Learning & Teaching

Topic

• Todd Simkin on Lev Vygotsky’s ideas of teaching by finding the apprentice’s zone of proximal development (ZPD)
  There’s a zone of things that you know. Somewhere outside of it is the ZPD, where you can move into with proper support
• V. I. Arnold on the perils of “pure” deductive-axiomatic mathematics
  “In the middle of the twentieth century it was attempted to divide physics and mathematics. The consequences turned out to be catastrophic”
• Michael Nielsen on writing as an antidote to the illusion of understanding
  “I once said hyperbolically to a friend: ‘I believe I could barely think before I began to write seriously’”
• Nabeel Qureshi on habits to cultivate if you are to really understand things
  Qureshi comments on a few desirable traits of “intelligent” people that can, with effort, be learned
• Michael Faraday recreated things from scratch to establish “ownership” over ideas
  “He believed nothing without being able to experimentally demonstrate it himself, no matter how tedious the demo”