Interesting paper “The early history of the scaffolding metaphor: Bernstein, Luria, Vygotsky, and before”, covers a lot about the historical evolution of modern conception of scaffolding metaphor.
Category: Learning Science
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History of the scaffolding metaphor
Interesting paper “The early history of the scaffolding metaphor: Bernstein, Luria, Vygotsky, and before”, covers a lot about the historical evolution of modern conception of scaffolding metaphor.
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Entrepreneurship and Synergetics
Synergetics is an interdisciplinary theoretical approach that studies self-organization in complex systems(systems that are characterized by openness, dynamics, and complexity). It was developed by physicist Hermann Haken(1969) through his research experiments on laser light. He noticed unpredictable patterns emerging that cannot be explained by linear models. The properties of light change in a self-organized manner when the laser reaches a critical point or “laser threshold”, and such emergent order sets the control parameter which enslaves the system.
(This is an updated post)
For a real explanation, listen directly from the master: Hermann Haken
Synergetics and Entrepreneurship
My initial exposure to synergetics from an entrepreneurship related scholarship started with reading Jeffrey Goldstein’s article(attached) in which he stressed his radical construction point of view that paints a negative picture. He argues;
“Although these connotations of self-organization have provided a corrective to the outdated belief that novel order in a system can only come about through the imposition of external order, a careful inspection of research in complexity theory reveals that the emergence of new order is more appropriately constructed rather than self-organized as such (Goldstein 2003).”
EMERGENCE, CREATIVITY, AND THE LOGIC OF FOLLOWING AND NEGATING by Goldstein’ 2015Goldstein further specifically pointed to Haken; in that he adds;
“An example is that much touted emblem of self-organization, the laser with its property of ultra-focused coherence (see Haken, 1981). In actuality, though, laser light hardly comes about either spontaneously or through inner direction. On the contrary, it requires the most stringent of laboratory manipulations and constraints (see a list of these in Strogatz, 2003). An examination of other examples of self-organization reveals a similar constructional nature of emergent phenomena (see, e.g., Nicolis, 1989)”
EMERGENCE, CREATIVITY, AND THE LOGIC OF FOLLOWING AND NEGATING by Goldstein’ 2015Andreas Liening of TU Dortmund
In entrepreneurship, a pioneering effort to apply Synergetics is coming from Prof Andreas Liening and colleagues of TU Dortmund. The top reads are;
- Complexity and Entrepreneurship: Modeling the Process of Entrepreneurship Education with the Theory of Synergetics
- Synergetics—Fundamental Attributes of the Theory of Self-Organization and Its Meaning for Economics(OPEN Access)
Although I am extremely interested in reading anything relating to entrepreneurship and complexity, I totally disagree with the “Entrepreneurship Mindset” as the purpose of Entrepreneurship Education promoted by Liening. To see my reasons check this, this, this, this, this and this
It is very easy to fall into the trap of traditional representational cognitive psychology and its lazy dependence on decontextualized hard or impossible to define concepts like Mindset.
Some potential issues with application of self-organization and synergetics in education
It is confusing when you as an outsider looks at education and learning science for the first time to find application ideas. It is very easy to be trapped in a cultish eco-chamber. Even though I agree that It is essential to read people whom we disagree with, a serious issue arises when we start to blindly believe everything they say. This is especially true if one doesn’t have the necessary expertise and diversity in their system to figure out the flaws of the argument.
Example; Paul A. Kirschner who is one of the most reductionist of all the education scholars with his famous works like, “Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work” is also famous for his work on learning in complexity, ” Ten steps to complex learning”. A new observer might be mistaken to believe that Kirschner is the go to authority in complexity in education. This is a huge mistake. This points to serious issues with the application of synergetics in particular and complexity science in general without any understanding of domain epistemology.
- Those with domain expertise may use complexity theory to fit in with their long-accumulated path dependency.
- They may use a complexity tag to avoid being called a reductionist.
- Those with complexity background may fall for the obvious and visible part of domain knowledge.
- Those with ideas and tools to sell may try craft a much less uncertain version of complexity;.
- As often pointed out by people like Dave Snowden, those with a complexity background, especially those associated with mathematical modeling and Santa Fe may assume that they can model human complexity by developing agent-based models as they do for some idealized version of Ant behavior. This can be viewed as a reductionistic tendency inside the complexity sciences (http://www.human-current.com/archived-episodes/tag/anthrocomplexity)
All the above can be viewed as going against the ethics of complexity, especially when proposed as solutions for other people and other people’s children.
