went to university whereas nowdays I believe it is 45%. If we make the grossly simplifying assumption of mapping that onto IQ (etc) bell curves, then mean value of competence is very noticably lower. Hence, even if the proportions of grades remains the same, the standard necessary to get a grade must necessarily be lower.

[coppice]

I don't know the actual percentages, but the 60s really broke down the barrier that pretty much excluded the working class from university.

That was a period when the UK establishment realised the country was falling behind, and that anyone with talent needed that talent developed. That's why the universities expanded a lot in the late 60s and early 70s. Its also why the state starting paying everyone's college fees, and provided living expenses to anyone who's parents couldn't afford to pay. They didn't really want to admit how easy it was to get the government to pay, so we had to go through a shame of applying for discretionary grants, and not knowing that the outcome would be. If you knew someone involved in these grants - in my case a friend at the local council who could tell me the precise cost of my course, because he dealt with the payments - they could tell you that if a uni would accept you, you would get the relevant grants.

Now the authorities have abandoned creating a well educated workforce, and we are back to the bad old days with working class youngsters getting a poor start in life. When I look at my father's generation, there were many bright people in dead end work, which they had never been able to rise out of. In my generation most of the capable people got a reasonable start in life.... at least in London, where I grew up. People of my age from some parts of the North of the UK tell a slightly less happy story. Not so many went to university, but large numbers of working class youngsters went to various kinds of poly or technical college and established a reasonable career for themselves.

I must be odd, because I chose to not accept a scholarship to a local public school, and go to the local Grammar School. Ditto Cambridge vs Southampton Uni.

Not at all. I never applied to Oxford or Cambridge, as I thought my life would be made miserable there. In later years, interacting with both very smart state school people and not always very smart public school people who went to Oxford or Cambridge I think I made the right choice. I went to the top tier that looked good to me - UCL. As an aside, my best friend at college is from Southhampton, and both his parents lectured at the uni. That made his first step to cross Southampton off any list of potent colleges to attend.

The major difference between the 70s and now is that in the 70s ~8% went to university whereas nowdays I believe it is 45%. If we make the grossly simplifying assumption of mapping that onto IQ (etc) bell curves, then mean value of competence is very noticably lower. Hence, even if the proportions of grades remains the same, the standard necessary to get a grade must necessarily be lower.

In the early 70s it was a lot lower than 8%. It was more like 4%, consisting of most of the 5% who went to public school, and a modest number from the state schools.

[tggzzz]

I must be odd, because I chose to not accept a scholarship to a local public school, and go to the local Grammar School. Ditto Cambridge vs Southampton Uni.

Not at all. I never applied to Oxford or Cambridge, as I thought my life would be made miserable there. In later years, interacting with both very smart state school people and not always very smart public school people who went to Oxford or Cambridge I think I made the right choice. I went to the top tier that looked good to me - UCL. As an aside, my best friend at college is from Southhampton, and both his parents lectured at the uni. That made his first step to cross Southampton off any list of potent colleges to attend.

I avoided looking at Surrey Uni and London colleges for similar reasons.

Curiously, I went to work in Cambridge, from 81-87. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there, partly because it was a very interesting time. The BBC's Micro Men and Hermann Hauser's Oral History captures it pretty well. I was involved in one of Hauser's anecdotes; I knew the beginning and am not surprised to have learned of the ending. Yes, it was a small world and people did wander into companies and the colleges via backdoors

The main reason I left is there is too little ink (of any colour) on the OS1:50000 map, in particular contours and trees.

[coppice]

Curiously, I went to work in Cambridge, from 81-87. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there, partly because it was a very interesting time. The BBC's Micro Men and Hermann Hauser's Oral History captures it pretty well. I was involved in one of Hauser's anecdotes; I knew the beginning and am not surprised to have learned of the ending. Yes, it was a small world and people did wander into companies and the colleges via backdoors

The main reason I left is there is too little ink (of any colour) on the OS1:50000 map, in particular contours and trees.

It certainly was a small world. Talk to anyone who worked at, say, Cambridge Consultants or the PAT Centre, and they tend to know everyone else you've ever known who worked around Cambridge. There always seems to be a Clive Sinclair anecdote in them, too.

[tooki]

As an educator I am often amazed and how much effort students will go through to remember things rather than understand them.
Personally I have a poor memory so unconnected facts are hard to remember.
Connected reasoning is much easier.

One problem I see is that the educational systems cram in too much material to actually go at a pace that permits all the students to actually truly understand. So the ones who need more time end up memorizing, because it’s that or failing.

