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Justin and Jason discuss their likely demise due to the pandemic, the advanced computer science course that Jason is implementing, the latest on Justin’s startup course and the importance of taking action, the latest on Math Academy, and how Justin corned the carrot market in Roblox.
Richard Feynman talking about similar level up concepts back in 1966. IE Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Focus on a problem that suits your current skill set and context.
https://lettersofnote.com/2015/10/23/do-not-remain-nameless-to-yourself/
Great episode! For fellow listeners who have never heard of Google Colab, it’s an insanely cool free service (https://colab.research.google.com/notebooks/intro.ipynb). It allows you to run what are essentially Jupyter notebooks on free Google hardware. I used to use it to fine-tune GPT-2 models before I got beta access to OpenAI’s GPT-3 API. It’s luck of the draw what GPUs they give you in any given session, but I would always get access to graphics cards worth $5k-$10k (again, for free!). If you’re interested in machine learning definitely check them out.
Jason you didn’t make up the word “interleaving”. That word has been around for centuries. I’m sure you didn’t mean it that way but it totally sounds like you meant it that way. lol
This was a good one… other than your VWF-laden type A blood just waiting to clot at the first hint of SARS-CoV-2!
The interleaving part was interesting. From 2005-2010, I put my heart and soul into teaching, curriculum writing and running an accelerated language learning program. That curriculum also involved “interleaving”. I got into SRS and contributed to Anki at about the same time as I started working on it. Some things are different due to subject matter (such as Extensive Reading, which is critical for language learners but doesn’t seem to have a direct analogue in mathematics). I really think the best teachers nearly all converge on the same (or a large subset of the same) “stuff that works”.
Interleaving is almost impossible to avoid if you:
1) take multiple passes at each topic in gradually increasing depth
2) space out reviews with increasing intervals
3) let students consolidate their understanding of a topic in steps
I just googled for the most popular MOOC on learning and it also talks about “interleaving” in the chunking section. I’d previously read a book by its instructor and it was top-notch: https://www.classcentral.com/course/learning-how-to-learn-2161
@francis – Sorry if it sounded that way, I never claimed to have invented the word “interleaving”. I just meant that I had never heard of interleaving as a teaching strategy before I began implementing it in our program. But as I said on the show, it may be a known concept in the academic literature but is just described using different terminology, which wouldn’t be surprising to me at all given how obvious it is.
@Mark – Well, there you go! Not only has interleaving been utilized by other educators, but they in fact described the strategy using the exact same word. 😉 And I agree, teachers who really want their students to master the material will likely converge on many of the same techniques.
@francis – The reality is that it’s rare to invent something that truly new and unique. As the saying goes:
“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.”
What we’ve done with the Math Academy program is to integrate a bunch of these known but rarely implemented techniques into what I consider to be a fairly potent formula. But who knows, maybe it’s been done in the same way somewhere else. Honestly, it wouldn’t totally surprise me.
I think it’s fantastic and look forward to the online version!
Brilliant.org has been killing it this year but comprehensive MOOCs that would actually make skipping an undergrad program possible don’t seem to have progressed much in a long time. MIT OCW may still be the best option.
Convergent evolution is always amusing. I have been mentoring high school students and undergrads for a long time. This summer, I have two high schoolers and I can’t get them on site to use our computing resources, so guess what I’m using–Google Colab! They learned how to use Git/Github last summer 🙂 I also stumbled into the cohort effect where if they work together on a project they seem to have fun doing it. Really enjoyed the show!
Covid-19 Risk Doesn’t Depend (Much) on Blood Type, New Studies Find
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/15/science/coronavirus-blood-type.html
Momentum, phatom, interleaved, carrots, action, so many cool words in this episode, loved it 🙂
Great episode guys, keep it coming!
@Jason: Hell, I want to learn to build a game like you’re talking about. Where do I sign up?
@Justin: Level the F UP! I can see the t-shirts now. 🙂
Momentum – The Indie Founder Bootcamp, the first stop in your journey to the peak
When you release your bootcamp, please add me to the invite list, or let me know where to signup.
@Jason: I’m digging Fathom as a brand name, the association with understanding, as well as depth, both would be great connections with what you’re trying to do.
Perhaps an interesting bit of trivia for you, or other TechZingLive listeners, that has stuck with me since reading his biography in 4th or 5th grade: Samuel Clemens took his pseudonym, Mark Twain, from a phrase from his riverboat days that means 2 fathoms, which was a safe depth for riverboats to navigate.
@Vladimir Jankovic – Thanks! I’m glad you enjoyed it.
@Danilo Celic – Yeah, Fathom is not bad, but it doesn’t feel right to me. Plus, there are a ton of Fathom learning companies already in existence.
@Jason: fair enough, it’s not my baby, and I hadn’t done any research beyond contemplating the name itself. Good luck figuring out a name that fits. You can hear the commitment to the vision when listening to you guys talk discuss the project.