According to Synergetics Philosophers Helena Knyazeva and Sergey Kurdyumov, “The synergetic assertions can apply to many scientific disciplines. They are functioning on the level from which a great scope of scientific disciplines can be embraced. However, such an approach has also a negative side. The higher the level of the view is the less concrete details can be distinguished. On the other hand, the deeper we penetrate particular details the less place seems to remain for synergetics itself” They adds; “Synergetics can provide us only with general frames of consideration, a mental scheme or a heuristic approach to a concrete scientific investigation. Concrete applications of synergetic models to complex human or social systems presuppose further detailed scientific investigations. Such investigations can be carried out only by the use of a profound knowledge of a certain disciplinary field and/or with a close collaboration with specialists in a corresponding scientific discipline. Thus, synergetics gives a certain approach or a direction of research, or, to put it in terms of psychology, a scientific attitude. The rest is the matter of every concrete investigation”
Some interesting articles by Russian philosopher Helena Knyazeva on synergetics are attached
Synergetics: New Universalism or Natural Philosophy of the Age of Post-Nonclassical Science?
ARBITRARINESS IN NATURE: SYNERGETICS AND EVOLUTIONARY LAWS OF PROHIBITION(Co-authored with Haken)
SYNERGETICS OF HUMAN CREATIVITY; HELENA and HAKEN
The Synergetic Principles of Nonlinear Thinking
Synergetics and the Images of Future
Nonlinear synthesis and co‐evolution of complex systems
NONLINEARITY OF TIME IN THE COMPLEX WORLD
The Synergetic World View and Its Synthetic Value
FIGURES OF TIME IN EVOLUTION OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS
Recent works
Virtual Reality from the Standpoint of Complexity Science
Paradigm Shift in the Understanding of the Creative Abilities of Consciousness
Strategies of Dynamic Complexity Management
Active Innovative Media as Co-Evolutionary Landscapes
Cognitive Networks: Interactivity, Intersubjectivity, and Synergy
Complexity Studies: Interdisciplinarity in Act
The Idea of Co-evolution; Towards a New Evolutionary Holism
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Neuro-reductionism?But What about cognitive reductionism?
It is very interesting to watch twitter debates between various academic communities. The problem is that if you are already part of a cult, you will never get to enjoy the big picture birds eye view of the show.
When it comes to education and learning, two of the prominent communities use the science tag, often to trash constructivism and progressive models. They are Neuroscience and Cognitive science or fusion; Cognitive Neuroscience. Recently I have been watching both Cognitive Neuroscience people and Cognitive science people exposing the neuro-reductionism and the uselessness so called Neuro speak. There is a lot of valuable insights in this critic.
I have already tweeted about it and blogged about it last year. But still, here is the original link to the tweet : Neuroscience of education
1. The first tweet is by Daniel Ansari, Cognitive Neuroscientist. He made the observation that Neuroscience can’t suggest what is and what isn’t effective pedagogy. Adds that, neural data cannot directly speak to the effectiveness of the instructional approach but can be an informative correlate of the behavioural outcomes (e.g intervention specific gains in reading)
2. The second one is by Daniel Willingham and David Daniel. They talks about this issue in their YouTube vlog; discusses the application of neuroscience in education
3. Third one is an article/ blogpost: In this, Mirjam Neelen & Paul A. Kirschner observes that “In general, brain imaging techniques in and of themselves don’t have any real practical implications. At best, for learning, it can be used in combination with behavioural research to try to understand processes underlying learning” Link to blog post: “STOP ABUSING NEUROSCIENCE FOR LEARNING!”
4. The recent one(order in which I found) is from “The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (Penguin Press Science S.)” by Steven Pinker. He observed: “Neural plasticity is just another name for learning and development, described at a different level of analysis. All this should be obvious, but nowadays any banality about learning can be dressed up in neurospeak and treated like a great revelation of science.“
What about Cognitive reductionism
All of these observations are agreeable. Absolutely significant. But a persistent question in my mind is about the reductionism of cognitive science and the blindness of people who are committed to the cult. And can we call it a science when most of complexity and interactive dynamics are ignored. Isn’t it based on streetlight effect, that occurs when people only search for something where it is easiest to look.
