Recommendation
A guide to using DeepSeek R1 efficiently, revealing the key techniques for moving from A to B.
Core content:
1. Analysis of the shortcomings and advantages of R1
2. Strategies for setting clear goals to obtain high-quality content
3. Actual case: Specific methods to help children transition from Kohlberg's moral stage 1 to stage 2
Yang Fangxian
Founder of 53AI/Most Valuable Expert of Tencent Cloud (TVP)
I have received feedback from several friends saying that R1 is not good in this or that aspect, and they are confused as to why I keep saying that R1 is good.
My answer is: R1 does have some particularly obvious flaws, such as hallucinations, constant mysterious talk about quantum, and disobedience. CoT or role-playing are more difficult than the command model... However, in the tasks it is good at, R1 has brought me far more cognitive breakthroughs than other models (yes, it is much better than the best model released by o/claude/gemini/grok, see the second example in this article).
I wrote in a previous article: To make the content generated by R1 useful, you must provide sufficient background information . Recently, I want to add another point that I have a particularly deep understanding of: To make R1 produce high-quality content, it is best to have a very clear goal .
Recently, I have asked R1 many times how to get from state A to state B, and I have obtained very amazing results.
The first example is that I found that a child's behavior was clearly in stage 1 of Kohlberg's moral standards (the rightness of behavior depends on whether it is punished, and obey authority to avoid adverse consequences. "You can't play games over time because Mom will be angry and deduct points."). I asked R1 how to help the child move from stage 1 to stage 2 (behavior is based on satisfying one's own needs or exchanging benefits). The suggestions given by R1 are very specific and easy to implement , which is really a good helper for parents.
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Is the middle class child still in stage 1? How can I help him enter stage 2 (so that at least I can negotiate with him)
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Children in the middle class (4-5 years old) are usually in the transition period from stage 1 at the pre-conventional level to stage 2. According to Kohlberg's theory, children at this stage begin to shift from a simple "avoiding punishment" to a "benefit exchange" mode of thinking, but they need external guidance to establish a clear cause-and-effect logic. The following are specific strategies to help children develop to stage 2:
1. Core features and goals of Phase 2
Stage 2: Relative Utilitarian Orientation
- Key Capabilities: Understand "reciprocity" ("you help me, I help you") and initially weigh the impact of behavior on one's own interests.
- Target: Let children realize the connection between behavior and results, and learn to achieve goals through cooperation or exchange.
2. 4 practical methods to promote children to develop towards stage 2
1. Use "conditional sentences" to clarify the relationship between behavior and results
- Error demonstration"If you steal the toy again, I won't let you play with it!" (Punishment threat in stage 1)
- Stage 2 Boot
- Positive Condition: "If you and your brother take turns playing, you both can play for 10 more minutes."
- Consequences: "If you don't put away the blocks now, you may not have time to watch cartoons later."
- principle: Convert "punishment" into "loss of benefits" and let children make their own choices.
2. Design “simple transactions” to foster a sense of reciprocity
- "Help me get the water cup, and I'll help you tear open the biscuit bag."
- "If you share your toys with Xiao Ming today, he will bring you a car to play with tomorrow."
- Advanced Exercises: Use sticker points to exchange for small rewards (such as "5 stickers for a bedtime story") to let children experience delayed gratification.
3. Simulating social exchange through role-playing games
- Shop Games: Children use “paper money” to buy your “goods” and learn equivalent exchange.
- Doctor Patient Games: When playing the role of a patient, say: "If you cure my cough, I will give you a candy."
- effect: Practice interest negotiation in a safe situation to reduce emotional confrontation in real conflicts.
4. Use multiple-choice questions instead of commands to strengthen independent decision-making
- Error demonstration: "Put the toys away immediately!" (prone to confrontation)
- Phase 2 Strategy
- "Do you want to collect the blocks first or the picture books? We can go to the park after you collect them."
- "If you stop watching TV now, you can listen to an extra story in the evening. It's up to you."
- key: Let children feel the right to choose and at the same time make clear the consequences of different choices.
3. Avoid 3 common mistakes
Over-reliance on material rewards :
- Using snacks and toys as an exchange for a long time may cause children to develop a utilitarian mentality.
- Alternatives: Gradually replace material rewards with "privileges" (such as choosing bedtime stories, deciding game content) or emotional rewards (hugs, compliments).
Ignore emotional guidance :
- "I know you don't want to share, but if you lend it to Xiaohong, she will be very happy and she will help you next time."
- Children in stage 2 still need emotional support. Add empathy to your conditional statements:
Inconsistent rules :
- If parents allow their children to go out and play without putting away their toys today, but then change their mind tomorrow, it will confuse children with cause and effect. Keep the rules simple and clear.
IV. Signs of stage transition (determining whether to enter stage 2)
When a child exhibits the following behaviors, it indicates that he or she is developing towards Stage 2:
- Offer to trade: "Mom, can I watch an episode of anime after I finish my vegetables?"
- Negotiate with conditions: "I'm brushing my teeth now. Can I play with you for a while?"
- Understanding "win-win": "It's more fun to build a castle with Niuniu than to do it alone!"
5. Long-term advice: Laying the foundation for higher stages
Even when children enter stage 2, they still need to be gradually guided to develop a sense of social norms (conventional level):
- Emphasize fairness in exchanges: "You used Xiao Ming's crayons, so you should lend him your stickers next time."
- Explain morality with simple rules: "Line up to play on the slide so that no one quarrels."
Through the above methods, children can not only learn to "negotiate", but also lay the foundation for understanding more complex moral concepts such as cooperation and fairness in the future.
