atw: Re: The Educational Benefit of Ugly Fonts ...

  • From: Neil Maloney <maloneyn@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2011 22:58:17 +1100

A very good point Bob. I also link it to my dislike of the need for adult learning to be "fun". "Fun" by and of itself is not eminently useful if that's the only or the primary involvement the participants have during a structured learning experience (excepting, I guess, workshops for people suffering from depression, training classes for clowns and comedians, etc.). Learning can be enjoyable and can include the use of humour, but when I am running a training session, unless the participants have to do hard work throughout it (which few people regard as being fun), i.e. 'I've explained it and shown how it's done, now do it yourselves', I don't see the same levels of comprehension and involvement. The more work the participants do during training, the better feedback I get from them when they are back in the workplace. So the wiredscience article agrees with that view that I have, if you do a bit of work, you get more out of it.

And I particularly thought the article was of interest because of the recent-ish thread on the use of fonts to increase readability. Perhaps using "easier to read" fonts, depending on how the text is to be used, can actually work against the outcomes we want. 'Disfluency' may be a reason to use, where comprehension and *retention* are desirable, serif fonts which, as I understand it, tend to slow down the reading speed (don't everyone jump on me for making that statement, thanks!) ... don't know, I don't pretend to be an epopt of readability, but I do now have that thought buzzing around.

Neil.


On 14/01/2011 9:23 PM, Bob Trussler wrote:
This reminds me of several things.

Is this effect related to the old saying of (apparently) Benjamin Franklin - 
Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.
The ugly fonts are a kind of involvement I suppose.

I worked with some functionally illiterate people years ago.
When they read something, or if you told them something, they HAD to remember it.  Reading was a slow and laborious process for them.
I was a bit more literate and wrote notes, remembered little, and referred to my notes if I needed to.
The problems arose when changed things on the run. 
"We need to change that to 150 metres" 
"But you said 120 metres yesterday" 
"Yes, but we now need it to be 150 metres"
"But you said 120 metres yesterday" 


-------------------------------------------------------------
Or if you prefer

This reminds me of several things.

Is this effect related to the old saying of (apparently) Benjamin Franklin - 
Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.
The ugly fonts are a kind of involvement.

I worked with some functionally illiterate people years ago.
When they read something, or if you told them something, they HAD to remember it.
I was a bit more literate and wrote notes, remembered little, and referred to my notes if I needed to.
The problems arose when I changed things on the run. 
"We need to change that to 150 metres" 
"But you said 120 metres yesterday" 
"Yes, but we now need it to be 150 metres"
"But you said 120 metres yesterday" 

Bob T


On 14 January 2011 15:01, Neil Maloney <maloneyn@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
" ... making material harder to learn — what the researchers call disfluency — can actually improve long-term learning and retention ...."

at:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/01/the-benefit-of-ugly-fonts/
*********
Bob Trussler

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