Dude. This is like the best combination EVER! Two of the persons I looked up to, watched video for years do a video together? Scott can I just say that the whole reason I'm studying neurosciences right now is because of your blog? Guys keep going! You're the best!
Funny thing is that his MIT approach goes against the ideas of ultra learning, immersion and learning by doing. It’d be interesting for him to plot how he’s reach the same objective of technical depth while maintaining the principles of effective and enthralling learning.
🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation: 00:44 📚 *Scott H. Young critiques Justin Su's learning research in an email exchange, leading to this debate video.* 02:20 📖 *Justin Su praises Scott H Young's book "Ultralearning," acknowledging its depth and quality in the learning space.* 06:31 🌐 *Justin Su emphasizes the importance of reading widely and gaining diverse perspectives for a comprehensive understanding of learning.* 09:43 🧠 *Scott H. Young discusses the challenges in educational psychology, highlighting the need to identify what specific knowledge and skills should be taught.* 13:24 🎓 *Justin Su and Scott H. Young discuss the shift from traditional knowledge acquisition to the value of knowing what to learn and self-directed learning in the modern world.* 16:13 🛠️ *Scott H. Young delves into the limitations of direct instructional resources, prompting the importance of constructivist approaches for learners designing their own projects.* 17:34 🤔 *Justin Su critiques cognitivist research for its instructional focus, advocating for a balance between instructionalism and constructivism, especially in cognitive theories of learning.* 19:26 🔄 *Scott H. Young mentions Manu Kapur's "productive failure" concept, highlighting the ongoing debate about the balance between constructivist exploration and explicit instruction for effective learning.* 19:55 🎓 *Scott Young emphasizes the importance of both understanding learning principles and exploring what works in various situations.* 20:21 🏫 *Young believes that while teaching quality in schools can improve, the main bottleneck might not be the teaching methods but rather how students can effectively work with the information provided.* 21:14 🤔 *Young delves into the mindset of efficient learners, exploring how they manipulate and process information to achieve deep expertise and efficient learning.* 21:56 📚 *Inquiry-based learning has theoretical merit, but its execution often falls short due to instructional variation, dependency on facilitators, and intrinsic motivation issues.* 23:06 🧠 *Young discusses the nuanced effectiveness of flashcards, highlighting that their utility depends on factors like the subject matter, context, and the learner's level.* 26:35 🤯 *Some top students may succeed with any technique, but many learners struggle due to a lack of understanding nuances, leading to feelings of inadequacy.* 27:56 🎥 *Young critiques the limitations of social media platforms, where users often seek quick tips but may not appreciate the depth of expertise, making it challenging to deliver nuanced advice.* 30:44 🧠 *Young discusses the role of cognitive load theory, chunking, and prior experience in learning, highlighting the importance of adapting learning approaches based on the subject and individual needs.* 34:00 🤝 *Young finds common ground with the principles of inquiry-based learning when it comes to fostering curiosity, exploration, and self-regulated learning, while emphasizing the need for practical implementation.* 38:50 📚 *Understanding, according to Young, involves constructing a situation model by combining information from the text with prior knowledge, emphasizing the importance of a broad knowledge base for fluent understanding.* 39:32 🧠 *Background knowledge enhances understanding; comprehensibility relies on prior knowledge.* 40:12 📚 *Expertise involves not only extensive reading but also deep, comparative thinking.* 41:36 📖 *Apply Bloom's Revised Taxonomy for higher-order thinking; challenge the hierarchical approach.* 42:59 🧩 *Memory and understanding are residues of thought; encourage higher-order processing for effective learning.* 46:27 🎯 *Clear goals guide processing; purposeful learning enhances understanding and retention.* 50:13 📝 *Reading with the intention to teach enhances comprehension and retention.* 53:16 🧭 *Orienting activities and goal-directed reading help build a mental model for effective learning.* 54:56 🔄 *Prior habits of learning impact the experience of acquiring new information; adapting habits is a gradual process.* 57:42 🌍 *Cultural variations significantly influence learning approaches; education systems and practices are culturally specific.* 58:50 🌍 *Cultural differences influence learning methods; Eastern cultures emphasize memorization, while Western cultures focus on explicit instruction.* 59:18 🧠 *Cultural background shapes intellectual traditions; e.g., Indian culture valued memorizing The Vedas, impacting learning approaches.