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Thread: Satisfied with your progress? Read on.

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    Default Satisfied with your progress? Read on.

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    Registered User John Flynn's Avatar
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    Default Re: Satisfied with your progress? Read on.

    I'll wait for the English translation.

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    Default Re: Satisfied with your progress? Read on.

    I was lost by the end of the first sentence myself.... But I met it's good stuff.

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    Distressed Model John Ritchhart's Avatar
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    Default Re: Satisfied with your progress? Read on.

    I had already learned this but I forgot it.
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    mando-evangelist August Watters's Avatar
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    Default Re: Satisfied with your progress? Read on.

    Thanks! Both articles back up ideas I learned from my teachers, and now pass on to my students:
    1) learning is more effective when little bits are revisited frequently;
    2) people are notoriously poor judges of their own learning, in part because they confuse what they have recently been exposed to with what they have actually retained. It takes some time to solidify what you have learned and make it useful!
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    Default Re: Satisfied with your progress? Read on.

    Learning is a bit like sculpting. You generally don't sculpt the pinky finger and polish it to perfection before starting on the other parts of the block.

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    Default Re: Satisfied with your progress? Read on.

    What is surprising to me is how much of what has been shown to work best is not done in so many educational environments.

    Remember how you learned to spell?

    Study words for a week.
    Take test.
    Done.
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    Registered User Pete Summers's Avatar
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    Default Re: Satisfied with your progress? Read on.

    Mr. Bjork may have learned a lot of things. Unfortunately, writing an intelligible English sentence is not one of them.

  10. #10

    Default Re: Satisfied with your progress? Read on.

    In academia, passive verbs and jargon go with the teritory, but it isn't that hard to read.

    Approximate representation of the U.S. grade level needed to comprehend the text :
    Coleman Liau index : 12.91
    Flesch Kincaid Grade level : 11.27
    ARI (Automated Readability Index) : 10.74
    SMOG : 13.14
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    Registered User Pete Summers's Avatar
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    Default Re: Satisfied with your progress? Read on.

    Excuse it with academic pretense if you wish. Bad writing is still bad writing.

  12. #12

    Default Re: Satisfied with your progress? Read on.

    Quote Originally Posted by Pete Summers View Post
    Excuse it with academic pretense if you wish. Bad writing is still bad writing.
    True.

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    Registered User John Flynn's Avatar
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    Default Re: Satisfied with your progress? Read on.

    Quote Originally Posted by JonZ View Post
    In academia, passive verbs and jargon go with the teritory, but it isn't that hard to read.

    Approximate representation of the U.S. grade level needed to comprehend the text :
    Coleman Liau index : 12.91
    Flesch Kincaid Grade level : 11.27
    ARI (Automated Readability Index) : 10.74
    SMOG : 13.14
    Apples and oranges. The grade level does not determine how hard something is to read, just the grade level it takes to comprehend it. The Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease score for that academic article (as opposed to the grade level) is 28. On that scale, 10 is a legal contract and 90 is a comic book. Anything below 30 is considered "hard to read." Add to that this author is a poor writer even for an academic, and you have "both hard and instantly boring."

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    Default Re: Satisfied with your progress? Read on.

    Quote Originally Posted by Pete Summers View Post
    Excuse it with academic pretense if you wish. Bad writing is still bad writing.
    +1

    Your logic is airtight.
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    Default Re: Satisfied with your progress? Read on.

    Quote Originally Posted by John Flynn View Post
    Apples and oranges. The grade level does not determine how hard something is to read, just the grade level it takes to comprehend it. The Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease score for that academic article (as opposed to the grade level) is 28. On that scale, 10 is a legal contract and 90 is a comic book. Anything below 30 is considered "hard to read." Add to that this author is a poor writer even for an academic, and you have "both hard and instantly boring."
    I guess it goes to show that style is not a matter of right and wrong, but of what is appropriate for a particular setting and audience. I found the academic paper both an easy read and quite interesting.

    I did post a link to the lite version, if you would care to discuss the content of the article.
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    Registered User John Flynn's Avatar
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    Default Re: Satisfied with your progress? Read on.

    I like the concept of "interleaving." It would seem to be a great validation/inspiration for all the ADD sufferers in the world!

