do you learn by repition/rote, or do you comprehend?

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I did better on tests with rote. Then once the test was done, I'd forget it. That's generally how it works. Research tells us that for newly acquired knowledge to be stored effectively, we need to understand how it relates to knowledge we already have. Rote learning doesn't encourage us to make these connections.

I feel this exact same way sometimes. I comprehend some things, but largely I remember by rote/repitition, and sometimes, even though I am near the top of my class in university, I feel sooooo DUMB!

My Mom thought I was crazy when I mentioned that I have so much difficulty comprehending a lot of things, and the disability office at my school had trouble taking me seriously since I have a near 4.0 GPA.

In high school, I slacked off in grade 10--failed my first thing EVER: math class with a 49%. I took grade 10 math again when I was in grade 11 and scraped by with a 60 something. I never took grade 11 math at all. When I went back to school (I had dropped out) and took the equivalent of grade 12 math at the college I returned to to get my high school diploma, I took the low-level math class because I thought I was too dumb to be in the regular class. I passed that class with a 99% in half the time it took the others to get through on average grades and my instructor convinced me to refrain from accepting that grade and to go into the advanced class. I passed with a 96%. I am rambling, but my point is: if you gave me ANY of those math problems besides the VERY basics--depsite being at the top of my class--I would fail that class with no instruction. I did not learn it to the extent I should have to be able to apply that knowledge in university.

I have recently become semi-obsessed with anything science, and I want more than anything to be a scientist, but I know I am too dumb for that. I simply cannot comprehend complex theories in science. In Chemistry last year, I could easily memorize how to do something. I had an A+ the entire semester. I thought the final would be the same as the midterm: identical questions with different numbers. Boy, was I wrong! They applied the same theories to completely different types of questions. I failed miserably, and brought my A+ down to a B.

For my Master's I want to move from the humanities to a science-based Environmental Studies degree (my stepping stone toward a career in ecology hopefully), but I am wondering if this is just completely unrealistic for me. Sometimes I think I am smart until other students (who get lower grades than me) speak up and come out with these brilliant thoughts and ideas that prove to me how stupid I really am.

Both because it depends.

Tuttle said:
"See, I understand things in math, I never said I was good at arithmetic. Manipulating numbers like that is for a computer. That doesn't mean that I can't understand things as arithmetic isn't even at all the same as mathematics. That just means that they don't teaching understanding in school - which is something you'll definitely get my agreement on for math. Doing arithmetic isn't understanding, its taught as memorization.

All I see that you really are arguing is that math education is terrible. You completely have my agreement in that. And in my view a good math education would include understanding and thinking, rather than just memorizing patterns of arabic numerals."

I'm using the "empirical" radical behaviourism stance on "understanding", such as "the listener understands to the extent that he tends to act appropriately" (after operant conditioning with schedules of reinforcement). This applies just as much to "neuro-typicals" as anyone not labeled neuro-typical.

IMO, with autism involved, the very vague concept of "understanding" has been manipulated into a convenient mode of prejudice, such as when I get a perfect score on an IQ test, I'm judged as not displaying any "understanding" in reaching the correct responses, as my neurological impairments are prejudicially held as if the impairments make my "understanding" an exam question impossible, and hence, I'm held to have arrived at the correct answer in a manner that displays a lack of "understanding". To me, this prejudicial reasoning by many "normals" is balderdash, but the concept of "understanding" is so vague, the prejudice can continue to flourish by exploiting the vagaries of the concept.

Behaviourism as a science was often attacked by exploitation of vagaries in the English language, with the retorts of Noam Chomsky and Ayn Rand being near prime examples.

Temple Grandin and Behaviourism, and in many distinct works involving autism, are also in the controversy of the extent to the utilizable applicability of behaviourism, while university studies (and certainly Madison Avenue) have demonstrated the vast effectiveness of it with all animals and all people. But, the stylish return to the Homunculus of cognitive psychology is placing this effectiveness as limited to animals, and with great prejudice, "those people".

