Category: learning
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An Index of Cognitive Biases (Understanding (and Overcoming) Mental Shortcuts)
I’ve shared lists of cognitive biases before, and books and blog posts on the topic are everywhere. To me, this stuff is like catnip. While doing further research into cognitive-debiasing training (inspired by Philip Tetlock’s research on forecasting), I stumbled across an extensive index of over 100 cognitive biases from The Decision Lab. The biases…
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Four Steps to Better Predictions
Following his work on geopolitical forecasting, Philip Tetlock co-founded The Good Judgement Project, along with decision scientist Barbara Mellers and UPenn colleague Don Moore. Their further research identified four key steps to improving forecast accuracy, shared on the (now archived) ‘Science’ section of the project’s site. These steps: And don’t forget the ten commandments of…
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The Two Fundamental Truths of Prediction
There are two fundamental truths of prediction: (i) there exists a “prediction horizon” where predictions beyond this point are inherently inaccurate; and (ii) experts are generally just bad at predicting. On that first point: our ability to predict is limited by the nature of complex systems. Weather forecasts, for example, are quite accurate a day…
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FAST not SMART for Goals
The conventional SMART approach for setting goals undermines higher-level (team and/or organisational) objectives by promoting an individualistic and isolated approach to work. The best approach for creating effective goals, according to researchers at MIT Sloan, is to go FAST: Frequently discussed; Ambitious; Specific; and Transparent. According to their meta-analysis and additional field research across companies…
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Some Favourite Daily Mini Games
I feel like the concept of daily mini games really came to prominence in those pandemic-hazed days of 2021, thanks to Wordle. Since then, my daily game habits have changed as I hunt for fresh, challenging puzzles. I enjoy finding games that are quick to play but mentally engaging enough to add a little spark…
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Create a Learning Guide for Any Topic
Want to learn a new topic but unsure where to start (or even whether the topic is what you expect)? The Curricula is an AI-driven learning tool, that will develop a detailed learning guide for any topic you feed it. Developed by Mike Dyer, the Curricula will generate a list of pre-requisites/related learning topics, a…
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Music Theory, Language Transfer, and the Thinking Method
I’ve wanted to learn music theory for a number of years, but have never found a source that’s both engaging and educating. That is, until now, thanks to Language Transfer’s music theory course. For a while now, whenever I’ve read an article or post about language learning, someone in the comments invariably praises Language Transfer…
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Learning Languages from the Peace Corps, Diplomats and the DoD
Earlier this week I shared language learning difficulty maps based on experiences from the Foreign Service Institute (FSI). As I mentioned in that post, the FSI courses are public domain, having been developed by the US federal government for training diplomats. However, there are two other similar language learning sources: those from the Peace Corps…
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Language Learning Difficulty Maps
The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) is the primary training institute for employees of the “US foreign affairs community” (diplomats, military personnel, etc.). The FSI is probably most well known for its foreign language courses, which, while sometimes a bit outdated, is still great quality and in the public domain. The FSI has has compiled “approximate…
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The Wug Test and Language Development in Children
The Wug Test is a foundational study in how language develops in children. It’s also a bit cute: Developed by Jean Berko Gleason in the 1950s, it’s been said that the only thing with a greater impact on the field of child language research was the innovation of the tape recorder. Gleason’s major finding was…