    But I think the weakness in Bjork's arguments for me is that like a lot of academic arguments, is it is an attempt to get the facts to fit the theory. What I have seen in years of hands-on involvement in communications, training and development is that everyone picks up information, and skills, differently. There are many theories out there about learning styles, etc. but they still don't do the topic justice. Everyone is a multi-dimensional matrix of learning abilities, for each different thing they are trying to learn. So I may learn classical mandolin (off of sheet music) by interleaving, or whatever, but I can learn old-time (by ear) better by just good old fashioned, unrelenting wood-shedding. And non-music stuff I might learn in a completely different mode.

    Bottom line for me is take what works for you and work it, leave behind what doesn't. I think ideas like Bjork's are good for giving a person ideas to try out, not as doctrine.

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    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Satisfied with your progress? Read on.

    I wonder about the applicability to playing a musical instrument. So much of what we do in playing the mandolin is not memory, in the classical sense of stand and deliver the poem you memorized, but a more complicated mixture of muscle and mind, communications skills, knowing in your head and knowing in your fingers, controlled assertiveness and active listening.

    For example, I think the article relevant in learning a new tune. But not in learning how to play by ear. Its great for learning the chord shapes, but not for feeling where a tune is going chord wise. Learning to play piece from memory, yea. Learning to play with others, not so much.

    A non musical example, you can learn the meanings of a lot of words that way, but you can't learn to communicate that way. Playing music seems to have a lot of that to it, that crazy communications skills, hearing and doing and modifying depending on how well you come across, all that kind of interactive stuff.

    Yea, its how you learned spelling. But its not how you learned writing.
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

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    Registered User SincereCorgi's Avatar
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    Default Re: Satisfied with your progress? Read on.

    Quote Originally Posted by JeffD View Post
    I wonder about the applicability to playing a musical instrument.
    Well, sure, but I wonder if a tennis pro would read it and wonder about the applicability to playing tennis- I'm sure there are all sorts of aspects of the game regarding pacing and the psychology of competition that can't be practiced the way you might practice a backhand.

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    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Satisfied with your progress? Read on.

    Quote Originally Posted by SincereCorgi View Post
    Well, sure, but I wonder if a tennis pro would read it and wonder about the applicability to playing tennis- I'm sure there are all sorts of aspects of the game regarding pacing and the psychology of competition that can't be practiced the way you might practice a backhand.
    In fact, exactly. There is a lot more to tennis than can be learned with this technique.

    Just speculating, but it seems the best fit is a purely intellectual endeavor. Learning the circulatory system, learning the Kings of England, learning the branches of government. Things you can learn in a classroom.
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

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    funny....

  20. #20

    Default Re: Satisfied with your progress? Read on.

    Quote Originally Posted by John Flynn View Post
    But I think the weakness in Bjork's arguments for me is that like a lot of academic arguments, is it is an attempt to get the facts to fit the theory.
    How is his argument weak, other than by not agreeing with your personal experiences?
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  21. #21

    Default Re: Satisfied with your progress? Read on.

    This thread has disappointingly little mandolin content.

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    Default Re: Satisfied with your progress? Read on.

    +1, Mr. R-Tessi. Hew the whole block and see where it takes you.

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    Registered User Rosemary Philips's Avatar
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    Default Re: Satisfied with your progress? Read on.

    Quote Originally Posted by OldSausage View Post
    This thread has disappointingly little mandolin content.

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    Registered User John Flynn's Avatar
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    Default Re: Satisfied with your progress? Read on.

    Quote Originally Posted by JonZ View Post
    How is his argument weak, other than by not agreeing with your personal experiences?
    Anytime a theory doesn't match up with actual practice, I consider it weak. And I am not talking about "personal experience," I'm talking about 30 years of professional field experience. I know that means nothing to academics, which is part of the problem.

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    Registered User neil argonaut's Avatar
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    Default Re: Satisfied with your progress? Read on.

    Have just read the "wired" summary (the original article seemed easy enough reading but a bit long for just now), and apart from the interleaving, imo the other bit that could be most applied to mandolin is this:
    Similarly, studying in only one location is great as long as you’ll only be required to recall the information in the same location. If you want information to be accessible outside your dorm room, or office, or nook on the second floor of the library, Bjork recommends varying your study location.
    I know even discounting other factors like audience, i'll play better in my living room than elsewhere, so I try and play in different places if i get the chance.

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