The most interesting things I've learnt about learning
jchyip.blogspot.com
jchyip.blogspot.com
On the other hand you will get stuck on your first subject if your force yourself to learn everything.
I think it is important to know the point when the consistency of your foundation goes from "perilous Swiss cheese" to "rock-solid metal mesh to be filled in the future".
In theory, a full understanding of the foundations of any subject will, in the end, lead to a more complete mastery. However, if you do not give a learner enough "Why am I doing this?" to support their early stumbling steps, you risk losing them entirely. Imagine if you were forced to read the entire K&R C book before writing your first program. I know I wouldn't have made it.
When I was a bartending instructor (past life), my boss told me this Yeats quote (misattributed I think): "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire".
But upon some research, the context of the quote is even more interesting:
"The correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting — no more — and then it motivates one towards originality and instills the desire for truth. Suppose someone were to go and ask his neighbors for fire and find a substantial blaze there, and just stay there continually warming himself: that is no different from someone who goes to someone else to get to some of his rationality, and fails to realize that he ought to ignite his own flame, his own intellect, but is happy to sit entranced by the lecture, and the words trigger only associative thinking and bring, as it were, only a flush to his cheeks and a glow to his limbs; but he has not dispelled or dispersed, in the warm light of philosophy, the internal dank gloom of his mind."
Available on the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) (although not on my firewall :P )
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDo...
For me it was engineering. Years ago, I found some documents on metal work when I was learning to use lathes, milling machines, etc. Best resource available. It seemed old, but the information was invaluable. The thing that struck me was that, while it did do a quick over view of the basic methodologies and concepts, it very quickly focused on getting stuff done. It read like it was written for instant use. So, say you were a private stuck in the middle of no where, needed to make a part for, say, a gun and had a metal work workshop instantly available; this document would have said private making the part in something like an hour. Further, that part would work properly over a decent life span.
A basic rule of thumb for me is that what ever new thing I want to learn, I see if I can find a military instruction document on the subject.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/f...
Or DTIC may be worth a search, if you know what you want:
I hear this statement a lot, and I think it's very suspicious. Everyone wants to believe this, because if they fail a class, they can use "learning is more important than grades" as an easy excuse to avoid taking responsibility for their own failings. In reality though, if you've actually mastered what the class is trying to teach, you should be able to get passing grades.
All of that is good (in theory), but his grading approach was to mark off a point or two for minor discrepancies. In theory, this meant that if you had the concept, without memorization you would get points.
In reality if you didn't include all keywords from the lessons, you would be docked points. People who memorized extremely well and parroted back his words almost verbatim would do well. People who worked to understand the material and write back their understanding often wouldn't.
Sigh. The sad thing was is that from a classroom learning standpoint, he was one of the best professors there. But I would often end up avoiding his classes (my memory is often terrible at rote learning).
As you said, with mastery the rest should follow. Though, in my experience, testing itself needs to be mastered. For some of us that comes quite naturally, but for others it takes a bit of time.
Edit: Sorry, I didn't see aestra's comment before I posted.
Grading can be a motivator, however, causing you to push yourself to learn things you might not otherwise be motivated to do.
However, I think that learning without judgment is the most effective way to learn, when you otherwise have some intrinsic motivation. Likewise, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect which is not the same, but another effect that causes an extrinsic factor to diminish intrinsic motivation.
When I learn for my own benefit, all of my efforts are focused on developing new skills and new understanding. When I am learning to pass some test, my efforts are focused instead on not failing.
If these tools are used to guide study to make sure students get the requisite knowledge then they can be effective. I think they lose effectiveness when they are instead used to classify and rank students.
I have always scored well on tests, but I've always learned and understood things more fully doing things that were at my own direction.
I don't think face-to-face instruction should focus on practise and exploration any more than it should on learning basic facts. Practise is controlled repetition, and this is probably the easiest thing for a learner to undertake on their own. Exploration is likewise a very personal endeavour - it's always come down to exploring how the concepts are relevant to me, or a specific context I am interested in.
Face-to-face time ('instruction' is not really the right word for it) should focus on collaboration more than anything.
You need a bit of supervised practice to make sure you're using the right method, then a bit of exploration to make sure you understand the concepts.
That being said, sometimes hands on guidance (especially for more corporeal pursuits, such as playing a musical instrument or weight training), can save not just wasted practice time, but correct bad form before it does possible physical damage.
Perhaps the best thing he did was share the link to the Commander's guide.