3 ms·

I teach in college. In my opinion physical presence beats online teaching hands down for all but a few use cases. In my experience the last three months a mino

by raarts 6y ago

I teach in college. In my opinion physical presence beats online teaching hands down for all but a few use cases. In my experience the last three months a minority of students thrive by online teaching, another (slightly bigger) minority stumbles and falls, and the rest struggles. As a teacher I feel way less effective as well. I do not think there is a technical solution to this. If online teaching becomes the norm I will leave the profession.

aurizon 6y ago
The main problem with online is the mental agility of the student - smartness. Some are auto didactic - capable of self teaching. Some are not, we can not all be an Archimedes or an Isaac Newton. Online teaching needs to develop a high degree of parallelism. Let us say they break the topic down to a large number of short modules. Each one needs to be shown and explained and then the uptake tested. If student fails test 1, he needs to be taken through a different module on the same topic, explained and uptake tested. Repeat until the parallels are exhausted and the fails assessed to determine the composition of the way the student fails. Once assessed, the student needs to enter a new set of modules with greater detail in the explanatory detail. This will need an exhaustive degree of preparation, but it needs to be done. Once done on all topics you will have a huge massively parallel data base that is capable of teaching a wide range of people. On route, one needs to assess all manner of supportive skills - keyboarding - is that student capable of reading and entering the responses the program will demand of him? If not, that student needs some preparatory modules to deal with all the test and numeracy issues he faces. In human teaching, this is done via very personally demanding instruction in person. The program needs to be able to rapidly select from all the modules in it's repertoire. Ideally, such a system can handle all the way from a child to a graduate student. Assessing all the way and presenting and reviewing, remoduling etc all the way. Students vary widely, some are highly intelligent (but as yet are untaught), some are not so smart. AN ideal system will also test for what I call 'physical IQ' - the capacity for detailed physical tasks, such as fencing or basketball or any sport. They may be brilliant at physical tasks, not so good at physics or programming. Modern computers are capable of this. It is a demanding task to program them, but once done, it can be deployed millions of times amond millions of students. I hesitate to call it an 'AI', it is just a capable parallel high speed machine.
- empath75 6y ago
  Trying to replicate a classroom online is the primary mistake I think people are making. Why should there be a teacher delivering scripted lectures to students at a scheduled time at all. Trying to do classes over zoom is a terrible idea. Why not just put all the kids on individualized learning plans, have the teachers act as tutors and counselors and graders, and let the kids go at their own pace, with staff following their progress closely and making sure they're getting their work done on time, clearing up learning impediments, etc. Then you can have the kids that need one-on-one help getting that time, and the kids that can do self-directed learning being free to go as fast as they want to.
  - aurizon 6y ago
    Yes, just how the system I endorse will work.
  - raarts 6y ago
    I think generalizing all ages is a bad idea. In fact kids grow and learn so fast that almost each age needs a different approach, and I don't mean a 5% difference. Another thing is that we tend to underestimate how much kids learn 'between the lines'. What is acceptable, what is valuable. Lastly I'm convinced individualised learning is a fallacy. We technocrats like personalisation, but in my opinion that is only good for adults. I want to recommend books and talks from Katharine Birbalsingh for an entirely contrarian, but very successful take on elevating underprivileged children.

by raarts 6y ago

aurizon 6y ago

The main problem with online is the mental agility of the student - smartness. Some are auto didactic - capable of self teaching. Some are not, we can not all be an Archimedes or an Isaac Newton. Online teaching needs to develop a high degree of parallelism. Let us say they break the topic down to a large number of short modules. Each one needs to be shown and explained and then the uptake tested. If student fails test 1, he needs to be taken through a different module on the same topic, explained and uptake tested. Repeat until the parallels are exhausted and the fails assessed to determine the composition of the way the student fails. Once assessed, the student needs to enter a new set of modules with greater detail in the explanatory detail. This will need an exhaustive degree of preparation, but it needs to be done. Once done on all topics you will have a huge massively parallel data base that is capable of teaching a wide range of people. On route, one needs to assess all manner of supportive skills - keyboarding - is that student capable of reading and entering the responses the program will demand of him? If not, that student needs some preparatory modules to deal with all the test and numeracy issues he faces. In human teaching, this is done via very personally demanding instruction in person. The program needs to be able to rapidly select from all the modules in it's repertoire. Ideally, such a system can handle all the way from a child to a graduate student. Assessing all the way and presenting and reviewing, remoduling etc all the way. Students vary widely, some are highly intelligent (but as yet are untaught), some are not so smart. AN ideal system will also test for what I call 'physical IQ' - the capacity for detailed physical tasks, such as fencing or basketball or any sport. They may be brilliant at physical tasks, not so good at physics or programming. Modern computers are capable of this. It is a demanding task to program them, but once done, it can be deployed millions of times amond millions of students. I hesitate to call it an 'AI', it is just a capable parallel high speed machine.

empath75 6y ago
Trying to replicate a classroom online is the primary mistake I think people are making. Why should there be a teacher delivering scripted lectures to students at a scheduled time at all. Trying to do classes over zoom is a terrible idea. Why not just put all the kids on individualized learning plans, have the teachers act as tutors and counselors and graders, and let the kids go at their own pace, with staff following their progress closely and making sure they're getting their work done on time, clearing up learning impediments, etc. Then you can have the kids that need one-on-one help getting that time, and the kids that can do self-directed learning being free to go as fast as they want to.
- aurizon 6y ago
  Yes, just how the system I endorse will work.
- raarts 6y ago
  I think generalizing all ages is a bad idea. In fact kids grow and learn so fast that almost each age needs a different approach, and I don't mean a 5% difference. Another thing is that we tend to underestimate how much kids learn 'between the lines'. What is acceptable, what is valuable. Lastly I'm convinced individualised learning is a fallacy. We technocrats like personalisation, but in my opinion that is only good for adults. I want to recommend books and talks from Katharine Birbalsingh for an entirely contrarian, but very successful take on elevating underprivileged children.