I'm often startled anew by how pre-Newtonian learning remains. You just made a new lesson / activity / explanation. Is it effective? Is it engaging? What parts work best/worst? Getting high-signal answers is very slow—and evaluation is often many times as expensive as creation.
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Of course human brains are much more complex and contextual than are mass and acceleration 🧐
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I got very garden-pathed by this sentence. I was very confused by what “pre-Newtonian learning” was :p
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Does “pre-Newtonian” just mean “primitive” in this case, or is there something pedagogical associated with Newton?
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Ah, specifically: we lack something akin to F=ma; our theories are mostly Aristotelean, driven more by philosophy than explanatory systematicity.
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As I recall, would say that usability testing, even with just one or two people, usually uncovers plenty of flaws, and one can then focus on the glaring, facepalm-inspiring ones.
Maybe teaching is too different from web design for the same principles to apply?
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Unfortunately in my experience, between-student variance usually drown out between-condition effect sizes when evaluating individual lessons / activities / explanations.
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