The bilby problem
THE RUB
Do you know what a bilby is? I didn’t. I was searching for the final word on the New York Times' Strand's puzzle where the spangram was MARSUPIALS. The remaining letters didn’t present an obvious answer to me, so I tried BILBY. It was correct. I swiped over to the Claude app, hit the microphone and asked, “What is a bilby?” Claude responded with a three-sentence answer that was ideal for my curiosity.
Accessing information has gotten extremely easy. When I was a kid, if I wanted to learn something like, "What's a bilby,” I would start by asking my parents; then, when they didn't know, I'd go to the set of encyclopedias we had on the bookshelf. If bilby wasn't one of the entries in the encyclopedia, the only other option I had was to go to the library, go to the card catalog, search through it, see if I could find some books or some articles about a bilby, then hunt down the books on the maze of shelves or, worse, the article on microfiche.
Learning required more labor. Learning has gotten easier. But is it actually learning? When we don't actively engage in the labor of learning, we may not learn as effectively.
We homeschooled our kids and decided not to focus on memorization drills like multiplication tables and the state capitals. Those were skills that didn't seem to apply in the modern world. But Cal Newport argues that it’s not the facts that are important, but the muscle building these tasks provide. He compares asking AI as a form of easy learning to a Marine having a device to help him do push-ups. Sure it’s easier, but easy isn’t the objective. Strength building is.
THE FRAMEWORK
As the “training guy” for most of my career, I’ve often quoted Confucius saying, “I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand” as a cornerstone of designing content and programs.
Well, it turns out that old saying, may not be accurate. According to my easy-learning prompt to confirm that quote, I learned that researchers have been unable to trace that to any actual Confucian text.
Even better, Claude offered me a related and more verifiable version from the ancient Chinese text Xunzi: “Not hearing is not as good as hearing, hearing is not as good as seeing, seeing is not as good as knowing, knowing is not as good as acting.”
The action part of learning has been a mantra in my professional career as I've developed training programs and always insisted on incorporating hands-on practices with each session.
Researchers Elizabeth and Robert Bjork codified “desirable difficulties” to enhance learning. It’s not enough just to labor to enhance learning. Here’s how they make the distinction between desirable and undesirable:
We need to emphasize the importance of the word desirable. Many difficulties are undesirable during instruction and forever after. Desirable difficulties, versus the array of undesirable difficulties, are desirable because they trigger encoding and retrieval processes that support learning, comprehension, and remembering.
They identify four methods for introducing labor into learning. Let’s examine how practical they are to incorporate outside of the classroom.
THE PRACTICE
When you set out to learn something – a new technology, a skill, a body of knowledge – the Bjorks’ research suggests four ways to make labor count.
Vary the conditions of practice. Studying in the same spot builds a fragile focus. You get good at learning there, and less capable everywhere else. Mixing up your environment, your materials, even the time of day leads to higher retention. I challenged myself to learn the Oscar best picture winner for every year. I bounced between the Wikipedia list, a spreadsheet I built, and a mental review on long runs.
Space your sessions. Cramming produces familiarity, not knowledge. Breaking sessions into smaller chunks across days and weeks forces your brain to reconstruct the material each time. A little every day beats a lot all at once. Do the reps.
Interleave instead of block. This one is counterintuitive. It feels efficient to master one thing before moving on to the next. It isn’t. Switching between topics or skills mid-session deepens the learning. I would have retained more Oscar history if I’d mixed in the music and news events of each era rather than grinding through decade by decade.
Test yourself before you’re ready. Passive review creates the illusion of learning. Retrieval is a powerful memory modifier. Tests as learning events are more effective in the long tern than reading material over and over. That’s why flashcards work.
If I want to truly learn more about the bilby, I have some desirable difficulties to add to my lesson plans. I’ll start working on best director awards instead.