I like to use the example of "simple" arithmetic (with the birds in the chicken family being able to be trained to solve problems faster than humans) since it seems to be easily recognized as just rote learning in practice, while abstract "understanding" of arithmetic is known to be impossible, with the added "cognitive booby trap" that "There are complete and consistent list of axioms for arithmetic that cannot be enumerated by a computer program. For example, one might take all true statements about the natural numbers to be axioms (and no false statements), which gives the theory known as "true arithmetic". The difficulty is that there is no mechanical way to decide, given a statement about the natural numbers, whether it is an axiom of this theory, and thus there is no effective way to verify a formal proof in this theory."
***http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel's_incompleteness_theorems



Tadzio

Okay, I use a different definition of understanding based off of being able to rebuild the work that it took to get there yourself. But that might just be me being a mathematician.





Okay, you don't actually seem to be knowing what you're talking about. Yes Godel's Incompleteness Theorem exists and is important. Lacking of provability of everything is however not at all the same as inability to prove some things. You seem to be trying to take Godel's Incompleteness Theorem completely out of context to support the fact that you're tired of people being biased against you.

People with autism can understand. NTs can memorize. It's not a simple they understand we memorize. People are biased against us because of not actually knowing what autism is like. That doesn't mean that nobody understands, it just means that they are using false assumptions to decide how to treat people.

The only bias I see in this issue is that while the mainstream of education is swiftly progressing away from Skinnerian approaches and rote learning, the education of people with Autism has not followed that trend. Tazio, If I'm understanding you correctly, you seem to be advocating the application of Radical Behaviorism in ALL of education. That would be one way of resolving this prejudice. But I would advocate the opposite - doing away with (or marginalizing) the use of rote memorization and behaviorism for everyone, autistic or not. I don't know which studies you've read that have you so convinced of the effectiveness of these methods, but I'd be very curious as to how they measure results. There is no achievement test or intelligence test that can quantify the depth of human understanding. There are too many variables, too many concurrent environmental stimuli, cognitive processes and personal factors. It seems a flawed shortcut, the necessity of which has diminished as our understanding of human cognition, learning and memory have improved. Its continued application only for people with Autism seems to point to a lack of knowledge of how Autism affects these internal processes.

Both. I don't know what 8X4= , But changing it to 4X8 know it instantly. Must have a photo of a flashcard in my head.

Tuttle said:
"Okay, you don't actually seem to be knowing what you're talking about. Yes Godel's Incompleteness Theorem exists and is important. Lacking of provability of everything is however not at all the same as inability to prove some things. You seem to be trying to take Godel's Incompleteness Theorem completely out of context to support the fact that you're tired of people being biased against you.
People with autism can understand. NTs can memorize. It's not a simple they understand we memorize. People are biased against us because of not actually knowing what autism is like. That doesn't mean that nobody understands, it just means that they are using false assumptions to decide how to treat people."

"Ignoramus et ignorabimus". Re: Emil du Bois-Reymond (1872); also, books-dot-google "'Ignoramus et ignorabimus' 1872 Cherniak" for the Plain English "(subsequent incompleteness results of course have constrained Hilbertian optimism for mathematical knowledge)." "Minimal Rationality" By Christopher Cherniak (1990), page 125.

I used the seed idea from "Gödel's Theorem: an incomplete guide to its use and abuse" by Torkel Frazen (2005), preview at amazon-dot-com, search "understand", but stick to the arithmetic here (esp. since you don't seem to "understand" which side I'm with with fictional constructs). I kick it with set theory to avoid the "it's abstract versus it's a thing" detour to fruitless polemics. And while I'm amused by Irish Bulls, set theory compatible self-contradictory riddles closest to Plain English yet still undermining binary paradigms that are amongst the "closest, everyday, practical", like: "If you visit Lake Disappointment in Australia to verify your firm belief that it is the world's most aptly named landmark, will you be disappointed?"

As usual with such "impossible" scenarios, the individual "should" deny their own existence to reach a valid answer. Then, if a person is required not to exist before mathematics can be put to "completely understandable" use, what good is mathematics? I like the rules from Categorical Physics: If the screwdriver is presently useless, put it back in the toolbox for now (call this a forgetful functor rule?).

The generalized bias, also suffered individualy, is often termed "disparate impact". One double-speak polemic is to claim the group must be the individual, and vice-versa, and when language is expanded to cover that loophole, then be ready to defend an attack on Patriotic Plain English.

