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Problem-Solving and Memory


Learning is the goal of schools.  Yet, learning has its own components: memory, understanding, application. The first step, memory, precludes all others.  A person with no memory of the “something” can never learn much about it. From memory, a student has a chance of understanding through various mechanisms, not the least important of which is analogy through previously understood concepts.  Thus, understanding is a bootstrapping process. But now comes the most important stage of learning, and that is problem-solving.  We  conclude…
The greatest learning engine is problem-solving.  Give a lecture and only a fraction remember. Call for a group discussion and more remember.  Ask them to solve a problem, and all remember - and learn.

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