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shameless b8 (mander.xyz)
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[-] Chrobin@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 8 months ago

That is actually not backed by science. Mixing material is a lot more effective than focusing on one thing.

[-] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 4 points 8 months ago

Especially when teaching chemistry

[-] xkforce@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

This is not true. I literally have to fix conceptual issues that students have because people do this to them.

[-] xkforce@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

[Citation needed]

I have tutored thousands of students. You are going to need to back what you say with relevant evidence.

[-] Chrobin@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 8 months ago

The only thing I quickly found is this paper, which says that learning multiple things is not better nor worse than one thing at a time, but it also states in the abstract that cognitive psychologists believed up to that point that mixing multiple topics is beneficial.

[-] xkforce@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

That paper isnt dealing with the same issue that I am talking about. Learning chinese isn't going to compromise someones' ability to understand physics. (Unless the problem is written in chinese I guess) But being weak on unit conversion will absolutely compromise their capability to learn a concept where the first problems they are meant to solve are written in a way that requires unit conversions.

In my experience tutoring thousands of students, one of the most common scenarios that I see is that a student struggled in an area like that, was taught in a way that relies on that weak skill to learn the new skill when that was not necessary and then struggled with the new skill as a result. Thats the sort of scenario that this thread is about. Mixing in concepts unnecessary to understanding into a problem thus overcomplicating it before the student has a solid grasp of the concept. That does make it harder for them to learn and its something bad teachers do.

this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2024
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