What is the validity of’—for example, standardized tests, when it is absolutely clear that the tests are not measuring any skills of life success, but the socially constructed metric. An example of Pisa: Paper
Isn’t educational cognitive science mostly about social construction than about real science? I argue that most of the cognitive science driven assessments and assumptions are in a way shaping the society, constructing its values, engineering the social systems to make it easier for some people to climb the ladder, and difficult for others .
To Conclude
I like cognitive science and Neuroscience. I acknowledge the value of the tools and insights generated from neuroscience and cognitive science. I am huge fan of genuine works like that from expertise researchers and people like Herbert Simon(with his bounded rationality) who transformed the way I think. But borrowing from Dave Snowden, I am also a believer of bounded applicability of ideas, tools, theories, methods, etc. I have a tendency to question the one size fits all. E.g. , I believe Cognitive load theory is useful and good, but I also think it shouldn’t be used to dictate or sanction the validity of Direct( rote) instruction perspective. Or worst it shouldn’t be used to trash all other methods because all of them doesn’t fit a certain criteria( computer analogy).
Blog post link Thus, I must say, I am hugely skeptical of many dimensions of educational cognitive science, particularly those works that has a tendency to influence policy and that part which is directly connected to money making industry, testing, assessments, etc.
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Constructivism vs Direct Instruction
This is a review post on the article “Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching BY Paul A. Kirschner , John Sweller & Richard E. Clark
Following are 6 major points of contention I would like to make as part of my critical review of this article.
1. A Polarized argument based on Cognitive Architecture
Here I must mention a concept often talked about by Charlie Munger; “MAN WITH A HAMMER SYNDROME” i.e. – To the man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. This means people are biased to use the tools they possess to solve problems, regardless of whether such tools are appropriate for the problem at hand.
This could be the problem here too.
The authors start the argument by establishing the existence of a fundamental cognitive architecture, which includes Working memory and Long term memory. They use this conceptual framework to make the point that Constructivism is bad for cultivating such fundamental aspects of learning as long term memory and working memory.
But, In my understanding, Constructivism is not an ideology that is set against or has any inherent disposition against fundamental Cognitive-Architecture. In-fact since it is integrative in approach, it can even be adapted to suit the better cultivation of this fundamental Cognitive-architecture, If that may seem fit in a particular context.
Further, In the real world, things are not black and white. There can be multiple ways of combining things together. A teacher or school may subscribe to Direct teaching methods to deal with more traditional aspects of learning. They can also have elements of constructivism
For example, they can teach and learn theory using the Direct approach and try things practically using Constructivist approaches. So, it is totally possible to integrate appropriate elements from each approach to suit situational needs.2. Reference to expertise literature.
As part of their effort to establish the importance of working and long-term memory, the authors try to use expertise literature, i.e. referring to studies done by De Groot, Chase, and Herbert Simon on chess expertise. The problem with this approach is that expertise is local to the chess game, we can all agree on that.
Similarly, we can also agree that Car-driving-expertise is local to the act of driving a car in a specific environment. Just like that, Educational teaching and learning are supposed to have local expertise, e.g. test-taking, or memorizing, which is optimized for the local evaluative cultures.
But I guess that is not the claim of this article. Its application in education is sometimes about General-Intelligence and Expertise.
If you know anything about expertise literature, its foundation is based on an understanding or studying of real expertise and debunking claims of generalized expertise, and false expertise, or concepts like that for E.g. Dunning Kruger effect.
3. Reductionism
The reductionism is evident when the article has to rely on Controlled studies, as evidenced in the conclusion paragraph; i.e. :
“In so far as there is any evidence from controlled studies, it almost uniformly supports direct, strong instructional guidance rather than constructivist-based minimal guidance during the instruction of novice to intermediate learners.”
Updated: A tweet from Nassim Taleb about the 2-dimensional correlation.
I appreciate the contribution and importance of Cognitive science, particularly the Cognitive Load Theory, but I think it is playing a disproportionately large role using its reductionist lab (e.g. paper tests, MCQ tests) methods, which mostly lacks external validity and often fails in replication studies.
My argument is that real-world learning is often complex, embedded, and embodied.
