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...but it is no substitute for teacher-student interaction Curious as to why you say this because recently it seems like people are realizing you DON'T need a

...but it is no substitute for teacher-student interaction Curious as to why you say this because recently it seems like people are realizing you DON'T need a tradition teacher student interaction to learn, and more and more people are turning to the wealth of education at our fingertips instead of traditional schooling.

wefarrell 7y ago
There's a multitude of evidence that teacher-student ratios are associated with positive outcomes: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C33&q=teacher+student+ratios&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C33&q=tea...
- em-bee 7y ago
  in traditional classroom learning, sure. but that doesn't imply that a different teaching method altogether can't have benefits as well, and possibly out-do a good teacher-student ratio. or put differently, traditional schooling is so bad that it is necessary to make classes smaller in order to give each student enough attention and opportunity to speak. with individualized learning, as for example in montessori, that teacher attention is not needed because in montessori the teacher attention is individualized too. that is, while the teacher is paying attention to a particular child or group of children, all other children in the class carry own with their own work. so each child may get less time with the teacher, but that time is of much higher quality. it's a completely different learning dynamic, and one that interestingly is capable of allowing a single teacher to handle larger classrooms.
  - ksdale 7y ago
    I think this is a great point. When we tell people we're thinking about homeschooling, one of the most common responses is something along the lines of, "What makes you think you can do better than an educational professional?" And my response is that I don't have to be a better teacher than a teacher, I have to be more effective at teaching my _one_ child than a teacher is at teaching my child as one of 30 children of widely differing abilities and behavior. I've spent a lot of time in coaching and educational roles, so I feel pretty capable as a teacher, but I think the point remains that the best way to teach a roomful of children is unlikely to be the best way to teach an individual child.
0815test 7y ago
Self-taught learning has always been a highly minority pursuit. Most people don't do it, they need supportive people interacting with them or they aren't going to put in the effort or to even understand how they might learn effectively. That's why the most serious proponents of computer-aided, personalized learning argue against replacing teachers. You can replace in-person lectures and perhaps many kinds of rote exercises via computer interaction. You can even gamify the latter and provide automated feedback, which is quite helpful from the student's POV. But no, you absolutely can't replace the teacher altogether. Computer use in education also adds a ton of sedentary screen time to these kids' lifestyle that's not necessarily good for their health, so focusing on getting the best value for that use is incredibly important.
wsinks 7y ago
In my experience as both a student and a workplace educator (informal learning only, ex: "I can't figure out how to do a fuzzy match in excel, can you help me?"), I think you've got the emphasis wrong. Educators know that not everyone needs a teacher, and most people don't need a teacher all of the time. The trick with high quality educators is two-fold, creating motivation for students to want to learn and stepping in to guide a student one on one when a student gets stuck. While I haven't needed a teacher 50% of the time, I get stuck when learning. I then need a new perspective, or a new mental model, to get me thinking differently. This happens less and less as I get older, and find ways to replace a teacher with other stimuli. A child isn't an adult. They need and want to have their hand held at certain times. There isn't a substitute for a social interaction that goes beyond "did student 9471827 learn topic 14536?". Humans need to go over things multiple times to remember how to do it. Sometimes there's new learning. Maybe they think they know how to do it, but it doesn't feel right, and they need a partner or authority figure to say "yes, that's a good way to solve this problem or frame a perspective". So to come all the way back around, I think most people know that we don't need a tradition teacher student interaction to learn, but we do want it at times, and the interaction definitely speeds up learning. I'd argue even more anecdotally that a human will not trust a robot teacher unless they've had a good human teacher, and that the robot teacher resembles some characteristic of that teacher. I realize that all of this is my opinion, but I hope it was interesting to you as a potential answer for the previous comment! Have a good one today
- tentboy 7y ago
  Thanks for your thoughts! Perhaps I am a bit jaded as I went to a large university and I don't think a single professor could recognize me as a student, even the ones I went to office hours for. (always just help I never really struck up a conversation). I will concede that for K-12 education, especially closer to the K side, having a patient teacher is certainly going to help students learn, and guide them when they are frustrated.
  - filoleg 7y ago
    >I went to a large university and I don't think a single professor could recognize me as a student I was in the same situation, and that's where the TAs (Teaching Assistants) stepped in. And most of the time, it made all the difference. Professors for a lot of classes (but not all of them) were just glorified lecture material recital machines, however, the value of TA office hours was insurmountable. The difference between classes that had great TAs vs. classes that had bad TAs was extremely noticeable in terms of the amount of material I learned. I agree with the rest of the sentiment in the thread though. I didn't need professors or TAs 80%+ of my time, but whenever I got stuck, a good explanation or hint from TA made all the difference. You could easily tell by looking at everyone's scores and knowledge who went to TA office hours and who didn't. Ironically enough, the scores didn't seem to correlate almost at all with lecture attendance. This inspired me to become a TA myself later on, and I am very glad I did that. It felt really rewarding to be able to figure out that one extra little nudge of information that, if given to a student in struggle, made it click in their heads.