* 01:00:13 🤔 *Cultural attitudes towards memorization vary; Indian students may face exam expectations for verbatim recall, contrasting with US spelling bee successes.* 01:01:24 🌐 *Cultural impact on learning includes background assumptions; Western culture may romanticize learning methods, influencing educational perspectives.* 01:02:34 📚 *Consider cultural influences in discussions about learning theories, e.g., Sweller's cognitive load theory or distinctions between primary and secondary learning.* 01:03:56 🔍 *Adapting to new intellectual cultures requires understanding contextual expectations, norms, and background knowledge.* 01:06:26 🔄 *Belief in the transformative process of learning is crucial; accumulating background knowledge and experience decreases task difficulty over time.* 01:09:35 🚀 *Learning is a transformative process; individual growth occurs through accumulating knowledge and experiences in a particular domain.*
the last message of not going line by line... and doing what's relevant for *your brain* is singlehandedly one of the best ways to waste less time and understand concepts more deeply. Loved this Dr. justin ❤️🔥❤️ Thanks to you I have become quite a better learner... I thought I was at the peak of a sigmoid curve and I it was my limit... but after discovering you I have seen an exponential growth in my learning skill. Love from India❤️ you are very right about the rote memorisation aspect here
I can't speak for everyone, but personally, I prefer listening to experts speak freely rather than following a prepared script. When they speak naturally, it's easier to grasp the information without it being obscured by jargon. While I might not comprehend everything, I find that some of the content resonates better. It would be even more beneficial if someone could also critique their speech. And a big problem in mass education is 'teacher training' and the content selected to teach. There is a disconnection evidenced in the classroom when even as uneducated as you may be in the study materials, by the deliverance of the teacher you can notice that is like they don't know what they are talking about which creates a barrier between the student and the teacher that ultimately pushes the student again from learning.
WOW! at 58:31 where you mention the finding of how people learn in Mexico blew my mind. My mom is from Mexico and I myself have the habit of learned from observation. I don't remember my mom ever giving me lessons on how to do something. I just "watched and learned". The more I thought about it, I don't remember my mom being a patient teacher so I didn't ask many questions b/c I didn't want her to get upset with me.... >_> ... This habit has helped me in life but also caused me stress b/c I am not used to asking for help. I beat my head trying to figure things out on my own b/c asking questions has always brought me negative experiences.
Thank you for cultivating and disseminating these awesome conversations! I sincerely hope to listen to you talk to more individuals in the learning space. As a clinical psychologist, it's really fun to hear about a tangential field from people who are incredibly passionate about it. Start a podcast!
Scott H. Young 09:22. Hay poco énfasis en psicología educacional sobre qué es lo que se debe enseñar. 10:00 51:48. "Cognitive task analysis" es el análisis con el cual se averígua que conocimientos realmente aplica un experto. 11:00. "What Every American Should Know", E.D. Hirsch 11:19. El mayor interés de Scott es sobre qué es aquello que deberías aprender. 15:47. La teoría psicológica de mayor inclinación de Scott es el constructivismo. 16:35. Una buena técnica de estudio es la autoexplicación. 36:34. Hay una interrelación entre el conocimiento y la memorización en lugar de dos cosas completamente diferentes. 37:06. Un buen modelo sobre la comprensión es el construction-integration de Walter Kintsch 44:27. Una práctica de Young para la lectura es la presencia de una meta activa o la lectura con una razón en lugar de simplemente estar siguiendo la lista de lecturas. 45:30. Hay quien juzga la lectura o no de un libro si merece serle escrito una reseña. Esto es un buen ejemplo de lectura con alguna meta. 45:50 46:16 50:16 Ejemplos de metas en mente para las lecturas. 53:05. Hay una gran dificultad para que las personas tengan una meta en mente para la lectura.
Really enjoyed watching this conversation with Scott Young. Also think it would be super interesting to see Dr Justin have a conversation with Cal Newport, too!!
This is great, thank you. I am reading his book now, and it is great for sure. I am working on an evidence-gathering learning journal which will lead to accreditation of the students. The training is skill-based, with a lot of philosophical underpinning. The practical considerations of things like layout of templates etc is causing my head to explode. I enjoyed the conversation a lot.
i'm interview prepping for education right now, so this gave me so much food for thought!! i'd love more content like this, or a video where you rant about (gaps in) educational research. thank you so much for the lovely discussion!
