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socalgal2 | on: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling
There's also this: https://youtube.com/watch?v=g1ib43q3uXQ which claims data shows students being forced to "figure it out" is not the best way to learn. Most HNer disagree with this.
zipy124 | parent | next
That's exactly quoted at the start of the article?

"Problem-based learning tends to do worse than traditional schooling in medical education. An influential meta-analysis by Albanese and Mitchell, for instance, found that students required more time studying, had worse exam scores and ordered more unnecessary tests compared to traditionally taught students. "

Problem-based learning is exactly the "figure it out" method.

g3f32r | root | parent
> students required more time studying, had worse exam scores and ordered more unnecessary tests compared to traditionally taught students.

While I didn't do any additional looking into it -- this is often my biggest gripe. Is the _goal_ to have better exam scores and require less time studying or is the goal to be a better problem-solver holistically?

When faced with a novel problem that neither the problem-based learning group nor the traditional schooling group - which performed better and by what metrics?

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It seems silly to say "This group who was instructed to rote memorize material could indeed perform better on a direct memory recall examination." and then close the door on problem-based learning.

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rsolva | parent | next
What they need to figure out is what topics peaks their interest. Kids need exposure to a broad spectrum early, get interested, and then have mentors that know how to run with it and harness that motivation. Later on these kids can tolerate learning more mundane, boring stuff if that brings them closer to a goal they have set for themself. But motivation has to come first!
tuumi | root | parent
Piques their interest. Sorry to be that guy.
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obscurette | parent | next
As someone who have been teacher for some time - students being forced to "figure it out" is the worst way to learn. For every subject you teach explicitly there is always a ton of knowledge to discover if students choose to do it, but being forced to do it very clearly damages students.

https://scienceoflearning.substack.com/p/no-explicit-instruc...

AnimalMuppet | parent
Seems to me that "figure it out" works better for learning depth of knowledge than it does for breadth of knowledge. That is, I can figure out the computer graphics tricks I need in order to get my project to draw fast, even if they're fairly deep and sophisticated tricks. I'm less likely to figure out, say, the humanities portion of a college education.

Why? At least for me, focused goals motivate more than diffuse ones. I could treat "the humanities" as a bunch of focused goals, but there would be a large number of them. That takes a fair amount of motivation.