📣 New essay distilling one strand of some ongoing work✨
I argue that books lack a functioning model of how people learn—instead, they're (accidentally, invisibly) built around a model that's plainly false. Plus some early models for what to do about it.
Conversation
Great piece, agreed on most points. But one issue that isn't addressed: creator effort. Part of the appeal of books and lectures is that they're extremely easy to make, particularly once you've internalized basics of good presentation.
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That's why, for my course, I spend 80%+ of total preparation time making assignments and quizzes. Coming up with the right questions and hw design is a hard job. I think it's useful to talk about a new medium that can lower the barrier to entry in creating this type of content.
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Which is to say, the answer may be just as much a shift in priorities/resources (valuing homework design as a skill, having explicit education for instructors on helping students engage) than the design of a new medium. Or better creator tools, e.g. penrose.ink
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Replying to
This is a great point, and it's certainly something I think about: Quantum Country took forever to build, after all. That said, I'll consider it a great start if we can end up with even a handful of media artifacts which embody powerful ideas about cognition!