Had a feeling that this would be an elite-level conversation with tonnes of depth and substance and I was not wrong. Wow. Oftentimes it’s the level of the interviewer that determines how deep the guest can go and Justin’s unearthing diamonds because of his depth and competence
Totally agree about the idea of memory and understanding as a residue of thinking.... I have realized, as Justin says, that when i am reading huge amounts of information, even if i am actually understanding, i do not feel i am learning. I mean, even if i understand, i dont have the feeling of being able to use that knowledge in different contexts or give an general idea of topic with acuracy. I feel overwhelm and desorganized. So, because of that, i have reduce drastically my spending time on reading and now i spend more time in thw process of comparing ideas, trying to conect the most relevant ideas that i found in diferent texts by doing very shallow readings looking only for the most relevants ideas. Another thing i want to point out is the idea of repetion, not evident, but i think implied in the hipotesis of memory and understanding as a residue of thought. I think that in order to create strong memories and understansings in the long term is necesary to repeat with frecuency the process of higher order thinking about some topic with different degrees of complex. Repeting plays a role in the consolidation even using more rote memory orientared methods, but i think it is equally necessary in higher order thinking. 🤔🤔🤔
Vigorous "debate" frim 33:19 to 40:00. Justin: "What do we disagree on?" Scott: I'm in the DI camp and your more of an IBL guy." Justin: "No, no. I am a DI guy. IBL just primes you for DI." Debate over. Whew! That was tense! 😂 So glad to see this conversation. I started my learning about learning journey with an old book called "How to Study and Teaching How to Study" by Frank McMurry written in 1909. Then I discovered "How to Read a Book" by MJ Adler. Then I heard about Scott Young's MIT challenge, read Scott's book "Learn More, Study Less", enrolled in his course, read his book UltraLearning, then discovered Justin Sung and the I Can Study program. This was fascinating to listen to. Good to see their mutual respect and very happy for all the work they have both contributed to this field.
You two are my favourite experts in the "learning how to learn field". I have been following Scott´s work for nearly 10 years, he is so knowledgeable yet can explain complex ideas clearly without any fluff. Justin probably didn´t read that much research on learning, but has a great experience with real students and developed darn good learning system for intrinsically motivated students. Would be cool if you debated with someone like Sweller, Karpicke or Roediger. I would also appreciate if you asked Scott or some other expert for his opinion chunk maps you teach to students.
Scott's approach seems to be more simple. Have a clear goal and the learning will happen as you try to accomplish it. Justin's approach feels more "scientific" but also more complex. I got the impression that Scott is not really listening to Justin. I feel that Justin's method is great for high school and college students of many different backgrounds, it is great for preparing for lectures, quizzes and exams. Scott's method is great for "ultralearning" projects (just read 150 books). It's all good, but Scott's method is more for people who are naturally good at making connections and don't need a systematic approach. A college student with a below average IQ could still excel with Justin's method. Learning is not easy either way, it has ups and downs, there is a lot of forgetting happening all the time, and you cannot be an expert at everything. But if you try hard for years you can become really good at at least a few things, I think the best plan would be to create your own method, starting with a base of the best advice you can find.
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Justin, i was wondering what you thought about the book 📖: Peak - Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by Anders Ericsson? What do you think about his methods? And the idea of Deliberate Practice? And do you think you could do a interview with Anders Ericsson? That would be excellent!!!! 😊
00:01 Scott H. Young is an international best-selling author. 02:07 Scott H. Young's book 'Ultra learning' stands out among other books on learning. 05:53 Understanding and integrating constructivist and cognitivist perspectives in learning 07:52 The interplay between cognitive processes and psychological theories in learning. 11:44 The value of knowing what to learn and how to learn is more important than just accumulating knowledge. 13:37 Scott H. Young is an interesting thinker who bet on an unpopular idea that has become popular. 17:09 Criticism of cognitivism in education research 18:59 Instructional support and effective learning methods are open questions in research. 22:35 Specifics of using flashcards for effective learning 24:14 Using flash cards to learn synonyms can create negative transfer and interference. 27:20 Social media's quick tip culture makes it difficult to deliver detailed learning content. 28:54 Learning is not scientific like physics, but there are ideas and strategies that can be effective in different situations. 32:07 Principled approach is necessary for questions that are not well studied. 33:39 Inquiry-based learning is a starting framework to think about the learner's role in the learning process. 37:07 To understand something deeply, you need to combine knowledge gained from the text with existing knowledge. 38:41 Struggling to understand and memorize due to lack of background knowledge. 41:52 The limitations of Bloom's revised taxonomy and the importance of authentic learning. 43:32 Having a clear purpose and goal while reading helps in better understanding and processing the information. 46:46 Knowing what will be asked on exams is crucial for effective studying. 48:22 Creating personal relevance in learning even when the information is not objectively relevant 51:42 Different goals in reading academic literature 53:25 Orientation and goal-setting activities are important for effective learning. 56:42 Anthropology reveals the vast cultural variations among people. 58:27 Culture has a significant influence on learning and cognitive abilities. 1:01:55 Understanding research papers requires a critical mindset. 1:03:34 Adapting to a new intellectual culture requires explicit norms and rules. 1:07:03 Building a strong foundation in a topic takes time and effort, but it leads to expertise. 1:08:32 Learning can be easier if you start from a point that is personally relevant and easier for you to understand.
