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> "Schools are upside down. Students should be teaching, and teachers at all levels should learn no matter how much they resist doing so." i was musing about t

> "Schools are upside down. Students should be teaching, and teachers at all levels should learn no matter how much they resist doing so." i was musing about this the other day... split the day between teaching and learning (probably alternating by hour): teach the grade below you and learn from the grade above you. teachers would mainly guide the teachers and set the agenda. the student teachers can grade papers, with adult teachers spot checking their grading. > "...the internal market economy..." some chinese companies, notably haier, used some form of the internal market economy to become multinational behemoths. your group would only be successful if you added enough value to the internal value chain that another group would "buy" your product, with the external customer as the final arbiter in the chain. > "The best thing that can be done to a problem is to solve it. False. The best thing that can be done to a problem is to dissolve it, to redesign the entity that has it or its environment so as to eliminate the problem." problem definition implicitly frames a situation and thereby narrows the window of possible solutions. i've learned to look for these kinds of solutions because those kinds of solutions tend to be the most effective. when you want to stop a bad habit, don't focus on the stopping. create a world where the habit is unnecessary.

dorchadas 8y ago
> i was musing about this the other day... split the day between teaching and learning (probably alternating by hour): teach the grade below you and learn from the grade above you. teachers would mainly guide the teachers and set the agenda. the student teachers can grade papers, with adult teachers spot checking their grading. As a teacher, I think this is an interesting proposal. It definitely would help a lot, and the ones teaching would get a firmer grasp on the material without a doubt. I wonder if it could be integrated into something like Sal Kahn's model, however. Say, kids watch lectures at home, and then kids in the higher class help them work through problems, with teacher guidance to explain in more depth for curious students and to help work through problems. There's a few issues I see with this, however, the main one being timing. There's only so many hours in a day, and if kids are going to both learn and teach, we'll have to cut down on something in the high school curriculum. Sadly, I fear this would mostly be electives or humanities classes, two things which are still needed. The other issue would be what to do with final year students. Would they only teach, or would they still need learning too? Ideally, they could get an internship, but who knows how that would really work, especially in rural areas/areas without many job opportunities.
- clairity 8y ago
  it would basically split the learning across 2 years instead of 1, so hopefully it wouldn't require additional time. spend half the time each year; test rudimentary knowledge the 1st year, mastery in the 2nd year. but if necessary, maybe performing arts could be pushed to non-profits to administer outside of school (as is often the case already). and i'd suspect final year students would help teach each other in electives. maybe get freshmen from college majoring in the subject. in college, teaching assistants are often only a couple years ahead of you anyway. i was just imagining how one room schoolhouses of yore (like on little house on the prairie) would work. =)
  - dorchadas 8y ago
    > it would basically split the learning across 2 years instead of 1, so hopefully it wouldn't require additional time. spend half the time each year; test rudimentary knowledge the 1st year, mastery in the 2nd year. Hmm, that could be interesting, especially if the mastery is tested in the second half of the year. That would allow you to do the concepts you learned in the first half and bring those into the stuff you learned the previous year...But it could also be a huge gap between actually learning the concepts and then putting them to use teaching someone else. Maybe have it alternating years, where, say, freshmen are teaching 8th graders the first half, then being taught the second half. And that class keeps their schedule of first half teaching, second half being taught as they