And in the course of doing that, that's when the real understanding came.
And so this is another strong argument, among other things for working in groups.
If you're working with other people and together,
you're trying to figure something out and
you get a certain point and then you try to explain it to the others.
You're reinforcing your understanding and they may or may not understand it after
you're finished figuring out how to explain it, but boy do you.
And so those two pieces of advice.
I learn by doing things like trying them.
If it's a mathematical method or procedure or something in physics or in engineering,
then I try to work out the solution myself without looking back at the book,
the text or whatever it is.
And when I can do it by myself without referring back, then obviously,
I know how to do it.
And then to really reinforce that understanding,
it's explaining it to someone else.
Put those two things together and well, at least how I learn.
>> I think using your resources too, whatever those resources may be.
You've got text, you've got things online.
You have people who really understand that difficult thing that you're trying
to learn.
And so not being afraid to just go out, ask questions.
Work with all the resources you have to try to find what's going to work for
you to make it clear, to make you more confident in how you're doing.
>> Absolutely.
>> Playing off that,
one of my biggest problems as a professor is getting students to ask questions.
They don't want to do it and it's not that well, sometimes they're so
confused that they don't know what to ask.
But much more often, it's a matter of fear.
If I ask a question in class, it could be seen by my classmates as
a dumb question and we as instructors can make all of the pretty
speeches we want about how there are no dumb questions.
All questions are good, because they teach.
Forget that.
The students are not buying that and besides, to be perfectly honest,
there are dumb questions.
>> [LAUGH] >> And we've all heard them.
And so the student is reasoning, if I open my mouth to ask a question,
I could be perceived as dumb by my colleagues, my classmates, my professor.
If I keep my mouth shut, I'm risking nothing.
And so they don't ask and
I also can't persuade most of them to come to my office.
I have office hours every week in which I tell the students, I'm there for you.
I promise I will be there.
I will be welcoming of any questions that you ask.
I'll find out where you're getting stuck and
you won't leave my office until you have the answer to that question.
Maybe for the same fear, they don't want to come.
And so they're not taking advantage of the resources that Rebecca was referring to.
And if a student can be persuaded to overcome that fear and just ask,
either in class or in the office in five minutes,
they can get things cleared up that they could spend three hours
at home banging their heads against and not getting clear.
Let me go back to a couple points I made before.
The best way to get the illusion of competence when you don't
really understand something is to listen to a lecture or
to read a text like a novel or to read over old homework solutions and
imagine that you understand them, because you don't.
The best way to get over the illusion of competence is to do it.