5 ms·

Figure out a way to franchise high schools to make them into coworking spaces. All teachers are remote and all teaching happens over skype. The employees on sit

Figure out a way to franchise high schools to make them into coworking spaces. All teachers are remote and all teaching happens over skype. The employees on site are there only to make sure the kids dont kill each other. Offer an insane amount of subjects (this is possible since there might be only 30 kids worldwide interested in xyz, now they can take a class on it). The future of education is something along these lines I think. One could really make a lot of money with this because the costs will be fractional compared with real high school. Also no "athletic departments" fuck that shit.

colordrops 9y ago
Sounds inhuman.
- adamnemecek 9y ago
  unlike high school? lol. you are right, being on someone schedule for idk 12 hours a day (classes + hw) is one of the most humane experiences. in my model at least you get to pick your own path and each student might get a pretty unique experience if they choose to. what's inhuman about this btw?
visarga 9y ago
I like the idea. The role of the teacher would be to coach students (like giving them advice, monitoring progress). What was missing from the MOOC formula was real person, in the flesh accountability for learning.
- ivan_ah 9y ago
  Yes, human in the loop is definitely good. Reminds me a bit of the "Granny cloud": https://youtu.be/dk60sYrU2RU?t=12m https://youtu.be/dk60sYrU2RU?t=12m (talk is worth watching from the beginning)
- anonymous5133 9y ago
  You can still apply humans to MOOCs through tutoring or private lecture sessions etc.
japhyr 9y ago
Or just change the way we do school. I teach in a small school in Alaska, and we get to do school the way it makes sense for everyone, not just the way that makes it easiest for administrators and students. At our school, everyone's in classes like any other school. But towards the end of a session, after most of the teaching has been done and everyone's working on final projects, students are free to go at their own pace. If you finish before the end of the session, you can do an extension and earn more credit, not just a higher grade. If you don't finish your work by the end of the session you keep working on that class until you're finished, and you don't start a new class until you've finished your existing work. This is working really well. The culture of our school has shifted from students feeling like teachers are giving them work, to students looking at us as the educational resources we're supposed to be. Students are in charge of their own pace to a large degree; there's no concrete expectation that everyone will graduate in exactly four years. The range is closer to 3-5 years. Coworking spaces sounds great for a high school. Access to remote experts sounds great. But "all teachers are remote" sounds really stifling.
- ryandrake 9y ago
  I look at some of these replies and I think back to my own High School many moons ago. None of these ideas would have worked. You guys might as well be describing schools from another planet. In my school, 5% of the class (probably less) were actually there to learn, were on a college track of some sort, and would take advantage of educational resources. Their parents took an active role in their education and pushed them. A good 70% or so were pretty much furniture. They were there because they had to be, and their parents saw school as free babysitting service. They would end up in a trade school afterward if they were lucky, or a more likely future drifting between unemployment and Walmart/McDonalds employment. Then there were the 25% who were actively opposed to learning. They existed to disrupt everything, start fights, and waste all of the teachers' and administrators' time. Most of them were into gangs, selling drugs, etc. and their presence detracted from everyone else's experience. This group is likely dead or in prison today. Aside from the political reasons already covered by other posters (school boards playing politics and being more interested in mandating and banning things than furthering education), there is this reality that education startups ignore: The vast majority of their end users will not want to be end users.
dragonwriter 9y ago
What you seem to be describing approximates the inverted/flipped classroom model, which has been written about since the 1990s and applied in practice at the secondary and post-secondary level in a number of places. (Flipped classrooms are a little different in that the static lecture content is usually moved out of school entirely, while in school time is used for practical exercise with mentoring and supervision, essentially reversing the in-class vs. homework elements of traditional classrooms, hence the name.)

colordrops 9y ago

Sounds inhuman.

adamnemecek 9y ago
unlike high school? lol. you are right, being on someone schedule for idk 12 hours a day (classes + hw) is one of the most humane experiences. in my model at least you get to pick your own path and each student might get a pretty unique experience if they choose to. what's inhuman about this btw?

visarga 9y ago

I like the idea. The role of the teacher would be to coach students (like giving them advice, monitoring progress). What was missing from the MOOC formula was real person, in the flesh accountability for learning.

ivan_ah 9y ago
Yes, human in the loop is definitely good. Reminds me a bit of the "Granny cloud": https://youtu.be/dk60sYrU2RU?t=12m https://youtu.be/dk60sYrU2RU?t=12m (talk is worth watching from the beginning)
anonymous5133 9y ago
You can still apply humans to MOOCs through tutoring or private lecture sessions etc.

japhyr 9y ago

Or just change the way we do school. I teach in a small school in Alaska, and we get to do school the way it makes sense for everyone, not just the way that makes it easiest for administrators and students. At our school, everyone's in classes like any other school. But towards the end of a session, after most of the teaching has been done and everyone's working on final projects, students are free to go at their own pace. If you finish before the end of the session, you can do an extension and earn more credit, not just a higher grade. If you don't finish your work by the end of the session you keep working on that class until you're finished, and you don't start a new class until you've finished your existing work. This is working really well. The culture of our school has shifted from students feeling like teachers are giving them work, to students looking at us as the educational resources we're supposed to be. Students are in charge of their own pace to a large degree; there's no concrete expectation that everyone will graduate in exactly four years. The range is closer to 3-5 years. Coworking spaces sounds great for a high school. Access to remote experts sounds great. But "all teachers are remote" sounds really stifling.

ryandrake 9y ago
I look at some of these replies and I think back to my own High School many moons ago. None of these ideas would have worked. You guys might as well be describing schools from another planet. In my school, 5% of the class (probably less) were actually there to learn, were on a college track of some sort, and would take advantage of educational resources. Their parents took an active role in their education and pushed them. A good 70% or so were pretty much furniture. They were there because they had to be, and their parents saw school as free babysitting service. They would end up in a trade school afterward if they were lucky, or a more likely future drifting between unemployment and Walmart/McDonalds employment. Then there were the 25% who were actively opposed to learning. They existed to disrupt everything, start fights, and waste all of the teachers' and administrators' time. Most of them were into gangs, selling drugs, etc. and their presence detracted from everyone else's experience. This group is likely dead or in prison today. Aside from the political reasons already covered by other posters (school boards playing politics and being more interested in mandating and banning things than furthering education), there is this reality that education startups ignore: The vast majority of their end users will not want to be end users.

dragonwriter 9y ago

What you seem to be describing approximates the inverted/flipped classroom model, which has been written about since the 1990s and applied in practice at the secondary and post-secondary level in a number of places. (Flipped classrooms are a little different in that the static lecture content is usually moved out of school entirely, while in school time is used for practical exercise with mentoring and supervision, essentially reversing the in-class vs. homework elements of traditional classrooms, hence the name.)