A lot of counter-intuitive things exist with the teaching and learning process .... confusion can help learning ... "If we don't feel stupid ... it means we're really not trying" ... perhaps we should overlearn, often better to not teach, etc.
Active Recall
Active learning beats passive learning. I think this is probably true regardless of how you are engaging with it.
Confusion & Learning
Google "Confusion & Learning" and you find many resources. Similarly for "disfluency & learning":
- PsyBlog's article on the topic
- Scientific America's article on the topic
- Annie Murphy Paul on the topic
- NPR on the topic
- A journal article
- Flow doesn't lead to mastery
Interleaving vs. concentrated learning
Googling Interleaving vs. concentrated learning. The story being that it is better to come back to something many times, than to learn it exhaustively before moving on. (Counter, for example, to teaching people only to walk until they "get it right" then moving on to other topics).
Coaching vs Teaching
Books about coaching talk about how asking questions to help people discover is often as good as "telling" them the truth ... using the socratic method for learning ... there was an example where ski instructors better taught tennis than tennis instructors, using this method, in the book "Coaching for Performance"
It isn't just about teaching critical thinking, but also teaching people to engage with their learning actively (actively working to understand the material) rather than passively consuming it ...
Overlearning
Overlearning ... Don't learn until you get it right ... learn until you can't get it wrong:
Summary … confusion, frustration & suffering are good for learning, but a sometimes less pleasant learning process. Discover is better than bestowing truth.
A different way of thinking ... all learning is always done by the learner, and the more that can be accented, the better the learning happens.