What concept did you find difficult to understand? How did you approach learning the concept?

One concept that I find difficult to understand is “confirmation bias“. We generally tend to believe what we want to believe and ignore or aviod things that challenge us or are different from the norm. When I first read about “confirmation bias” and watched the Veritasium video, I thought,”Yeah, that makes sense, other people do that too.” But I didn’t realize that I was doing the same thing.

To learn this concept, I used some cognitivist strategies, like combined the new knowledge to what I knew before, and I tried to organize the information by making lists and comparing different opinions, so I could understand things better. Also, I had actual conversations with people who held different views, ask questions, and tried to acutally listen and understand their point of view rather than argue. Honestly, this kind of social interaction helped me break down my misconceptions.

Share a story about your best learning experience(could be a formal course or something more personal). Why did you enjoy it?

One of my best learning experiences was when I taught myself how to bake bread during the pandemic. At first, it was just curiosity, as I kept seeing videos of homemade cakes online and thought, “Why not give it a try?” But soon it became something I was deeply invested in.

What I love about this experience is that it combines action and reflection. I wasn’t just reading recipes, I was experimenting. Sometimes the cake was too wet, sometimes the oven temperature might have been high causing the body to be too dry, and sometimes the inside was soft. But every time, I will ask myself, what went wrong? Is there any ingredient that I put too much? Not enought temperature? Time and time again, through repeated attempts, I finally figured it out.

Why do I enjoy it? I think it’s because I can see and taste my progress. The motivation comes from the satisfaction that comes from progress.