I had this exact problem with the “ballroom dance” class I took at university to fulfill a physical ed requirement: long before I had truly gotten the hang of one basic step, they added on another, and then another, until by the end of the thing I was hopelessly lost. And this is exactly what I saw happen with many students in various academic subjects.

[tggzzz]

Curiously, I went to work in Cambridge, from 81-87. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there, partly because it was a very interesting time. The BBC's Micro Men and Hermann Hauser's Oral History captures it pretty well. I was involved in one of Hauser's anecdotes; I knew the beginning and am not surprised to have learned of the ending. Yes, it was a small world and people did wander into companies and the colleges via backdoors

The main reason I left is there is too little ink (of any colour) on the OS1:50000 map, in particular contours and trees.

It certainly was a small world. Talk to anyone who worked at, say, Cambridge Consultants or the PAT Centre, and they tend to know everyone else you've ever known who worked around Cambridge. There always seems to be a Clive Sinclair anecdote in them, too.

I started at CCL, before moving on. The staff turnover was, by the conventional standards of the time, fairly high - but that was because people were always moving on for good reasons. Usually that meant they were trying their luck at something new and exciting.

There was a map at the back of "Cambridge Phenomenon: The Growth of High Technology Industry in a University Town" published in 1985, while I was there. The map showed CCL was pretty central to everything, and there have been many big spinouts since then.

[coppice]

As an educator I am often amazed and how much effort students will go through to remember things rather than understand them.
Personally I have a poor memory so unconnected facts are hard to remember.
Connected reasoning is much easier.

One problem I see is that the educational systems cram in too much material to actually go at a pace that permits all the students to actually truly understand. So the ones who need more time end up memorizing, because it’s that or failing.

I had this exact problem with the “ballroom dance” class I took at university to fulfill a physical ed requirement: long before I had truly gotten the hang of one basic step, they added on another, and then another, until by the end of the thing I was hopelessly lost. And this is exactly what I saw happen with many students in various academic subjects.

I had courses where the lecturer wrote so fast that we spent the entire lecture trying to keep up with writing our own notes. and had no time to think about and properly absorb what was being said.

[tggzzz]

As an educator I am often amazed and how much effort students will go through to remember things rather than understand them.
Personally I have a poor memory so unconnected facts are hard to remember.
Connected reasoning is much easier.

One problem I see is that the educational systems cram in too much material to actually go at a pace that permits all the students to actually truly understand. So the ones who need more time end up memorizing, because it’s that or failing.

I had this exact problem with the “ballroom dance” class I took at university to fulfill a physical ed requirement: long before I had truly gotten the hang of one basic step, they added on another, and then another, until by the end of the thing I was hopelessly lost. And this is exactly what I saw happen with many students in various academic subjects.

I had courses where the lecturer wrote so fast that we spent the entire lecture trying to keep up with writing our own notes. and had no time to think about and properly absorb what was being said.

All of my courses were like that.

The solution is to scribble notes, and then within a couple of hours write them out neatly. That has two major benefits:

• you end up with good revision notes
• as you are rewriting them, you are thinking about what you do and don't know, and can add in extra points where beneficial

[coppice]

I had courses where the lecturer wrote so fast that we spent the entire lecture trying to keep up with writing our own notes. and had no time to think about and properly absorb what was being said.

All of my courses were like that.

The solution is to scribble notes, and then within a couple of hours write them out neatly. That has two major benefits:

• you end up with good revision notes
• as you are rewriting them, you are thinking about what you do and don't know, and can add in extra points where beneficial

That's a coping strategy, not something desirable. In the early 70s, when I was at college, handing out materials was a lot more expensive than today. This was used as an excuse for not handing them out by a lot of people. However, anyone running a training course in industry at that time would have been kicked out for using such an inefficient strategy.

[tggzzz]

I had courses where the lecturer wrote so fast that we spent the entire lecture trying to keep up with writing our own notes. and had no time to think about and properly absorb what was being said.

All of my courses were like that.

The solution is to scribble notes, and then within a couple of hours write them out neatly. That has two major benefits:

• you end up with good revision notes
• as you are rewriting them, you are thinking about what you do and don't know, and can add in extra points where beneficial

That's a coping strategy, not something desirable. In the early 70s, when I was at college, handing out materials was a lot more expensive than today. This was used as an excuse for not handing them out by a lot of people. However, anyone running a training course in industry at that time would have been kicked out for using such an inefficient strategy.

There I will disagree.

Very very few people grok complex stuff when it is first presented to them - and then only if they are partially familar with the subject matter. Most people think they understand it, but frequently they are fooling themselves.