Another more amazing example comes from Principal Xiaofeiji. When chatting with me, she exclaimed: " How can we make junior high school students who can only read Harry Potter be able to read One Hundred Years of Solitude? "
I opened Yuanbao and typed in my question, and the replies I got included many ideas that I would never have thought of. (Other models basically only plan according to the reading difficulty of the novel itself, and none of them can be designed based on the characteristics of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" itself, which is several levels behind.)
Phase 1: The family tree drawing exercise is really helpful for reading One Hundred Years of Solitude. It is also necessary to understand metaphors and compare the worldviews of Hogwarts and Narnia. Phase 2: I picked a work with dual timelines and time jumps, but it is relatively easy to read, and practiced redrawing the timeline . What a reasonable basic exercise! How did you come up with it? ! Phase 3: I started to accumulate culture, watching the documentary "Latin America: The Open Veins" and reading the history of the Banana Company Massacre. These two are normal; the suggestion to analyze Dali and Frida's paintings is amazing - although I know it, I would never have such an association. Phase 4: I started to bite the hard bone and read One Hundred Years of Solitude. I was given a lot of scaffolding. Finally, the suggestion of " Museum of Loneliness: Collecting objects representing different types of loneliness " is so amazing.
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How can we help first-year junior high school students gradually improve from Harry Potter to One Hundred Years of Solitude? How can we design a course?
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In order to help first-year junior high school students gradually transition from Harry Potter to One Hundred Years of Solitude, a phased curriculum can be designed to achieve in-depth reading through literary ladders, cultural penetration, and thinking training. The following is a four-stage curriculum framework:
Course Objectives
- Language skills: transition from youth literature to complex sentences and metaphors
- Depth of thinking: From linear narrative to multi-dimensional themes (loneliness/historical cycles/family destiny)
- Cultural cognition: establishing the connection between Latin American historical background and magical realism
Phase 1: Consolidation of foundation (3-4 months)
Core goal : Cultivate in-depth reading habits and get in touch with multiple narrative structures
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (enhanced comprehension of complex plots)
- The Chronicles of Narnia: The Last Battle (Religious Metaphor Enlightenment)
- The Giver (A Preliminary Study of Dystopian Thinking)
- Teaching Activities
- Drawing a family tree: Using the Potter family to practice character relationship
- Metaphor Workshop: Analyzing the Symbolism of "Horcruxes"
- Worldview comparison: Comparing the construction logic of Hogwarts and Narnia
Phase 2: Narrative Upgrade (5-6 months)
Core goal : Break through linear narrative and adapt to multiple perspectives and time jumps
- The Kite Runner (Dual Timeline + Redemption Theme)
- Oranges and Lemons (non-continuous time narrative)
- Marquez's short story "The Old Man with the Giant Wings" (My First Experience of Magical Realism)
- Specialized training
- Timeline reconstruction: rewriting the interlude story into a chronological story
- Perspective-shift writing: rewriting key plot points from different character perspectives
- Making a literary map: marking the real and fantastic elements in The Old Man with the Giant Wings
Stage 3: Magical Reality Decoding (4-5 months)
Core goal : To establish a symbiotic cognition of reality and fantasy
- Documentary: Latin America: Open Veins
- Banana Company Massacre Historical Documents
- Analysis of Surrealist Paintings (Dali/Frida)
- Intensive reading of text
- "A Murder Premonition" (Marquez's Narrative Logic)
- Kiss of the Spider Woman (Latin American political metaphor)
- "Pedro Páramo" (magical realism classic template)
- Creative Practice
- Shoot a micro-film: Use everyday objects to create magical scenes (such as flying sheets)
- Family legend collection: record the strange stories told by the elders
Stage 4: Conquering One Hundred Years of Solitude (6-8 months)
Three-dimensional solution :
Structural Scaffolding :
- Customized character relationship diagram (marking repeated names and key events)
- The Time Spiral Model: A 3D Stereoscopic View of Macondo’s Timeline
- Making theme cards: Four-dimensional analysis of loneliness/technology/war/love
Cultural Key :
- Compare and contrast the chapters in Latin America's Open Veins and The Banana Company
- Analysis of the symbol of death in Latin American culture
- Decoding Gypsy Props: Magnets = Colonial Plunder, Ice = Modern Invasion
Creative Output :
- Rewrite the ending: What if Aureliano deciphered the parchment?
- Family crest design: summarizing the fate of the Buendía family with symbols
- The Museum of Loneliness: A collection of objects representing different types of loneliness
Evaluation system
- Dynamic reading log: recording the evolution from "story retelling" to "metaphor interpretation"
- Theme debate: For example, "Will technology inevitably lead to the destruction of Macondo?"
- Cross-media creation: transforming text scenes into music/painting/drama clips
Through 200-300 hours of guided reading, the course builds a cognitive ladder while maintaining literary interest. The key is to implant Latin American cultural genes in the third stage, so that when students come into contact with "One Hundred Years of Solitude", they can naturally understand cultural codes such as yellow butterflies symbolizing love and heavy rain symbolizing collective forgetfulness.
If you think about it, it’s not surprising that R1 performs so well: A provides background information , B describes the task objectives , and from A to B, the prompts are simple, but they have everything they should have, and are very clear.
The instruction-based large language model uses CoT prompts to improve performance, works diligently, and finally gets an expected result. The inference-based large language model only needs to give a clear starting point and end point, and it will take the route in the middle. The treasures picked up along the way are the cognitive breakthroughs it brings to you.
It seems that the sentence structure of how to advance from A to B can be used frequently for DeepSeek R1.