Going against my previous criticism of using expertise literature; even if we consider studies on such expertise, a recent meta-study found that deliberate practice explained only 26% of the variance in performance for games,21% music, 18%sports, 4% education, and less than 1% professions. This means that even in domains of extremely structured knowledge like chess and music, the correlation with deliberate practice to performance is low. Consider then the correlation with instruction(which is one or two layers outside of real learning), which often does not even take account of individual dispositional factors like- pre-existent skills, socio-economic background, disabilities, etc.
Further(a relevant tangent), in society, we have social systems, organizations, institutions which form part of our distributed cognition, which solves complex problems for us every single day 24/7. We have decision support systems like in air traffic, we have intelligent apps, we have brain-friendly GUI’s, we have robots, we have google to find information, etc.
The point I am trying to make is–We are evolutionarily superior because of our cumulative culture and tool-building capacity, not essentially because of our test-taking ability, which is the de-facto tool used by cognitive science.
I am all for tests for learning and assessment, I appreciate its value, but I will always argue that it should be limited. It should not overstep its scope to do things like branding(often entire racial groups) people as Low IQ, etc( I am not saying this particular article does this).
Also, we must always remember that, in evolution, committing errors is more valuable than giving a correct answer like a machine. If a task is valuable and repeatable(predictable) human society will always find a way to solve it with ease(law of least effort). The cognitive version of education proposed by this article is all about single mind cognition with no consideration to cumulative culture and tool building.
Note: Same authors(of this article) published their paper on “Collaborative Cognitive Load Theory.” which I will review in another post.
4. Correlation & Causation
The next logical argument from the other side will be to show the correlation of success with the test-taking ability(or achievement in general).
My rebut will be to show that it is the social system and structure which decides individual success, not an arbitrary cognitive test.
When you require higher points in Cognitive Tests to access institutions, success in that test can show up as a correlation to success. But this success should not be confused with causation. The test doesn’t cause any success by itself. The social-institutions used the test to give more opportunities for people to learn, grow, and brand. It is this ignored variable that caused the ultimate success.
For example, to get admission to a great Masters-program, you need good grades and often outstanding performance in tests. You have to have a good Masters’s degree to get a good research job, which provides you the opportunity to learn embedded tools like SPSS, Stata, R, etc. These tools are necessary for Ph.D. admission.
Link To Tweet Thus the real game-changer is access to institutions and their embedded tools. So, access to the tools and skill-producing actions depends on access to institutions that work with that tools. People who work in places like Google, NASA or CIA, will most likely pick up useful skills and tools which help them accumulate more skills and material prosperity in the future.
Related and relevant tangents on how institutional evaluative culture impacts life
Jerome Bruner(quote on meritocracy)
Relative Age effect + Mathew Effect +Pygmalion effect +
5. Nature Of Information
How much can, and should we remember in a dynamic and information-abundant-world is a very important question we should ask. How much fundamentally transient information should we remember? Who gets to decide. Are we deliberately creating an educational system in which blind-men( with reductionism) leading blind men(young children and their parents.).
If you are teaching a particular information today, how will you decide the value of that information 10 years from now? How will you value the value of information in comparison to another?Secondly, Information also has dimensions. How will you decide on what dimensionality of information you should teach)? For example, you can make students memorize the periodic table, but in a real practical situation, as in a lab, the dimension of retention may not be valid. They may instead use heuristics, search-based thinking, analogical thinking, recombination, or generate ideas using accidents as a result of making mistakes, etc.
Another possible issue with this approach is that of the schema consolidation and shutting down of novelty receptors. This could lead to habituation, lack of creative and innovative thinking, etc.6. Motivation
To help students learn effectively in a dynamic world, it is important to understand the science of motivation.
It should be noted that motivation has an important role in establishing learning as a permanent action, and not just as a part of a structured curriculum.
The Direct Instructional methods may stress external rewards more in the classroom, and by doing so it may diminish the intrinsic motivation of students,
The goal of a sensible and adaptive educational system should be to cultivate Intrinsic motivation that enables students to work independently and enthusiastically even after the school years are over, Or when nobody is there to push them to learn things.
It is something we may lack in the case of the Direct approach advocated by this paper.
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Problems with Neuroscience based educational approaches.
Should every teacher learn some neuroscience?
In this video David Daniel & Daniel Willingham explores a particular study which consider neuroscience/ education. They explores flaws in this approach.
