[0kl]

Maybe it’s good, maybe it’s bad. A lot of anecdotes about “important” historical figures or institutions that use copy by hand as a method for learning.

I would have preferred citing actual research, not an appeal to historical methods.

Given that some of the conclusions that word for word copy may be less efficient than summarized copy[1], it may be a less efficient and less effective way of learning than going through a reading and summarizing every paragraph.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-learning-secret...

[eyelidlessness]

In my personal anecdata, writing a thing down is an important mechanism to note and recall facts I’ll find important later. I nearly never consult my notes. I’m even a terrible note taker, and always have been. I write things down in random places which normally I discard as they become clutter, just because the act of writing them is an additional point of recall when I might fail to recall otherwise. It doesn’t always serve me well, but it always serves me better than not making the note somewhere.

[tsumnia]

> I would have preferred citing actual research, not an appeal to historical methods. Given that some of the conclusions that word for word copy may be less efficient than summarized copy.

I can at least provide some links. [1] is my own research on giving students optional typing practice in a CS2 course. [2] is Mickie Chi's overview of the ICAP framework which categorizes learning activities based on their level of engagement (Interactive, Constructive, Active, Passive). Chi's work notes that higher modes of engagement provide more learning gains, or I > C > A > P.

Copying would be considered an Active exercise and theoretically would not give as much learning gains as a Self-Explanation exercise ("summarized copy", Constructive). However, much of the research into self-explanation shows that lower-performing students do not provide good summarizations/self-explanations. Thus, in my [1] work, I make the argument that for these students, completing a lower ICAP mode (typing practice) is a better use of their time. While it does not provide as much learning gain as a Constructive activity, it can still give students some gains that could potentially elevate them to a mental model that can successfully complete Self-Explanations.

[1] https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3373165.3373177

[1] https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1044018.pdf

[urthor]

Much appreciated.

In your research area, is there a significant textbook or summary paper you would recommend that summarises current findings well?

What would you recommend to a complete amateur orienting themselves?

[tsumnia]

> In your research area, is there a significant textbook or summary paper you would recommend that summarises current findings well?

It depends on what you're referring to by "research area". My focus is specific to novel CS exercises like typing exercises, Parsons Problems, coding problems, etc. In that regard I really like Teaching Tech Together [1] as a broad, here's a blanket review of CS education and its exercises. If you mean more generally to just CS Education, then Teaching Tech is still starting point I think, as it provides a nice literature review of the domain as well.

[1] http://teachtogether.tech/

> What would you recommend to a complete amateur orienting themselves?

It'll depend (again) on what you mean here. If you mean learning about CS Education research, then the link above will be great. Then its about going down rabbit holes from the citations to read in more detail about those findings.

If you mean simply learning CS, the biggest recommendation I can make is carve out 1-4 hours a week (depending on your schedule) and commit to learning to code via MOOCs, tutorials, videos etc. Find a CS1 syllabus from a university that has a schedule on it and follow that. A lot of learning can be traced back to "time on task". Ignoring the recent HN post about how years of experience doesn't equal most skilled coders, that article is looking at what research calls "experts" vs. "novices" (beginners). We know spaced repetition works, we know cramming (trying to learn it all immediately) doesn't. Following the syllabus' schedule will space out your learning, force you to recall the information, and produce better learning in the long run.

The idea is to make it a part of your weekly "routine" to the point where if you DON'T do it, you feel weird. For example, I've trained martial arts for 15+ years. Somewhere in that time, I'm so used to going to train that when I take nights off, its weird because I'm just USED to training. Even my body wakes up cause its used to needing adrenaline. That needs to be a part of any learning process.

[urthor]

Oh I've definitely figured out the trick to learning CS, tékhnē.

No worries there.

I'm simply curious about the state of the art of the pedagogy.

CS education is a fascinating situation. You have an interaction of strong mathematical, socioeconomic, and generally academic backgrounds, and often the complete opposite studying it. Plus very little institutional knowledge around pedagogy or anything else relative to almost all other fields of academia. And yet, there are all sorts of interesting factoids around the place, like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J-wCHDJYmo.

I don't pretend get how it all fits together.

Thank you very much, Teach Together looks like the perfect starting point, and I can follow the citation breadcrumgbs from there.

[nextos]

The OP is advocating for copying + Zettelkasten, although it is not super clear in this particular post.

That kind of agrees with the summarized copy idea you suggested.

[gnull]

"Way of learning" is a very broad term, and the two ways may be good for different aspects of it.

Verbatim copying is good for bringing your attention to the material, it helps you notice more, and doesn't let you mind wander. While summarizing is good for cementing what you've noticed and learned.

For example, if I try to copy part of text I see the writing techniques used there a lot better. I don't see how summarizing can give me the same effect.

I'm almost ready to try both techniques simultaneously, although it seems like an overkill, so much writing.