On Mon, 8 Feb 2016 10:23:54 +1100, "Hilo Black"
wrote:

snip

Passing exams means you have a good short term memory. It doesn't mean
you understand what you were taught.

That depends on the type of questions you are asked.

Not really.

Yes, really.

Almost everything can be learnt off by heart.

It is perfectly possible to frame the question so that it isnt
possible answer the question if you have learned by heart.

Further, it's also possible to ask a question using language that may
not be appropriate for all ages, even if we know the actual answer?

I was fortunate to be one of the Instructors who presented to someone
who (eventually) became Europe's youngest CNE (Certified Novell
Engineer). He didn't pass many of the test first time simply because
he didn't understand the wording of the questions as they often used
words he wasn't sure about.

When we debriefed him straight after the test and worded the questions
he failed differently, his answer was always technically spot on.

And mostly you forget it a month later.

Not if you keep using it like the alphabet or with counting.

Yes, but 'only if' in many cases.

Understand it and it stays forever.

Not necessarily.

No, but generally you do.

What you hear you forget.
What you see you remember.
What you do you understand.

Once you have done and 'understand' something (and both animals and
humans have successfully used the 'mentoring' technique for millions
of years) it is more imprinted and so less chance of you just
forgetting, as you might with something less tangible.

I am definitely someone who learns (and therefore remembers) by doing.
Show me how to do something once and assuming it's not *very* complex
/ complicated or requiring skills I don't have ... I can generally
then do it myself. If the start to finish process is logical I don't
need to remember the steps because 'it's logical'. So, I could easily
wire up a fused spur but might not be able to remember the sequence of
events re adding the ingredients when making a cake. Give me the list
or a few mentored runs and again I could do it un-aided.

Or daughter is very much the same. Even when trying to tell her how to
do something that involves steps that she may not be familiar with I
can see her glazing over but when she has it all in front of he I can
see how she can deal with most things very easily, just with a few
suitably timed prompts at the key points. After that the chances are
she could do it herself un-aided.

I'm not 'a reader'. I don't find reading relaxing, entertaining or
particularly informative, especially in comparison to other ways of
learning like mentoring or even Youtube.

I'm very much from the 'A picture speaks 1000 words' camp and so will
generally only reference the manual or even assembly instructions
once, where there may be some gotchas or where you need to work to
some setting (tightening torque or length etc).

Cheers, T i m