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I don’t disagree with anything you said. I think it strongly argues for university being highly inefficient compared to optimal education strategies. University

I don’t disagree with anything you said. I think it strongly argues for university being highly inefficient compared to optimal education strategies. University cohorts should probably be smaller, with smaller class sizes and more stringent entry requirements to work toward the ideal 1:1 student:teacher ratios. Sure it’s more expensive, but if you get 2 std deviations out of it, that’s huge. For certain gen ed classes, maybe have the whole cohort in a single class, not for lectures or exams, but for discussion and collaboration. Make those courses fully project based and assign them uniformly across degree boundaries. Right now, graduate level courses and prestigious institutions are the only ones even trying to offer a higher education. The majority of universities at this point are paper mills, rushing hundreds or thousands of students through programs without most of the benefits you described. It’s a system optimized for making money or university survival, rather than student achievement or societal benefit.

xnyan 6y ago
This can’t happen (in the United States) until there are alternate ways of making a decent living for normal people who can’t self-teach math and programming skills. College is a mandatory job “certification” for a lot of office and other types of jobs so college has to be approachable enough that almost anyone can be accepted.
intended 6y ago
You are absolutely correct, which is why I keep harping on the Bloom 2 sigma problem. Its an easy way to highlight to readers how significant human 1 on 1 mentoring is to academic outcomes. That immediately makes it clear to people that we dont have the money or people to afford that outcome, and after a few traversals on that ladder, the issue of education being a huge method to minimize the cost to educate people without overloading on number of teachers and cost of HR becomes apparent. Mentorship is my new educational holy grail today frankly. Gone is the hope of the MOOC, now we need the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, a mentor that customizes information that matches a student. Fundamentally though people learn through play, thats how humans are designed. Kids pick up 5000 combinations from playing league of legends, and do stupid number crunching on the fly. However play is to hard to create, because we don't associate fun with a lot of work. If we ever solve education, it will be solved by using play, even Mentors must understand fun.
- severine 6y ago
  > ...now we need the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, a mentor that customizes information that matches a student. In case you didn't get the reference: https://proto-knowledge.blogspot.com/2011/11/building-young-ladys-illustrated-primer.html https://proto-knowledge.blogspot.com/2011/11/building-young-...

xnyan 6y ago

This can’t happen (in the United States) until there are alternate ways of making a decent living for normal people who can’t self-teach math and programming skills. College is a mandatory job “certification” for a lot of office and other types of jobs so college has to be approachable enough that almost anyone can be accepted.

intended 6y ago

You are absolutely correct, which is why I keep harping on the Bloom 2 sigma problem. Its an easy way to highlight to readers how significant human 1 on 1 mentoring is to academic outcomes. That immediately makes it clear to people that we dont have the money or people to afford that outcome, and after a few traversals on that ladder, the issue of education being a huge method to minimize the cost to educate people without overloading on number of teachers and cost of HR becomes apparent. Mentorship is my new educational holy grail today frankly. Gone is the hope of the MOOC, now we need the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, a mentor that customizes information that matches a student. Fundamentally though people learn through play, thats how humans are designed. Kids pick up 5000 combinations from playing league of legends, and do stupid number crunching on the fly. However play is to hard to create, because we don't associate fun with a lot of work. If we ever solve education, it will be solved by using play, even Mentors must understand fun.

severine 6y ago
> ...now we need the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, a mentor that customizes information that matches a student. In case you didn't get the reference: https://proto-knowledge.blogspot.com/2011/11/building-young-ladys-illustrated-primer.html https://proto-knowledge.blogspot.com/2011/11/building-young-...