#learning-science — Public Fediverse posts

Before moving to advanced AI integration with your PKM, ask: have you built the foundation?

Can you write permanent notes independently? Do you make connections before consulting AI? Do you understand why friction is valuable in learning?

These aren't gatekeeping questions—they're protecting the cognitive work that makes your Zettelkasten a thinking tool, not just a database.

#Zettelkasten #PKM #AI #CognitiveScience #LearningScience

The more I learn about the status quo of #education assessment in #higherEd, the more I find opportunities to improve.

This paper reports similar opportunities in #MedEd: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2843382

How can a #university or #medSchool better embrace #learningScience system-wide?

Recent discoveries on the acquisition of the highest levels of human performance:

Source:
👉 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adt7790

#Performance #Education #TalentDevelopment #HumanPotential #LearningScience #Pedagogy #SkillAcquisition #Specialization #HumanPerformance #Development #Science #Academic #Students #Learning

🧠🏔️ I’m sharing presentations from the Society for Judgment and Decision Making conference in #Denver at the URL below:

https://bsky.app/profile/byrdnick.com/post/3m6agtctbhc2b

My poster is about #argumentMapping and #learningScience. You will also find presentations about how to advance #cogSci with #AI tools, do #ProcessTracing in #Qualtrics without #coding, and avoid backfiring in #healthcare #nudges.

Follow to fight FOMO and enjoy #openAccess conferencing.

#SJDM25 #psychology #SciComm

Why Neuroscience Matters For Digital Learning

Focus is fragile. Neuroscience research shows that attention begins to fade within minutes if information arrives in a single stream. This explains why so many long lectures lose listeners.

https://www.startupeditor.com/why-neuroscience-in-digital-learning-improves-education/

#Neuroscience #DigitalLearning #LearningScience #CognitiveScience #OnlineLearning #NeuroEducation

https://www.startupeditor.com/

What happens to your brain when you watch videos online at faster speeds than normal
#FastPlayback #DigitalLearning #CognitiveLoad #MemoryRecall #BrainHealth #OnlineLearning #VideoSpeed #EdTech #AttentionSpan #LearningScience #Neuroscience #MentalFatigue
https://the-14.com/what-happens-to-your-brain-when-you-watch-videos-online-at-faster-speeds-than-normal/

Want to learn effectively? Desirable difficulties are learning strategies that "make things hard on yourself, but in a good way". This includes varying study conditions, interleaving topics, spacing sessions, and using tests as learning events. #LearningScience

The educator panic over AI is real, and rational.
I've been there myself. The difference is I moved past denial to a more pragmatic question: since AI regulation seems unlikely (with both camps refusing to engage), how do we actually work with these systems?

The "AI will kill critical thinking" crowd has a point, but they're missing context.
Critical reasoning wasn't exactly thriving before AI arrived: just look around. The real question isn't whether AI threatens thinking skills, but whether we can leverage it the same way we leverage other cognitive tools.

We don't hunt our own food or walk everywhere anymore.
We use supermarkets and cars. Most of us Google instead of visiting libraries. Each tool trade-off changed how we think and what skills matter. AI is the next step in this progression, if we're smart about it.

The key is learning to think with AI rather than being replaced by it.
That means understanding both its capabilities and our irreplaceable human advantages.

1/3

#AI #Education #FutureOfEducation #AIinEducation #LLM #ChatGPT #Claude #EdAI #CriticalThinking #CognitiveScience #Metacognition #HigherOrderThinking #Reasoning #Vygotsky #Hutchins #Sweller #LearningScience #EducationalPsychology #SocialLearning #TechforGood #EticalAI #AILiteracy #PromptEngineering #AISkills #DigitalLiteracy #FutureSkills #LRM #AIResearch #AILimitations #SystemsThinking #AIEvaluation #MentalModels #LifelongLearning #AIEthics #HumanCenteredAI #DigitalTransformation #AIRegulation #ResponsibleAI #Philosophy

AI isn't going anywhere. Time to get strategic:
Instead of mourning lost critical thinking skills, let's build on them through cognitive delegation—using AI as a thinking partner, not a replacement.

This isn't some Silicon Valley fantasy:
Three decades of cognitive research already mapped out how this works:

Cognitive Load Theory:
Our brains can only juggle so much at once. Let AI handle the grunt work while you focus on making meaningful connections.

Distributed Cognition:
Naval crews don't navigate with individual genius—they spread thinking across people, instruments, and procedures. AI becomes another crew member in your cognitive system.