progress, with the year before and after having the opposite one. > but if necessary, maybe performing arts could be pushed to non-profits to administer outside of school (as is often the case already). The issue with this is that many would never get exposure to them, then. And people need exposure to it (we need to be well-rounded, basically; STEM people need more humanities and humanities people need more STEM). Plus, with people pushing other extra curriculurs (sports!) that take up a lot of school time, it's hard to see many choosing these. Like, my hometown has an art guild, but few students do anything with it, sadly. It's quite a neat place. But they do a lot during school, and I'd hate to deprive that chance for those who are interested (and good). For some kids, it might be what keeps them coming to school and encourages them. Who knows? Plus, this would hurt rural areas quite a lot. But, I think the half-year plan mentioned above makes this point moot. >and i'd suspect final year students would help teach each other in electives. maybe get freshmen from college majoring in the subject. in college, teaching assistants are often only a couple years ahead of you anyway. That'd be an option...if you lived near a university.
mncharity 8y ago
> split the day between teaching and learning (probably alternating by hour) In peer instruction[1], the lecturer asks a question, students each commit to an answer (eg using clickers, or held-up cards), then turn to discuss the question with peers, and then do another commit. In computer-supported peer instruction, when students turn to discuss the question with peers, an app tells each student which of their neighboring students to talk with, based on the students' recent clicker answers, to maximize productive discussion. So for the future, perhaps we could do better than dividing teaching from learning by hour or day or year; better than partitioning teachers from learners by grade. Perhaps instead imagine dynamic minute-by-minute formation and dissolution of variously-sized groups for optimized and personalized learning. AI: "Hmm, student A's puzzlement will soon exceed their frustration target profile, and student B just figured it out and is enthused, and student A-B pairings have a history of going well in this situation... message: 'A,B: I suggest you pair'". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_instruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_instruction
- sitkack 8y ago
  Could you expound on this more generally? I think it could be excellent prior art for pairing student/student and student/teacher.
  - mncharity 8y ago
    I'm unclear what you're asking for? The computer-supported peer-instruction phone app example is based on work by Eric Mazur at Harvard (physics; physics education research; peer instruction). The AI example is simply a generic computer-human process hybrid, taking the existing teacher/tutor task of productively managing student grouping and learning, and scaling it with computer-based monitoring and optimization. Prior art? If your interest is in patents, my fuzzy understanding is Mazur regrettably took a familiar path. Unable to get follow-on research funding on the topic, he created a startup, with Harvard patent(s) (on what exactly I must of course avoid knowing) for table stakes and moat. The startup of course failed, and was acquired by a large dysfunctional education incumbent for the anticompetitive "value" of the patents. Leaving society arguably much worse off than if the original physics education research had never been funded at all. It's my fear that the conjunction of education with computer-human hybrid processes, and with with AR/VR, given the regulatory capture of patent policy, and plummeting ordinary skill levels, is creating a toxic stew of patents that will profoundly impede innovation in education in the US for many years.
renox 8y ago
> clairity 4 days ago | parent | on: A Lifetime of Systems Thinking > "Schools are upside down. Students should be teaching, and teachers at all levels should learn no matter how much they resist doing so." i was musing about this the other day... split the day between teaching and learning (probably alternating by hour): teach the grade below you Interesting idea but not so easy to do right: my wife when she was young had to teach her (much younger) little brother: the result? She was doing his homework instead of teaching him how to do it: much easier for her of course..