Give the link to the details videos! I need longer and more detail vids so that I can better understand the learning concepts. Suggestions on the type of books to read to have a better understanding of mind mapping will be helpful as well.
54:45 god! that's so true! my parents grew up there, they dreaded it, both as students and teachers. 59:10 good point, Scott, sounds right, that's probably where most Indians get their rote memorization habit.
When Justin and Scott talked about people who don’t know what they’re doing when t comes to studying science, he’s the type of person they are talking about.
In order for us to understand, we need to cover dozens of info in the topic we ought to make sense of, so we have sufficient background on the topic we're trying to grasp.
Im German, so maybe because of the language I don't get the following: When they start to talk about what they don't agree on, Scott makes the point, that he is in favor of the Direct Instruction Style, instead of inquiry based learning and Jason immediately says that he is also a big proponent of Direct Instruction. Can someone point out to me, what they mean by that in simple terms? 😅
"Memory is the residue of thought." Daniel T Willingham Sadly, teaching people to think is rarely the objective today. ON the other hand, how else to do you segregate society🐺🐑🐑🐑.
hi dr. sung! may i ask a question? is making digital flashcards while reading a digital book (so i can copy and paste and easily do a mini recall before pasting the answer) more effective than highlighting on the actual book and rereading the highlights?
Since he didn’t answer, the answer is yes. It’s more effective. But flashcards have limitations because they are cue specific and only reinforce the links between two bits of information. Free recall would probably be better.
Damn, looks like Justin Sung is mountains ahead of Scott as I found Scott, just like the previous cognitive student to greatly lack in researching background. Deep down, I know that Justin Sung is disappointed as he hasn't found what he was looking for
Justin, not sure if you are aware but you say "um" and "like" .. a lot! Might want to consider dropping those verbal ticks - helps u come across more clearly.
Whats the best book to get for mind mapping? I ordered one by tony buzan but i see he also has a book on speed reading and im not sure hes going to be a good source.
I felt, Dr Justin is frustrated of being put out of his conversation by Dr scott. He couldn't complete several messages he had in mind, well that happens sometimes when both speakers are excellent in their fields and want to talk as much as they can.
YOU guys lost me at 18 min as you are tossing around specialized language that I can't follow. I really wish you had defined terms and just spoke to us- not to each other as EXPERTS...at least for me a new viewer but college educated who wanted to get your take on learning.
(Sry for my english😅) I always try to ask my self"why is it important?". Its something I´ve done for years. But is true that my answers in many cases (not always) its, "because its for the exam". There´s A LOT of thing that are, objectively, not useful in real life in a lot of program (specially in spain public education) like memorice a list of past kings if you want to be a programer. And I´ve never though that saying "this is important because its important" is not an answer that will trigger deep proceses. But i dont not what can i do with that frustrating situation, sometimes the answers is that is just not important, i dont want to do it, i will never use that again in my life (99% sure) but I´ve to do it because of... exams. How can I confront that situation to try to trigger deep processing on that topic? Like maybe pretend its a "slumdog millionaire" situation and in ten years this may be a million dollar info to have? Maybe the love of my life will marry me just if I know the specific difference between a toads and frogs that they ask me in biology class. Or maybe i have to give it importance, because knowledge, learning its something beautiful that gives life a purpose, and "you never know, life changes a lot, it may be useful somehow" therefore it okey to invest time clasificating types of words in spanish class... I dont know, but this deep felling of losing my time in irrelevant info... its the worst. But, I have the exam anyways so, its something i have to get done if i what to study what i want, so : how can i trigger deep processing on that? How to answer the question, why is that important? (if is not)
hi really love your videos it as really helped me in medical school but I had a question how do you think I can use active recall and other study methode to study a subject as anatomy