Zone of Proximal Development
We learn best with expert guidance bridging what we can't quite do alone. AI can serve as that "more knowledgeable other" (though it's still early days).
The table below shows what this looks like in practice:

2/3

#AI #Education #FutureOfEducation #AIinEducation #LLM #ChatGPT #Claude #EdAI #CriticalThinking #CognitiveScience #Metacognition #HigherOrderThinking #Reasoning #Vygotsky #Hutchins #Sweller #LearningScience #EducationalPsychology #SocialLearning #TechforGood #EticalAI #AILiteracy #PromptEngineering #AISkills #DigitalLiteracy #FutureSkills #LRM #AIResearch #AILimitations #SystemsThinking #AIEvaluation #MentalModels #LifelongLearning #AIEthics #HumanCenteredAI #DigitalTransformation #AIRegulation #ResponsibleAI #Philosophy

Critical reasoning vs Cognitive Delegation

Old School Focus:

Building internal cognitive capabilities and managing cognitive load independently.

Cognitive Delegation Focus:

Orchestrating distributed cognitive systems while maintaining quality control over AI-augmented processes.

We can still go for a jog or go hunt our own deer, but for reaching the stars we, the Apes do what Apes do best: Use tools to build on our cognitive abilities. AI is a tool.

3/3

#AI #Education #FutureOfEducation #AIinEducation #LLM #ChatGPT #Claude #EdAI #CriticalThinking #CognitiveScience #Metacognition #HigherOrderThinking #Reasoning #Vygotsky #Hutchins #Sweller #LearningScience #EducationalPsychology #SocialLearning #TechforGood #EticalAI #AILiteracy #PromptEngineering #AISkills #DigitalLiteracy #FutureSkills #LRM #AIResearch #AILimitations #SystemsThinking #AIEvaluation #MentalModels #LifelongLearning #AIEthics #HumanCenteredAI #DigitalTransformation #AIRegulation #ResponsibleAI #Philosophy

LearnLM: An experimental task-specific model for learning science principles

https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/learnlm

#HackerNews #LearnLM #LearningScience #AIResearch #MachineLearning #TaskSpecificModel

Cascade training remains widely used in global health.

Cascade training can look great on paper: an expert trains a small group who, in turn, train others, thereby theoretically scaling the knowledge across an organization.

It attempts to combine the advantages of expert coaching and peer learning by passing knowledge down a hierarchy.

However, despite its promise and persistent use, cascade training is plagued by several factors that often lead to its failure.

This is well-documented in the field of learning, but largely unknown (or ignored) in global health.

What are the mechanics of this known inefficacy?

Here are four factors that contribute to the failure of cascade training

1. Information loss

Consider a model where an expert holds a knowledge set K. In each subsequent layer of the cascade, α percentage of the knowledge is lost:

• Where is the knowledge at the nth level of the cascade. As n grows, exponentially decreases, leading to severe information loss.
• Each layer in the cascade introduces a potential for misunderstanding the original information, leading to the training equivalent of the ‘telephone game’.

2. Lack of feedback

In a cascade model, only the first layer receives feedback from an actual expert.

• Subsequent layers have to rely on their immediate ‘trainers,’ who might not have the expertise to correct nuanced mistakes.
• The hierarchical relationship between trainer and trainee is different from peer learning, in which it is assumed that everyone has something to learn from others, and expertise is produced through collaborative learning.

3. Skill variation

• Not everyone is equipped to teach others.
• The people who receive the training first are not necessarily the best at conveying it to the next layer, leading to unequal training quality.

4. Dilution of responsibility

• As the cascade flows down, the sense of responsibility for the quality and fidelity of the training dilutes.
• The absence of feedback to drive a quality development process exacerbates this.

Image: The Geneva Learning Foundation Collection © 2024

https://redasadki.me/2024/02/26/why-does-cascade-training-fail/

#cascadeTraining #learningScience #pedagogy

Why is free energy a valuable tool for thermodynamics? And how is it related to simulating molecules for drug discovery? 👇

https://freeenergy.blog/2023/FreeEnergyFAQ1.html

#learningScience #physics #thermodynamics #drugDiscovery

In a thermodynamic system, the Reservoir acts like the central bank in an economy. But Instead of regulating money, the Reservoir is regulating energy. It sets the rules of the game, such as what forms of energy are allowed to flow.