Source
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Using google to make use of contrast effect
Finding and using the concept, idea or ideology which represents the opposite or conflicting conception will help us consolidate our understanding of the original concept along with the opposing concept in a much coherent way.
A way to use google to find the opposing concept is to type-in Vs, & , And, Or etc.
Even when we were infants comparative thinking is one of our first and most natural forms of thought.
This is why the strategy of comparison comes easy for us as a learning method.By using comparative method students will be able to identify similarities and differences between two or more items. It will help the learner understand how each piece of information are alike, equal, or analogous to each other.
This also demonstrates the benefit of MCQ testing as a powerful way of learning. Learners who are attempting to answer MCQs learn not only the correct alternative. They also learn and understand why the other alternatives are incorrect.(Bjork Study)
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Exams are coming; Optimize your learning by using “Desirable Difficulties”.
Desirable difficulties are difficulties which challenge the comfort but ends up creating long term desirable effects(Learning).The concept of “desirable difficulties” was developed by Robert Bjork of UCLA. In his research, he noticed various kinds of experimental phenomena which indicated the emergence of 2 predominant patterns in learning.They are:-
Conditions of instruction or practice (learning) that make performance improve rapidly often fail to support long term retention and transfer. Whereas,
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Conditions of instruction or practice(learning) that appear to create difficulties for the learner, slowing the rate of apparent learning, often optimizes long term retention and transfer.
The first one accelerates the learning(Or speeds up learning), the second one slows down learning by introducing difficulties that benefit long term retention and transfer. These difficulties are what Robert BJORK Calls Desirable difficulties.The difficulties in the latter category are called desirable difficulties because they enhance the very goal of learning, ie retention and transfer. They are difficulties because they pose challenges and they slow down the rate of performance.The following are 4 important kinds of desirable difficulties that you can apply immediately to your exam preparation.
1. Varying the conditions of learning.
The scientific studies on the effects of variable practice on learning have been demonstrated and replicated for both motor/perceptual tasks as well as cognitive tasks. Varying learning conditions makes learning more effortful but results in enhanced long-term retrieval.In contrast, less variable learning conditions may produce a better initial performance on a task (motor/perceptual or cognitive), but results in little or no transfer of learning. Based on the perceived ease, students may assume that they are effectively mastering the material in conditions of non-variable learning, but this apparent learning may actually prove to be unreliable and transient when tested for generalized situations or tested after a significant time gap.However, when learning is made more effortful with variable conditions, performance during initial phases may be diminished, although such learning conditions are more likely to produce a better transfer, hence produce higher quality learning.Following are practical ways to increase variability in learning :-
Use multiple types of retrieval practice Eg. Mix MCQs, Non-choice Quiz, Descriptive tests, Matching the items in the list, etc.
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Use computer tests, classic paper tests, oral retrieval tests etc.
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Use content variability with transfer practice( apply it to another context).
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Using indirect content and adjacent content. Eg. Bringing Chemistry perspective to biology content.
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Use environmental variability: Chose to learn and teach from different physical spaces.
2. Spacing Effect (Distributed practice).
The spacing effect is a kind of desirable difficulty in which practice sections ( learning sections) are divided into a number of short sessions over a longer period of time.This effect suggests that we learn more effectively when we study in several sessions spread out over a long period of time, rather than studied repeatedly in a short period of time. (This kind of learning requires a longer period of time and discipline which is a desirable difficulty).The opposite is called massed practice ( or cramming), which consists of fewer, longer training sessions. It is generally a less effective method of learning because most of the learning will not result in long term retention and transfer. For example, Cramming for an exam with intense study the night before.By using spaced learning, you will avoid waiting until the last minute to “cram” for an exam.Following are some practical suggestions to incorporate spacing in your exam preparation.• Start early by planning out a study schedule.• You should plan to focus on part of each course at regular intervals.• Each session should be managed to cover old and new materials. Eg. 80% old revision and 20% new.For more about the science of spacing in learning events check out The Temporal Dynamics of Learning Center or “TDLC”3. Retrieval Practice( Testing effect).
