Repetition for learning? Hardly

[Steve1222]

just wanna say repetition is not the way you learn things. Its having to do something for a specific task you set out to do on your own for a real purpose where you learn it. i did all the challenges in the unreal course, but only remembered them when I finally had to go back and apply them to a real scenario. The course however did not teach real scenario, it taught impractical ones for a non-dynamic purpose that you are likely not to use again until you go back and look at it. (Not to mention it skipped alot of basics, tho it was still better then most tutorials in general)

You can do something 1000 times and not learn a damn thing until you learn several fundamentals that give you a diverse array of skills over time. Otherwise you will forget the repetition as time goes on, in as little as 1 hour.

If you watched the show genuis on national geographic recently, one of the first things einstein says is about how blind repetition is not teaching you anything. Although that’s not my inspiration for this comment, just a reminiscence.

[Steve1222]

also perhaps as a teacher finding new ways to teach things improves learning on something, not making people repeat it, and god especially not make them repeat your quirks and OCD then grade them on it. Thats not the point of learning, thats a personal agenda. Having an end result is the purpose of learning.

[anon57850503]

Repetition is not about learning. Repetition is about internalizing what you learned. You can learn everything about motor racing in a atomic level, all the forces involved, friction, weight transfer, inertia, aerodynamics etc. But if you don’t practice you won’t be able to complete a single lap without going out of the track or even without dying.

In a software is the same thing, it’s the practice that allows you do to something faster and in a more efficient way. To use a tool or a set of tools in different situations and for different purposes.

“Otherwise you will forget the repetition as time goes on, in as little as 1 hour.”

This is because you are just following the steps, you don’t really know what you are doing, what happens and why you do these steps.

And you are wrong, you can learn a lot by repetition if you know how to learn, to observe, to use your creativity. But can’t really learn something if you don’t put the this knowledge to use.

IF you don’t practice you will forget what you learned in as little as 1 hour.

And it’s impossible to teach what to do in a real scenario, because the real scenario can vary an infinite amount of times. It’s up to you to know what tools to use to achieve a certain goal, then you can even create something that does not exist. How will a teacher teach you what to do in a scenario that still doesn’t exist?

[Steve1222]

sounds more like automated motor skills then learning. The learning would be a solid understanding of the intertia thing you mentioned, not just memorzing someone else’s formula on it. Learning how to apply it using the controls however would be a genuis in action perhaps

Being ready to do something might require a bit of moderation or consistency perhaps. For if you learn everything of inertia then quit for 10 years, you might have a bit of a trouble getting going again, and the things you learned through repetition might fade since they were not solidified. You may have thought you understood something until the skill is completely faded.

So youre really just being subjective and missing my point. At the same time the forces involved you mentioned is the interesting part. If we talk about those we would be getting somewhere. For why even talk of repetition when there is friction and weight transfer at stake?

[anon57850503]

Well, then all the racing pilots behind the wheel are just automated machines? What happens when the corner doesn’t go as planned? Or when a tire blows? They have to react to it. When an automated machine breaks, it just stops working, or continue working and increasing the damage even more. The part you learn how to apply all this knowledge is when you are behind the steering wheel experiencing all this forces in action, this is when you learn how to use your knowledge in a correct way. One does not need to be a genius to learn how to control a racing car, but to achieve this a lot of practice will be needed.

Indeed, you just reaffirmed what I said about practice (or repetition if you prefer). If you don’t keep practicing it you will forget many things, and not even learn others.

Try this: Take a knife, and a whetstone and try to sharpen the blade. On your first try you may even make it more blind. But if you try it everyday, one day you will be able to sharpen a blade in under 20 seconds. Result? You learned by practice/repetition.

It’s the same for a tool in a software, the more you know how it works more things you will be able to do with it.

What does friction, weight transfer and repetition have to do with one another in this example? Everything. I can tell you that if you hit the break the weight will go to the front, so you can figure what happens if you accelerate, right?

Why does a RWD car has more traction than a FWR car if you are accelerating hard in a straight line? Why don’t you put the breaks in the rear wheels instead of the front wheels? Keeping it simple, it’s all about weight transfer and friction (or should I use adherence in this case?).

But what repetition have to do with all this? It doesn’t matter how much you know about it, if you don’t go behind the steering wheel and practice you will never be able to control them in a car.

Look how interesting practice is. Nobody taught you about physics when you where learning to ride a bike, or even to walk, but still you learned how to control these forces acting over your body.

Returning to the game engine stuff. Let’s suppose the teacher taught you how to know when X hit Y. You can use this knowledge to know if the projectile (of a gun for exemple) hit the target. Or set an invisible wall to know if the player crossed the checkpoint. Or to trigger an event like, player goes through door -> teleport to X or blow a barrel or summon enemies or kill player. He can teach you a single feature like this, but can’t teach you all the uses for this feature.

By playing with this feature you could realize that you can simply create a chain reaction for a puzzle game. If player press button A -> release B, if B hit C -> release D, if D hit E -> open the door. And you can realize how to do it by practicing, there is no need for the teacher to tell you that you can do it using this feature. But it would be good if he at least give you examples…

But I agree that repetition by itself is not very useful if one is not trying to understand the process and the result, and willing to make changes in the process to see what new results can be achieved.

[Benjib0y]

I know this is an old topic but repetition is key.
Do something once today and you’ll have to relearn how to do it next week. Do it ten times today and you will remember how to do it next week. Do it 5 times a day for a month and you’ll likely remember how to do it until the Alzheimer’s kicks in - at which point you won’t care anymore anyway.