wefarrell 7y ago

There's a multitude of evidence that teacher-student ratios are associated with positive outcomes: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C33&q=teacher+student+ratios&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C33&q=tea...

em-bee 7y ago
in traditional classroom learning, sure. but that doesn't imply that a different teaching method altogether can't have benefits as well, and possibly out-do a good teacher-student ratio. or put differently, traditional schooling is so bad that it is necessary to make classes smaller in order to give each student enough attention and opportunity to speak. with individualized learning, as for example in montessori, that teacher attention is not needed because in montessori the teacher attention is individualized too. that is, while the teacher is paying attention to a particular child or group of children, all other children in the class carry own with their own work. so each child may get less time with the teacher, but that time is of much higher quality. it's a completely different learning dynamic, and one that interestingly is capable of allowing a single teacher to handle larger classrooms.
- ksdale 7y ago
  I think this is a great point. When we tell people we're thinking about homeschooling, one of the most common responses is something along the lines of, "What makes you think you can do better than an educational professional?" And my response is that I don't have to be a better teacher than a teacher, I have to be more effective at teaching my _one_ child than a teacher is at teaching my child as one of 30 children of widely differing abilities and behavior. I've spent a lot of time in coaching and educational roles, so I feel pretty capable as a teacher, but I think the point remains that the best way to teach a roomful of children is unlikely to be the best way to teach an individual child.

0815test 7y ago

Self-taught learning has always been a highly minority pursuit. Most people don't do it, they need supportive people interacting with them or they aren't going to put in the effort or to even understand how they might learn effectively. That's why the most serious proponents of computer-aided, personalized learning argue against replacing teachers. You can replace in-person lectures and perhaps many kinds of rote exercises via computer interaction. You can even gamify the latter and provide automated feedback, which is quite helpful from the student's POV. But no, you absolutely can't replace the teacher altogether. Computer use in education also adds a ton of sedentary screen time to these kids' lifestyle that's not necessarily good for their health, so focusing on getting the best value for that use is incredibly important.

wsinks 7y ago

In my experience as both a student and a workplace educator (informal learning only, ex: "I can't figure out how to do a fuzzy match in excel, can you help me?"), I think you've got the emphasis wrong. Educators know that not everyone needs a teacher, and most people don't need a teacher all of the time. The trick with high quality educators is two-fold, creating motivation for students to want to learn and stepping in to guide a student one on one when a student gets stuck. While I haven't needed a teacher 50% of the time, I get stuck when learning. I then need a new perspective, or a new mental model, to get me thinking differently. This happens less and less as I get older, and find ways to replace a teacher with other stimuli. A child isn't an adult. They need and want to have their hand held at certain times. There isn't a substitute for a social interaction that goes beyond "did student 9471827 learn topic 14536?". Humans need to go over things multiple times to remember how to do it. Sometimes there's new learning. Maybe they think they know how to do it, but it doesn't feel right, and they need a partner or authority figure to say "yes, that's a good way to solve this problem or frame a perspective". So to come all the way back around, I think most people know that we don't need a tradition teacher student interaction to learn, but we do want it at times, and the interaction definitely speeds up learning. I'd argue even more anecdotally that a human will not trust a robot teacher unless they've had a good human teacher, and that the robot teacher resembles some characteristic of that teacher. I realize that all of this is my opinion, but I hope it was interesting to you as a potential answer for the previous comment! Have a good one today

tentboy 7y ago
Thanks for your thoughts! Perhaps I am a bit jaded as I went to a large university and I don't think a single professor could recognize me as a student, even the ones I went to office hours for. (always just help I never really struck up a conversation). I will concede that for K-12 education, especially closer to the K side, having a patient teacher is certainly going to help students learn, and guide them when they are frustrated.
- filoleg 7y ago
  >I went to a large university and I don't think a single professor could recognize me as a student I was in the same situation, and that's where the TAs (Teaching Assistants) stepped in. And most of the time, it made all the difference. Professors for a lot of classes (but not all of them) were just glorified lecture material recital machines, however, the value of TA office hours was insurmountable. The difference between classes that had great TAs vs. classes that had bad TAs was extremely noticeable in terms of the amount of material I learned. I agree with the rest of the sentiment in the thread though. I didn't need professors or TAs 80%+ of my time, but whenever I got stuck, a good explanation or hint from TA made all the difference. You could easily tell by looking at everyone's scores and knowledge who went to TA office hours and who didn't. Ironically enough, the scores didn't seem to correlate almost at all with lecture attendance. This inspired me to become a TA myself later on, and I am very glad I did that. It felt really rewarding to be able to figure out that one extra little nudge of information that, if given to a student in struggle, made it click in their heads.