Another example of desirable difficulty is retrieval practice. Learners tend to prefer easy learning methods with a reduced cognitive effort like re-reading, re-studying or highlight material. They hate testing themselves on the learned material as it forces them to try and retrieve information, which is effortful and not always successful.According to Retrievalpractice.org:Retrieval practice is a strategy in which bringing information to mind enhances and boosts learning. Deliberately recalling information forces us to pull our knowledge “out” and examine what we know. For instance, recalling an answer to a science question improves learning to a greater extent than looking up the answer in a textbook. And having to actually recall and write down an answer to a flashcard improves learning more than thinking that you know the answer and flipping the card over prematurely.Research shows that the single most important practice in promoting long-term retention and transfer is retrieval practice.In retrieval practice, we access our memory to retrieve some particular information without any external memory aids. In other words, we attempt to recall this information in some form given minimal or no cues. By doing so repeatedly and in various contexts, the learner strengthens access to this information by cultivating the retrieval cues related to the particular memory, facilitating long-term retention and transfer of knowledge across contexts.Applications can be of many types and modes:-
Take low stake tests throughout the learning.
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Use multiple types of retrieval practice Eg.MCQs, Non-choice Quiz, Descriptive tests, Matching the items in the list, etc.
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Use computer tests, classic paper tests, oral retrieval tests etc.
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Align lectures, assignments, and tests, so that important information will have to be remembered at different times.
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Ask questions during lectures to elicit responses that reflect an understanding of previously introduced course material.
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Practice questions in homework assignments.
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Practice questions and quizzes in chapter summaries.
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Group studying with active discussions which allow retrieval and explanation of learned concepts. This will also help us diagnose and reduce the learning illusion called Illusion of explanatory depth
4. Providing contextual interference during learning.
Another example of a desirable difficulty is the Contextual Interference-effect. It is a learning phenomenon where interference during practice is beneficial to skill learning. That is, higher levels of contextual interference lead to poorer practice performance but result in superior retention and transfer performance.Although not effective in every kind of learning activity, the effect of contextual interference was studied and replicated for both motor/perceptual tasks as well as cognitive tasks. In the academic setting, the contextual interference effect was conceived mostly as the dynamics between Blocked practice and Interleaved practice.Blocked practice is when a learner performs a single skill or content over and over, Variation in this learning stage is minimized or nonexistent. The learner then moves on to practice another skill or content in the same way. Thus it involves studying one topic very thoroughly before moving to another topic.By contrast, Interleaving is the process where learners mix, or interleave, multiple topics while they study in order to improve their learning.According to Sean H. K. Kang : Interleaving refers to the benefits of sequencing learning tasks so that similar items, two examples of the same concept, say – are interspersed with different types of items rather than being consecutive. This results in a more variable and challenging task but is associated with benefits in terms of memory and transfer, which apply to concept learning as well as other domainsThus the interleaved study is the opposite of blocked study.If students are trying to revise topics X, Y and Z for an exam, their study routine can be:1) XXXYYYZZZ, or2) XYZXYZXYZRoutine 1 is blocked, whereas routine 2 is interleaved.Research in the field of cognitive sciences has consistently shown that routine 2 leads to deeper learning, long term retrieval and transfer of learning.
Image: Teaching the science of learning by Yana Weinstein, Christopher Madan, and Megan A. SumerackiThe following are some ways to apply this to your learning environment.-
Use interleaving with other 3 powerful learning techniques listed in this article above. (also check )
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Interleaving with related skills (or content) often gives better results because of connected nature. Eg. Grammar/ Vocabulary/ Writing /Reading / Listening.
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Apply interleaving to math practice using the following Guide by Doug Rohrer, Robert F. Dedrick, and Pooja K. Agarwal.
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Use spaced repetition apps like Anki etc which include Interleaving principles inbuilt in it. (Automatically avoid blocking to optimize learning).
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Tweet: Six Strategies for Effective Learning by learningscientists.org
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Asking questions and learning
One good technique which aids fast and sustainable learning is to read the topic once for understanding, then quiz yourself.
Asking questions will trigger the creation and refinement of retrieval cues specific to the information or groups of information to be retrieved. Without these retrieval cues we cannot reliably bring back the information into our active output. This is why retrieving information is what actually produces more robust learning and memory. The more we try to retrieve an information the more powerful, reliable and sustainable the retrieval cues becomes.
Even when we cannot retrieve it, it gives us an accurate diagnostic on what we know and don’t know. This tells us what we should go back and study. This helps guide our studies more effectively.
Asking questions thus helps you understand more deeply through Meta-Cognition.
Check https://www.retrievalpractice.org for more about the science of Retrieval