There are a few good ways around that:

• repetiton and recapitulation - but there is insufficient time for that in a decent course. Solution: repeat/recapitulate yourself
• explain it, since you only know how little you know when you try to explain a subject. Solution: explain to yourself
• revision. Solution: revise while creating your own material for later

I always wanted handouts, at school and university. Now I realise they are a negative. People don't concentrate because "it is in the handouts", then just file the handouts on the principle that "it is all there and I'll come back to that later."

Grokking takes hard work and concentration; there are no sugar-coated short cuts.

[coppice]

I had courses where the lecturer wrote so fast that we spent the entire lecture trying to keep up with writing our own notes. and had no time to think about and properly absorb what was being said.

All of my courses were like that.

The solution is to scribble notes, and then within a couple of hours write them out neatly. That has two major benefits:

• you end up with good revision notes
• as you are rewriting them, you are thinking about what you do and don't know, and can add in extra points where beneficial

That's a coping strategy, not something desirable. In the early 70s, when I was at college, handing out materials was a lot more expensive than today. This was used as an excuse for not handing them out by a lot of people. However, anyone running a training course in industry at that time would have been kicked out for using such an inefficient strategy.

There I will disagree.

Very very few people grok complex stuff when it is first presented to them - and then only if they are partially familar with the subject matter. Most people think they understand it, but frequently they are fooling themselves.

There are a few good ways around that:

• repetiton and recapitulation - but there is insufficient time for that in a decent course. Solution: repeat/recapitulate yourself
• explain it, since you only know how little you know when you try to explain a subject. Solution: explain to yourself
• revision. Solution: revise while creating your own material for later

I always wanted handouts, at school and university. Now I realise they are a negative. People don't concentrate because "it is in the handouts", then just file the handouts on the principle that "it is all there and I'll come back to that later."

Grokking takes hard work and concentration; there are no sugar-coated short cuts.

Nobody understands as much of something as they think they do after their first pass. Note taking helps somewhat, but its not that great. What REALLY sorts you out is application. Working through problems is one route. The smartest in the group can gain enormously by helping the weaker people in the group, if they have to take what they have learned and regurgitate it for the others. When I was at college we asked one of our tutors about a point in EM theory none of us had really understood. He told us he did great in his EM theory studies at college, and needed a lot of that knowledge to do his PhD. However, it wasn't until his first teaching job where he actually had to explain EM theory to others than he finally really got to grips with it. Note taking is a bit like explaining something to yourself, but to a fairly easy target.

[mc172]

The solution is to scribble notes, and then within a couple of hours write them out neatly. That has two major benefits:

• you end up with good revision notes
• as you are rewriting them, you are thinking about what you do and don't know, and can add in extra points where beneficial

If that's what the lesson was like, then the "lesson" was a waste of time and was nothing more than going through a set of someone elses notes at too fast a pace. How can you think about what you're doing if you've just blindly copied down a load of notes and haven't been able to concentrate on anything the lecturer was trying to explain in between the frenzied note taking?

I hated the lessons where you had to take notes really fast. I was constantly playing catch-up and concentrating not on what the lecturer said but what I was writing down, and focusing on doing it quickly before they disappeared off the board. The lecturer wouldn't always be coherent and would skip back and forth through what he was writing and the order of what he was trying to say, so my notes wouldn't be worth anything anyway. These kind of lessons would go through the same problem in slightly different ways, three or four times in one lesson, in an attempt to hammer it home, but anyone that didn't understand the first time round was left behind for the rest of the lesson.
I suppose it's luck of the draw with what teacher/lecturer/professor you get but with this particular one I often came out with a cooked head. Those kinds of lessons with that lecturer did teach me something - switch off and stop thinking about anything including trying to understand the subject material, other than faithfully copying down the board so that you don't miss anything. What sort of retarded nonsense is that?

The best lessons I had would be the ones where any notes required were given at the start and I could refer to them throughout the lesson (and of course after) but most importantly I could concentrate on what was being taught. I also had faith that the notes were correct after the fact when I referred to them during assignment problems or revision.

[m98]

I always wanted handouts, at school and university. Now I realise they are a negative. People don't concentrate because "it is in the handouts", then just file the handouts on the principle that "it is all there and I'll come back to that later."

Different people have different learning methods. I want to stay ahead of the lecturer, not be surprised. If I have to write everything down everything said and written, I have no time to think about the material and usually not even enough time to write everything down, making the notes close to worthless.

