Benjamin Keep, PhD, JD | Desirable Difficulties - How Learning Works @benjaminkeep | Uploaded April 2021 | Updated October 2024, 3 hours ago.
What are desirable difficulties and how can we leverage them to improve our learning?
What kinds of difficulties are desirable and what kinds are not desirable?
This video covers a lot of ground on desirable difficulties, so that you don’t get tripped up next time your friend makes you run through an obstacle course while testing you on your French.
For more on effective practice, check out: youtu.be/aIPS4ugcanM
00:00 Intro
00:48 Distinction between training and performance
03:14 Desirable difficulties and mistakes
03:48 Spacing
04:45 Interleaving
06:07 Contextual variation
07:08 Difficulties that AREN'T desirable
08:03 Distinguishing desirable from UNdesirable difficulties
10:30 Baseball donut example
Sign up to my email newsletter, Avoiding Folly, here: benjaminkeep.com
Short article on desirable difficulties: https://teaching.yale-nus.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/sites/25/2016/02/Making-Things-Hard-on-Yourself-but-in-a-Good-Way-2011.pdf
Research on bat weights, first page does a pretty good job of summarizing the research: https://www.koreascience.or.kr/article/JAKO201332479080172.pdf.
Image of the baseball weight from Driveline Baseball: drivelinebaseball.com/2014/09/post-activation-potentiation-weighted-baseballs
If you’re looking for more, a Google scholar search (scholar.google.com) for “desirable difficulties” will yield a lot of good stuff. Especially look for articles written by Elizabeth Bjork and Robert Bjork.
What are desirable difficulties and how can we leverage them to improve our learning?
What kinds of difficulties are desirable and what kinds are not desirable?
This video covers a lot of ground on desirable difficulties, so that you don’t get tripped up next time your friend makes you run through an obstacle course while testing you on your French.
For more on effective practice, check out: youtu.be/aIPS4ugcanM
00:00 Intro
00:48 Distinction between training and performance
03:14 Desirable difficulties and mistakes
03:48 Spacing
04:45 Interleaving
06:07 Contextual variation
07:08 Difficulties that AREN'T desirable
08:03 Distinguishing desirable from UNdesirable difficulties
10:30 Baseball donut example
Sign up to my email newsletter, Avoiding Folly, here: benjaminkeep.com
Short article on desirable difficulties: https://teaching.yale-nus.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/sites/25/2016/02/Making-Things-Hard-on-Yourself-but-in-a-Good-Way-2011.pdf
Research on bat weights, first page does a pretty good job of summarizing the research: https://www.koreascience.or.kr/article/JAKO201332479080172.pdf.
Image of the baseball weight from Driveline Baseball: drivelinebaseball.com/2014/09/post-activation-potentiation-weighted-baseballs
If you’re looking for more, a Google scholar search (scholar.google.com) for “desirable difficulties” will yield a lot of good stuff. Especially look for articles written by Elizabeth Bjork and Robert Bjork.
