The Beginners Questions Area

No - not at all. My point was that many genuine experts have lost perspective on what it is to be a beginner and, though well meaning, have lost the ability to communicate in words and ideas which are accessible to the intelligent layman. The rare truly great scientific communicators are those who know this and have the gift to explain complex concepts in approachable language. The remark was somewhat flippant - as indicated by the emoji which is omitted in your quotation.

you are 100% correct. my 20 year old daughter is 1 year from finishing a honors deg in teaching science with a major in Biology, she has scored academic excellence awards in every subject. most people have no idea how to teach, period. but they think they do.

My opinion about this chimes mostly with another's poster's above. There is a difference between what you say on a beginner's forum to what you say on an advanced forum. Just like beginning mechanics is taught by learning newtonian concepts, not special relativity, photography has to start with something easy, even if the cost is that what is taught is actually wrong. When you are beginning, a ropey approximation full of technical errors can be better than plunging into debate about the finer nuances. I think the emphasis for beginners should be on helping them from a state of zero knowledge to a state where they can take an acceptable photograph. If they want to go beyond on that and grasp the complex technology behind our cameras, they need to move to a more advanced forum.

Now, there is no doubt that experts will disagree with this, they will say "splutter, splutter, but you are mis-leading the beginners, they'll never learn how things really work and therefore won't be able to progress". I disagree whole heartedly with this sentiment. When you know nothing, you are likely in a high state of anxiety about photographic technique. The knowledge is daunting and scary. You are poised on a knife-edge between a possible lifetime's enjoyment and giving it up in disgust and arranging flowers or something instead. It is essential to build confidence, more so than being precise. That can come later, if the beginner desires to. There are a couple of threads on the beginners forum that turned in a massive debate between expert engineers on the finest details of interpreting the meaning of terms. I'm sure that was great fun for those concerned, but as an absolute beginner it would have so turned me off photography for life.

My wife and a friend are great enthusiasts for wildlife photography. They like to go on safari trips together and shoot thousands of pictures of lions and tigers and cheetahs and elephants. But in truth they want to shoot their DSLRs like phones. Every time before they go, I try to teach them the most basic rudiments of operating a camera. Even though the stakes are high, their eyes glaze over after 5 secs. They really don't want to know what depth of field is, they just want nice pictures. The reality is trying to convince them they can't get nice pictures without 6 months of advanced study does not work. My wife managed to return from the last trip with every photo shot at ISO 4000. That was the direct result of me confusing her by trying to advise on shooting styles. No doubt many experts would say "See, it's proof she needs a better understanding". I say, no, at the level she wants to operate, it's proof that a little knowledge is a bad thing. I should have set auto iso and taped the knob down.

Some beginners want to go the whole hog and educate themselves, some want the absolute minimum that gets them some kind of picture. The trouble with expert teachers, is they desperately want to turn newbies into clones of themselves, which might not be appropriate.

I have a practical suggestion: prepare some sticky posts on the basics. Prepare these at differing levels of complexity. Then ask beginners to rate each one. That way you'll gather some evidence of what beginners really benefit from. Then perhaps the more complicated stuff can move to an intermediate forum.

I’m copying this here because I put it in the wrong forum and I’m too scared to try to move it!

I never thought I’d wind up posting this in a photography forum … 😀

It’s worth framing this beginner/expert debate in terms of how novices learn and Vygotsky’s theories of constructivist learning help us. He suggests that learning takes place when the novice is set challenges which lie just beyond present competences but which the novice is ready to learn. He terms this ‘the zone of proximal development’. The novice learns best from someone who possesses the the required skill or knowledge at the appropriate level (or who is capable of simulating this). This he describes as ‘the more knowledgeable (or more capable) other’. Exposing the novice to knowledge outside his/her ZPD will not result in learning - and we can learn from this the ways in which ‘Beginners Questions’ can be answered most usefully by answering at a level just beyond present competence and supporting the beginner to progress.

For further information, try:
www.simplypsychology.org/Zone-of-Proximal-Development.html
which is also a good example of writing at the right level.
Or for a full understanding:
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

While it's true that not all experts on a subject are good teachers, it's also true that there are a great many experts who are good teachers. Some are outstanding teachers...the best. Part of being a good teacher is the ability to distill a complex idea to its core principle and communicate that in a way the student finds accessible.

In my experience on DPReview, there were many good, some very good, and even a few great teachers who also had expertise in one or more areas of photography or engineering related to camera, lens, or sensor design. In the "Beginners Questions" forum, it was often the case that a question would be answered within a few hours with a generally accurate response. Unfortunately, that would often be followed by someone criticizing the one or two-paragraph post written in plain English as "too technical". The later respondent would then echo some misinformed belief that purported to explain photography "simply".

That happened more times than I care to remember. Hopefully, Bob's strategy of keeping the discussion of answers to beginner-level questions separate from the forum where those questions are answered will be effective at improving the SNR in the BQ section.

Oh man, from my college classes, I have so many examples of knowledge outside my ZPD that bobn2 would have to buy another server if I list them all. 🤣

If I understand this correctly, then it means that learning proceeds "One step at a time." or "One small step at a time."

Learning requires more than a teacher. It also requires a student who is willing to learn from the teacher, and is willing to do the homework with care.

Respectfully, I don't see any value in teaching an understanding of any topic that we know to be incorrect. Certainly not as a foundation upon which a student will build a deeper understanding of the topic. If teaching the history of a topic, then yes, by all means, teach the flawed or incomplete thinking that preceded the current - hopefully more accurate and efficacious - understanding. That is part of the path we traveled to get to where we are. However, when teaching a subject, I find it best to be accurate. The challenge is to distill core concepts for presentation to a novice in a manner they find accessible. That process of distilling the core concept probably won't capture its full depth and meaning. However, if that distilled concept can be used to effectively teach a central truth - light (and how much of it is used to make a photograph) is central to doing photography - then the fuller depth and meaning can come later as the novice decides to build on that core understanding to develop a more complete knowledge of the subject.

However, teaching something we know to be false...fundamentally flawed is problematic.

I certainly don't protest their existence, but in a beginner's forum, if you want to be any help, you have to understand your audience. Posting overly technical responses more often gets people to shut down rather than sending people down a rabbit hole of research. A good example is some new guy who want to buy his first real camera, and Phototeach2 is rambling about bridge cameras and leaf shutters and equivalence while arguing with everybody who is telling him to shut up. That is not knowing your audience, and in no way helping.

Agree, and the comparison of Newtonian mechanics and special relativity is not very apt. First off, Newtonian mechanics is not simple; I found tensors and herpolhodes, chaotic gravitational systems, and complex vector operations at least as hard to get my head around as special relativity. Second, Newtonian mechanics is accurate to our ability to make the initial measurements in many circumstances, and the limits of Newtonian mechanics are understood.

BTW, does it still bother anyone that there is no analytic solution to the three body problem? I understand why, but I don't like it.

Ummm....

You said it in ONE word.

It's a good opportunity when the novice will continue, lose that and it may not come back.

Not exactly true, and it depends on how you view false. Take, for example, the teaching of atomic structure, which moves through a number of stages according to the child’s readiness (Piaget, this time). It is taught as a hard, invisible ball, then as a ‘sun and planet’, then as an atomic orbital approach and on through many more part truths. There’s no suggestion that a nine year old can cope with the ao model, nor that it will in any way enhance his/her understanding of the world and its behaviour, but the approach moves through a series of stages, adding more detail and complexity as the child is equipped to understand it and has a use for the new knowledge. This is a gross simplification of both the actual science and the education theory, but it illustrates that teaching something we know to be false brings benefits.

do we have kids here ?!