This post explains how that works, and how that leads to the concept of "free energy" in a battery that is not tied to the Reservoir and therefore available to be charged/discharged:👇

https://freeenergy.blog/2023/FreeEnergy2.html

#learningScience #physics #thermodynamics #energy

Here is a post to help me keep track of different types of transformation of tensors (covariant vs. contravariant vs. invariant). The post begins by seeming to show an object that is all 3 simultaneously (obviously wrong), but it all makes sense by the end. See here:👇

https://freeenergy.blog/2022/Transforming_tensors.html

#math #physics #learningscience

From your chemistry or physics classes, you probably learned about free energy. But you may not have double clicked into why the different types of free energy (e.g., Helmholtz vs. Gibbs) are constructed the way they are and the subtleties relating to regulating pressure vs. using pressure to perform useful work.

Here is a deep dive👇

https://freeenergy.blog/2023/FreeEnergy2.html

#learningScience
#physics
#thermodynamics
#energy

Batteries are really important as we transition to more sustainable energy. But batteries are not isolated from the environment, as they are at the same temperature as the environment, which means that energy must be free to flow between the battery and the environment. So how could we "store" the energy if energy is free to flow out of the battery? This is where the thermodynamics concept of "free energy" comes in: 👇

https://freeenergy.blog/2023/FreeEnergy1.html

#learningScience #physics #thermodynamics #energy

Making decisions “in the dark”: Learning through uncertainty in clinical practice during Covid-19
https://t.co/RcIbrHcuYH
#learningScience #medicine

It's very interesting how watching a video lecture while on an exercise machine is sort of like "synchronous" learning because you're mostly watching the content in real time, versus "asynchronous" learning when you are mostly paused at various key parts of the video.

It's the difference between breadth-first search (BFS) and depth-first search (DFS), and both are needed for learning deep concepts.

#learningScience #openScience #math #physics #ai

And it turns out that watching a video lecture while exercising (safely) on a rowing machine or a treadmill is a great way to learn, when combined with focused studying done separately. While you're on a rower, it's harder to keep up with the details of the derivation or the algebra, so you're naturally more focused on the big picture ideas while noting which details need to be filled in later.

#learningScience #openScience #math #physics #ai

We're very fortunate to live in a time when there are so many freely available learning resources from so many experts willing to donate their time and expertise.

Teaching yourself a complex concept usually requires many re-reads of the text, re-watches of the lecture video, or doing the same but with different books or videos teaching the same topic. The latter is especially helpful due to the benefit of insights from different perspectives.

#learningScience #openScience #math #physics #ai

Free energy is a universal concept in thermodynamics that governs how all things evolve in the universe. Whether you are developing better batteries, or simulating molecular structures to develop better drugs, you surely are using calculations or algorithm that rely on minimizing some type of free energy (most likely Gibbs). But why is it "free"? See this post: 👇

https://freeenergy.blog/2023/FreeEnergy1.html

#learningScience #physics #thermodynamics

My newest publication translating psychology and assessment to teachers and parents. https://www.apa.org/ed/schools/teaching-learning/top-twenty/disabilities #paychology #K12 #SPED #a11y #disability #learningscience #Motivation #ClassroomManagement

In thermodynamics, we have extensive and intensive state variables. This post explores some of the important scaling requirements when we compute the various thermodynamic partial derivatives.

https://freeenergy.blog/2023/ThermoCalcs.html

#entropy #learningScience #physics #thermodynamics

When we first started to study the subject and began with the basics, it was very disconcerting to not understand some of the details. But then as we learned the big picture and how the theories are applied, things began to make more sense, so we grew more comfortable.

But the true experts and greats are those who have a complete understanding of almost all of the "knowledge stack", to better enable them to tackle the unknown frontiers.

#learningScience

I now realize: For us mere mortals, we "understand" a complex/difficult field (pick any area in physics, math, biology, economics, ...) when we begin to master the big picture concepts, which also causes us to conveniently forget the points of confusion we had about the basic, foundational elements when we first learned them. So this makes us more comfortable so that we feel like we "understand."

#learningScience

I have a new post on the second law of thermodynamics and why entropy always increases!

It takes a simple statement of the second law that is easy to comprehend (that all real heat engines are less efficient than an idealized, reversible Carnot heat engine) and shows how this implies a much more abstract statement of the second law that entropy must increase for irreversible or spontaneous processes.

https://freeenergy.blog/2023/Irreversible.html

#entropy #learningScience #physics #thermodynamics

I do not know a single #businessschool that evaluates student #learning. They all opted for "client-centered" "quality" evaluations (plus student testing, of course), in which students are invited to judge teachers, instead of results. Reflections on context & learning are suppressed.

This only produces losers.

#bschool #teaching #learningscience #education #highered @alfiekohn