Some Pitfalls to Watch Out For when Learning From Projects

1) Don't use projects as a way to acquire fundamental skills. 2) Make sure the projects are guided. 3) Don't let the projects cut too much into your foundational skill-building.

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Once you have acquired the foundational skills for a cool project that pulls those skills together, then by all means, go for it!

BUT… here are some pitfalls to watch out for.

1) Don’t use projects as a way to acquire fundamental skills.

This is typically inefficient due to the higher-complexity setting.

Instead, learn skills in a more scaffolded context and then use projects to pull those skills together.

2) Make sure the projects are guided.

Don’t put yourself in a position where you’re spinning your wheels getting nowhere.

That’s just wasting time that would be better spent learning new stuff in a structured environment.

Basically, don’t fall into the “discovery learning” trap.

3) Don’t let the projects cut too much into your foundational skill-building.

Projects can be fun and productive for pulling existing skills together, but you don’t want to let them become a distraction from further fundamental skill-building.

For instance, you can imagine someone who learns algebra and then spends months doing algebra-based projects instead of learning the fundamentals of calculus, linear algebra, etc.

And then once they gain these higher-level fundamental skills, many of these algebra-based projects are rendered trivial.

While I wouldn’t go as far to say those trivial projects were a complete waste of time, it’s definitely inefficient compared to the alternative, which is to

1. focus on fundamental skill-building first, and then
2. switch over to more focus on projects as you get closer to some "edge of the field."

More info about that here: How Bloom’s Taxonomy Gets Misinterpreted

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