Since the limits of the Plain English usage of the words "understanding" and "memorize" are saturating the vista, translate them to "pragmatic inferences" and "remembering the meaning of words", and please don't confuse the word "tear" with the word "tear" in "Pragmatic Inferences In High-Functioning Adults With Autism and Asperger Syndrome" (Pijnacker et al.J Autism Dev Disord. 2009 Apr;39(4):607-18. Epub 2008 Dec 4), "tear" page 608.

The U.S. Department of Treasury had a decade long burden under the Rehabilitation Act in keeping those "dangerous Autistic Savant freaks" (a disparaged legal group including me in court from about 1986-1996) out of positions involving security and other sensitive issues.

Tadzio

Abstract: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19052858
Full Text pdf: http://www.springerlink.com/content/l2p ... lltext.pdf

Repetition, definitely. I have a terrible memory. Repetition helps it stick.

scubasteve said:
"The only bias I see in this issue is that while the mainstream of education is swiftly progressing away from Skinnerian approaches and rote learning, the education of people with Autism has not followed that trend."

The main changes are in name only. New named programs will always be pushed for profits. This is most apparent with textbooks in subjects that are still the same (why $175 "new" trig text when classics are only $10???). The major changes in testing/exams have came full circle in many institutions, from standardized objective tests to open format tests and back to the standardized. The same with school meals and discipline. Then, everything involving computers is nearly 100% Behaviourism by different names (instead of a pigeon pecking a bar for a reinforcement, there's now a mouse with a clicker, with both reinforcements for the thing getting the most hits, and for the thing making the hit).

Learning too much about the wrong doctrine now seems to be the major concern, and censorship with punishment is taking precedent over any constructive learning programs developing schedules in making well informed choices. What happened to the uproar over subliminal advertisements??? Want a Deep-Fried Twinkle to go with that Hardscrabble and Faux-Bale-of-Hay beside the photogenic hard-life of Faux-Rocks??? Why do the Ngram results shift for "subliminal advertisements" just before political party major victories and major elections? The very last thing subliminal advertisements want to accomplish is the development of understanding in the manipulated person that they are being manipulated by subtle reinforcements that develop strong "memories" to control the choices made. Bet if too many notice this, the results will be removed.

Im fact, behaviourism works so good that it is like prime number theory used in encrytption. It's knowledge has to be popularly oppressed for the maintenance of "beneficial" social control, at least when the curtains can't be kept fully closed. If too many learn to do it for themselves, they may not bargain their life away for mere peanuts!

Tadzio

I have to comprehend information to remember it. I can repeat something by rote, but if I need to know it two or three days (or years) from now I have to comprehend it and fit it in to the puzzle of information I already know. One annoying thing I do is that I do not generalize information at all. If I am told a math equation to solve problem A I may not recognize that I can use the same formula to solve problem B. I would have to be retaught the formula with problem B or at least shown specifically how the formula relates to problem B. I also like to understand everything. For me it is not enough to just get the answers. I want to know how I got there. If I can see all the pieces I am better at generalizing information. I think of everything to specifically...

I am actually quite good at retaining knowledge.........I can just read the text book chapters or other texts, take the quizzes and then the exams without having taken a single note. But I can also get bored kind of easily, when the depression strikes hard I have severe difficulties with motivation and tend not to complete assignments. But yeah I am usually able to get the basic ideas of things and while taking tests and quizzes I can usually figure out the specifics just based on what I know about the basic concept.

Rote only works for me with statistics and figures.

Comprehension works for ideas. I don't get them at all, and then they suddenly hit me as a revelation. I will never accept an idea learned by rote.

Especially with the "themes" of fiction books. I read it as a sensory, plot-only experience, then a month later all of a sudden it dawns on me what the book was "about."

My short-term memory is awful. I don't learn squat via "repetition."

The only things I remember decently are pictures (which include printed text).

"Repetition" is one of the banes of my existence.

My memory isn't great.
I can though, swat up on a subject, write it down, summarise it, then summarise it till its a very basic shortened version, and this way I can mrmorise it for long enough to sit an exam. I forget the information quickly though.

If I need to learn something that needs remembering then I must understand it.