Learning is all about using your current knowledge and understanding to refine and augment those mental models.
Be aware that many people don't watch videos to learn, they watch to be entertained. They think that they are learning, but really they are just watching animations. In the end, they can't actually do any of the math. They haven't actually learned anything. In the same vein, that's why TED talks are so popular. It's like eating dessert... all sugar and no nutrients.
I'm not saying that 3b1b videos aren't instructional, but rather that they are so well put together that they can satisfy the entertainment-seekers while still offering meaningful content.
The question is, then, why don't you get anything out of the videos? That brings us back to the problem of mental models of understanding.
If someone teaches a subject from a completely different perspective, it may be that it confuses you as your brain tries to harmonize the two conflicting mental models, and the video moves along too quickly for you to be able to benefit from the realignment.
This is not an attack on you, btw. In fact, I believe that this realization helped me a lot as an educator to be patient when teaching. Furthermore, it does not mean that your initial understanding is wrong, but that it is a different perspective than that which is being presented by the instructor.
Alternatively, it may be that the videos move through a particular concept too quickly. I find this is an issue, too. Once I understand something new, I like to almost daydream about the concept, exploring it mentally so that I understand it from a lot of different angles. I think of it in different situations and to see if my intuitions make sense, and if they don't I ask for clarifications. You can't do that when watching a video because it doesn't stop to answer your questions.
I like 3b1b videos. Some of them I can binge on all day simply because they "click" and make sense. Others I have had to spend days (or weeks) thinking about in order to digest and understand the perspective that Grant is trying to convey. They are definitely high value and I greatly appreciate Grant's work, but I definitely have to work, too, in order to benefit from some of them.
Professor I had for Real Analysis (the second time I took it) was probably the best math professor I've ever had. He had the most extensive mental catalog of the wrong ways people could understand and the failure modes of students. When you would ask a question he was able to help, not just because he understood the material, but because he knew why you didn't.
In my evaluation of him I mentioned this, but added that he was probably wasted on 3rd and 4th year math majors, and should be teaching more intro classes where the quality of instruction was markedly worse.
> He had the most extensive mental catalog of the wrong ways people could understand and the failure modes of students.
Back when I used to teach math classes as a grad student, I realized that a teacher has to actively work to keep that "mental catalog" for students. The problem is that longer you are in the math world, the clearer the subject becomes. The result is that to you the teacher it really just becomes braindead obvious what's going on. As time goes on, you have to fight this "problem" more and more to keep touch with the issues your students are having.
I think that applies to many topics. Maybe math more than others due to the complexity of it all, but it seems commonplace that as you become more of an expert on a topic, the more detached from "newbyism" you become. It's harder to put yourself in the shoes of a beginner to see what they're seeing and know what they're missing.
>> When you would ask a question he was able to help, not just because he understood the material, but because he knew why you didn't.
When my high schooler come to me with math problems, the first thing I do is look at the failures and figure out what higher level step or concept is missing in the brain. Then I explain that, sometimes more than once with different approaches. Once the higher level thing clicks, I can just sit back and mostly watch.
Sometimes I'm not sure how a concept clicked, but something did and the right answers start coming out.
how do you conclude that people watch videos to only get entertained? What fun will be derived from Topics like Fourier Transforms, Taylor's Series, Eigen vectors which already studied by fewer students.
Be aware that many people don't watch videos to learn, they watch to be entertained. They think that they are learning, but really they are just watching animations. In the end, they can't actually do any of the math. They haven't actually learned anything. In the same vein, that's why TED talks are so popular. It's like eating dessert... all sugar and no nutrients.
I'm not saying that 3b1b videos aren't instructional, but rather that they are so well put together that they can satisfy the entertainment-seekers while still offering meaningful content.
The question is, then, why don't you get anything out of the videos? That brings us back to the problem of mental models of understanding.
If someone teaches a subject from a completely different perspective, it may be that it confuses you as your brain tries to harmonize the two conflicting mental models, and the video moves along too quickly for you to be able to benefit from the realignment.
This is not an attack on you, btw. In fact, I believe that this realization helped me a lot as an educator to be patient when teaching. Furthermore, it does not mean that your initial understanding is wrong, but that it is a different perspective than that which is being presented by the instructor.
Alternatively, it may be that the videos move through a particular concept too quickly. I find this is an issue, too. Once I understand something new, I like to almost daydream about the concept, exploring it mentally so that I understand it from a lot of different angles. I think of it in different situations and to see if my intuitions make sense, and if they don't I ask for clarifications. You can't do that when watching a video because it doesn't stop to answer your questions.
I like 3b1b videos. Some of them I can binge on all day simply because they "click" and make sense. Others I have had to spend days (or weeks) thinking about in order to digest and understand the perspective that Grant is trying to convey. They are definitely high value and I greatly appreciate Grant's work, but I definitely have to work, too, in order to benefit from some of them.