learning.md

Learning

See also knowledge, modeling, attitude and values.

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Overview

There are two types of learning

• Learning skills. Embodying knowledge. Appreciation and application.
• Understanding. Obtaining knowledge. Theory.

Experiential learning does not require scientific experiments.

Methods. There is a massive difference between living in a culture and studying a culture.

• Children learn through exposure, practice and sharing experience. What is it like to do this?

• Academics learn through study and deconstruction. Bias for optics. What does the result look like.

Intellectual capability consits of intellect, emotional intelligence and organizational intelligence. Having great ideas is does not imply the ability to share them. Nor to convince people to appreicate them.

Learning is as much unlearning as it is learning.

• Add. Grow. Optimize further.
• Subtract. Generalize.
• Harmonize / synthesize. Use better (simpler) models.

You don’t learn bowling by studying guardrails.

Skills are developed by incremental succes. E.g. repeatedly failing and getting up. A teacher should encourage students, rather than telling them what not to do.

Knowledge is both a vehicle and a cage.

Knowledge is baggage. The more knowledge one has, the more difficult is to appreciate something that is not in line with that knowledge.

Learning is facilitated by models. Learning is the process of updating these models.

• As humans, we use mental models to make sense of the world. In practice, we create these ourselves.
  • Communicating models is requires more than merely listing the components in a model.

In intuitive learning, the environment is designed to facilitate learning. The learner encounters a wide range of aspects of a topic.

For studying, specific topics are chosen deliberately.

See structure.

	Intuitive	Studying
Core	Appreciation, discovery, immersion	Abstraction and deep understanding
Bias	Application	Fundamentals
Method	Exposure and repetition	Lectures and books
Effort	Unconsciously	Dedication
Focus	Wide	Specific
Association	Children that play	Adults that work

Playing, acting, role playing are all forms of learning. They let you explore both alternate realities andt the extreme of the current reality.

In relationships we grow

Learning from others...

Improvement effort

Investment	Effort
1 min.	Read a quote / tweet
15 min.	Watch a video
1 hour	Watch a lecture
10 hours	Read a book
100 hours	Do a training
3 months	Follow a class
2 year	Follow a course
5 years	Work in an organization (domain)

Formal Learning

Learning cycles. See Kolb.

Phase	Activity
Experience and observation	Gather data
Reflection and introspection	Analyze & process data
Abstraction and conceptualization	Define model
Hypothesis and experimentation	Test boundaries of model

Learning Types

Learning revolves around revising your opinions.

Experiments not require complex setups. Start simple and expand if necessary. A few types:

1. 💭 Thought experiments. Consider a hypothetical scenario and how it will play out.
2. 👀 Learn by observation. Then reflect on the observations.
3. 🐸 Iterate. Change a specific variable and measure the effect. Then repeat. See leapfrog method.
4. 🧪 Experiment. E.g. A/B testing.
   1. Replicate multiple environments.
   2. Change one of them and use the other one as a baseline.
   3. Compare the results.

This can be done in a formal way. See scientific method.

A few dimensions:

• Top-down or bottom-up.
• Invite or inflict change.
• Revolutionary or evolutionary change.

Tension-release

Push & pull. Similar to a dialogue, there should be a two-way interaction. Cross boundaries shortly, then step back and reflect. This allows you to maintain flow.

Two phases:

• 🤩 Make new connections. Explore & discover. Observing without judgement.
• 🤔 Make abstractions. Reflect and process knowledge. Assimilate and integrate knowledge. Re-evaluta phenemena.

Two phases:

• 🔭 Go wide. Discover ranges and possibilities.
• 🔬 Go deep. Discover details. Define boundaries.

Change

Psychologically, change can be difficult for both individuals and groups. There are a few stages to go though - at the right pace.

1. Awareness of the challenge or obstacle. Awareness of the difference between the current and desired states.
2. Acceptance of the current state. Awknowledge its limitations, but also the realization that change is possible.
3. Agency. Decide on the right target state. Be able to move towards it.

Organizational Learning

An optimal learning environment has:

• A teacher/coach/facilitator
• Other learners
• Customer or real-world feedback

Learning requires both theory and practice (experimentation). Making mistakes is a vital part of learning.

• Prefer collaboration over competition. The latter discourages mistakes, and thus hampers learning.

Learning on a local level is easy, but learning at the "middle management level" is not (e.g. due to competition, fear of failure).

Local improvements and adaptation are a vital complement to top-down strategies.

• This requires alignment on all levels. Hence higher management should share their vision and strategy within the organization.
• Local improvements are usually easier than global ones.

Practice (Context)

Organizations & Processes

The ideal learning strategy depends on the environment. See domains.

• Chaotic: act-sense-respond
• Complex: probe-sense-respond
• Complicated: sense-analyse-respond
• Obvious: sense-categorise-respond

Learning

Other patterns

• plan-do-check-act
• imitate-assimilate-innovate
• inspect-adapt-reflect
• visualize-stabilize-optimize

Learning Models

Consicous competence

1. Unconscious incompetence
2. Conscious incompetence
3. Conscious competence
4. Unconscious competence

After this, one could go back and zoom in on specific behaviours that can be improved.

• Unlearning: from 4. to 2.
• Relearning: from 2. to 4.

Dreyfus model combined with the conscious competence model.

Novice	Advanced Beginner	Competence	Proficient	Expert
Unconscious incompetence	Conscious incompetence	Conscious competence	Unconscious competence	Transcended
...	Recollection: Situational instead of non-Situational	Recognition: Holistic instead of decomposed	Decision: Intuitive instead of analytical	Awareness: Absorbed instead of monitoring
Needs rules	Tests rules	Applies rules	Falls back on rules	Transcends rules

follow rules - break rules - make rules

Dreyfus model

Skill Level/ Mental Function	Novice	Advanced Beginner	Competence	Proficient	Expert
Recollection	Non-Situational	Situational
Recognition	Decomposed		Holistic
Decision	Analytical			Intuitive
Awareness	Monitoring				Absorbed

Shuhari model

1. Obey. Follow traditions, learn fundamentals, heuristics, proverbs.
2. Digress. Break with tradition.
3. Separate, transcendence. Exceed tradition. Find new ways

Teaching models - roles

Source

• Consultant: Here, let me fix that problem for you
• Mentor: This is what I did when I had that problem
• Advisor: Here are a few things people do to solve that problem
• Coach: What can you do to solve that problem?

Zones

• Comfort zone. Easy, stable, safe.
• Growth zone. Alive, anticipation, challenge, excitement.
• Panic zone. Anxiety, stress, fear, tension.

Asking Good Questions

Tools / Deconstruction

Remove "self"

• "How do I do X" → "Who knows how to do X?"

Deconstruct implications

• "How can I do X better?" → "What does better mean?"

Question the origin

• "How did you come to that question?"

Mirror questions

• "What do you think/feel about it?"

In Coaching

• Oppurtunity > blame. What tools do you need to succeed? Why did you fail?

In Teaching

See socratic questioning.

• Origin. Could you explain that further? What do you base that on?
• Assumptions. Is that always true? What would need to happen for that to change?
• Evidence. Could this evidence be incomplete?
• Perspectives. What alternatives are there? Who beliefs otherwise?
• Implications / consequences. If X, then what about Y? What's the effect on Z?
• Reflect. What makes this question important? Why is it useful?

Mu

Mu is a rejection to a given binary question. It is defined as "not true and not false".

• In science, mu answers suggest that there is more to the question. They form a basis to continue investigating.
• Moreover, they suggest that the initial question / hypothesis is somehow lacking - that it originates from a limited perspective.

References

• R. M. Pirsing. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.