Those lecturers, at least in my experience, are also the ones who have no literature recommendations besides like one monster reference work with quite disconcerting equation-to-text-ratios.

[tggzzz]

The solution is to scribble notes, and then within a couple of hours write them out neatly. That has two major benefits:

• you end up with good revision notes
• as you are rewriting them, you are thinking about what you do and don't know, and can add in extra points where beneficial

If that's what the lesson was like, then the "lesson" was a waste of time and was nothing more than going through a set of someone elses notes at too fast a pace. How can you think about what you're doing if you've just blindly copied down a load of notes and haven't been able to concentrate on anything the lecturer was trying to explain in between the frenzied note taking?

It wasn't like that; there were no "someone else's notes". The lecturers "created" their material during the lecture on the blackboard and OHP; we could write as fast as they could.

People thought and and asked the lecturer questions during and after the lecture.

The best lessons I had would be the ones where any notes required were given at the start and I could refer to them throughout the lesson (and of course after) but most importantly I could concentrate on what was being taught. I also had faith that the notes were correct after the fact when I referred to them during assignment problems or revision.

That luxury wasn't practical.

I didn't need faith that notes were correct. After writing up my "scribbles" I knew they were right, and why. That was a very important advantage of how I did things, as I mentioned.

[mc172]

It wasn't like that; there were no "someone else's notes". The lecturers "created" their material during the lecture on the blackboard and OHP; we could write as fast as they could.

Unlikely that they just made it up on the spot. They'd at least have something they were working from, i.e. their own notes, which is what I was referring to as from your perspective, the student, you're going through someone elses notes way too quickly. I just don't see how it's conducive to learning to copy notes from a board.

The best lessons I had would be the ones where any notes required were given at the start and I could refer to them throughout the lesson (and of course after) but most importantly I could concentrate on what was being taught. I also had faith that the notes were correct after the fact when I referred to them during assignment problems or revision.

That luxury wasn't practical.

I didn't need faith that notes were correct. After writing up my "scribbles" I knew they were right, and why. That was a very important advantage of how I did things, as I mentioned.

How wasn't it practical?

How did you know that they were correct and why? You didn't mention those specifically other than by relying on your recollection.

In an earlier comment you mentioned how people can just file the handouts (which I was referring to when I said something along the lines of having the notes at the start of the lesson) to pretty much the bin, well yeah I agree completely but that's up to them. You shouldn't make the rest of the people that actually want to be there suffer a piss poor "learning" method from the 1850s by literally copying lines from a board.

[tggzzz]

It wasn't like that; there were no "someone else's notes". The lecturers "created" their material during the lecture on the blackboard and OHP; we could write as fast as they could.

Unlikely that they just made it up on the spot. They'd at least have something they were working from, i.e. their own notes, which is what I was referring to as from your perspective, the student, you're going through someone elses notes way too quickly.

That doesn't change the validity of what I wrote, nor why. You have snipped the context (the "why") which makes that difficult to follow; this forum isn't stackexchange and subtle conversations are possible.

I just don't see how it's conducive to learning to copy notes from a board.

That's an entirely different point, and one that has been asked over the centuries.

There's the very very old joke that a lecture is a mechanism for getting the notes from the lecturer's paper onto the students' paper without going through the mind of either.

The best lessons I had would be the ones where any notes required were given at the start and I could refer to them throughout the lesson (and of course after) but most importantly I could concentrate on what was being taught. I also had faith that the notes were correct after the fact when I referred to them during assignment problems or revision.

That luxury wasn't practical.

I didn't need faith that notes were correct. After writing up my "scribbles" I knew they were right, and why. That was a very important advantage of how I did things, as I mentioned.

How wasn't it practical?

How did you know that they were correct and why? You didn't mention those specifically other than by relying on your recollection.

Clearly you weren't alive in the 70s, and can't appreciate the scarcity and expense of duplication technology.

I knew my rewritten notes were correct because I thought and understood when rewriting them. When I didn't understand something, I went and found out what I didn't understand and incorporated it in my notes.

All that is a very good introduction to what happens in real life.

I should note that I went on a decent course where they taught fundamentals that have been useful throughout my career. They didn't bother lecturing about ephemeral trivia that has a half-life measured in years.

In an earlier comment you mentioned how people can just file the handouts (which I was referring to when I said something along the lines of having the notes at the start of the lesson) to pretty much the bin, well yeah I agree completely but that's up to them. You shouldn't make the rest of the people that actually want to be there suffer a piss poor "learning" method from the 1850s by literally copying lines from a board.

Please don't make strawman arguments.