dorchadas 8y ago

> i was musing about this the other day... split the day between teaching and learning (probably alternating by hour): teach the grade below you and learn from the grade above you. teachers would mainly guide the teachers and set the agenda. the student teachers can grade papers, with adult teachers spot checking their grading. As a teacher, I think this is an interesting proposal. It definitely would help a lot, and the ones teaching would get a firmer grasp on the material without a doubt. I wonder if it could be integrated into something like Sal Kahn's model, however. Say, kids watch lectures at home, and then kids in the higher class help them work through problems, with teacher guidance to explain in more depth for curious students and to help work through problems. There's a few issues I see with this, however, the main one being timing. There's only so many hours in a day, and if kids are going to both learn and teach, we'll have to cut down on something in the high school curriculum. Sadly, I fear this would mostly be electives or humanities classes, two things which are still needed. The other issue would be what to do with final year students. Would they only teach, or would they still need learning too? Ideally, they could get an internship, but who knows how that would really work, especially in rural areas/areas without many job opportunities.

clairity 8y ago
it would basically split the learning across 2 years instead of 1, so hopefully it wouldn't require additional time. spend half the time each year; test rudimentary knowledge the 1st year, mastery in the 2nd year. but if necessary, maybe performing arts could be pushed to non-profits to administer outside of school (as is often the case already). and i'd suspect final year students would help teach each other in electives. maybe get freshmen from college majoring in the subject. in college, teaching assistants are often only a couple years ahead of you anyway. i was just imagining how one room schoolhouses of yore (like on little house on the prairie) would work. =)
- dorchadas 8y ago
  > it would basically split the learning across 2 years instead of 1, so hopefully it wouldn't require additional time. spend half the time each year; test rudimentary knowledge the 1st year, mastery in the 2nd year. Hmm, that could be interesting, especially if the mastery is tested in the second half of the year. That would allow you to do the concepts you learned in the first half and bring those into the stuff you learned the previous year...But it could also be a huge gap between actually learning the concepts and then putting them to use teaching someone else. Maybe have it alternating years, where, say, freshmen are teaching 8th graders the first half, then being taught the second half. And that class keeps their schedule of first half teaching, second half being taught as they progress, with the year before and after having the opposite one. > but if necessary, maybe performing arts could be pushed to non-profits to administer outside of school (as is often the case already). The issue with this is that many would never get exposure to them, then. And people need exposure to it (we need to be well-rounded, basically; STEM people need more humanities and humanities people need more STEM). Plus, with people pushing other extra curriculurs (sports!) that take up a lot of school time, it's hard to see many choosing these. Like, my hometown has an art guild, but few students do anything with it, sadly. It's quite a neat place. But they do a lot during school, and I'd hate to deprive that chance for those who are interested (and good). For some kids, it might be what keeps them coming to school and encourages them. Who knows? Plus, this would hurt rural areas quite a lot. But, I think the half-year plan mentioned above makes this point moot. >and i'd suspect final year students would help teach each other in electives. maybe get freshmen from college majoring in the subject. in college, teaching assistants are often only a couple years ahead of you anyway. That'd be an option...if you lived near a university.

mncharity 8y ago

> split the day between teaching and learning (probably alternating by hour) In peer instruction[1], the lecturer asks a question, students each commit to an answer (eg using clickers, or held-up cards), then turn to discuss the question with peers, and then do another commit. In computer-supported peer instruction, when students turn to discuss the question with peers, an app tells each student which of their neighboring students to talk with, based on the students' recent clicker answers, to maximize productive discussion. So for the future, perhaps we could do better than dividing teaching from learning by hour or day or year; better than partitioning teachers from learners by grade. Perhaps instead imagine dynamic minute-by-minute formation and dissolution of variously-sized groups for optimized and personalized learning. AI: "Hmm, student A's puzzlement will soon exceed their frustration target profile, and student B just figured it out and is enthused, and student A-B pairings have a history of going well in this situation... message: 'A,B: I suggest you pair'". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_instruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_instruction

sitkack 8y ago
Could you expound on this more generally? I think it could be excellent prior art for pairing student/student and student/teacher.
- mncharity 8y ago
  I'm unclear what you're asking for? The computer-supported peer-instruction phone app example is based on work by Eric Mazur at Harvard (physics; physics education research; peer instruction). The AI example is simply a generic computer-human process hybrid, taking the existing teacher/tutor task of productively managing student grouping and learning, and scaling it with computer-based monitoring and optimization. Prior art? If your interest is in patents, my fuzzy understanding is Mazur regrettably took a familiar path. Unable to get follow-on research funding on the topic, he created a startup, with Harvard patent(s) (on what exactly I must of course avoid knowing) for table stakes and moat. The startup of course failed, and was acquired by a large dysfunctional education incumbent for the anticompetitive "value" of the patents. Leaving society arguably much worse off than if the original physics education research had never been funded at all. It's my fear that the conjunction of education with computer-human hybrid processes, and with with AR/VR, given the regulatory capture of patent policy, and plummeting ordinary skill levels, is creating a toxic stew of patents that will profoundly impede innovation in education in the US for many years.

renox 8y ago

> clairity 4 days ago | parent | on: A Lifetime of Systems Thinking > "Schools are upside down. Students should be teaching, and teachers at all levels should learn no matter how much they resist doing so." i was musing about this the other day... split the day between teaching and learning (probably alternating by hour): teach the grade below you Interesting idea but not so easy to do right: my wife when she was young had to teach her (much younger) little brother: the result? She was doing his homework instead of teaching him how to do it: much easier for her of course..