5 ms·

If remote or partially remote education is to become the default, you have to scrap the teacher-students-classroom model; it hardly works in real life and it's

by qsort 6y ago

If remote or partially remote education is to become the default, you have to scrap the teacher-students-classroom model; it hardly works in real life and it's even worse when not happening in a physical space. Moving to a fully asynchronous model is the only way you can maintain any semblance of educational standards. Put content online, have the students access it at their own leisure. Use the saved time to arrange live QA/interactive sessions for the teachers to unblock the students if they need that (it is also a nice excuse to silently check everyone's progress). Quit the cheating/surveillance arms race, fully embrace open-book tests and oral exams. I'd also say, try really hard not to go full remote, at least for middle school and below. There are advantages to both approaches, and a completely remote education is much harder to make work. What individuals can do, I'm not really sure, I guess it depends on what your local school is doing/allows at the moment. Fighting the bureaucracy hardly worth anybody's time.

rgblambda 6y ago
>>Put content online, have the students access it at their own leisure. I second this. This will allow school lessons to better resemble learning the workplace.
- mattbk1 6y ago
  Is there evidence that the way people "learn in the workplace" is better than the way they learn in college? Is there evidence that the way people "learn in the workkplace" is always the same?
  - tenacious_tuna 6y ago
    Personally I've found all my workspace learning to be far, far more effective and enjoyable than my school experiences. A lot of it is the 1-on-1 mentoring I get in my work environments, or the much more hands-on learning I can do (writing code or making changes myself). This, combined with a much less intense deadline culture (no exams, no hard assignment deadlines), work has always been a more enjoyable learning environment for me. I realize I may be in the minority here, but I find it very hard to see how an apprentice-mentor relationship could ever be outstripped by large-scale lecture-audience dynamics in terms of quality. (Excepting, of course, a poor mentor, but that's balanced out by poor instructors anyway.)
- dorchadas 6y ago
  Unless the student is self-motivated, often 'access it at their own leisure' means never. Dealing with that currently with all my students who are failing right now because they just didn't think they needed to watch the videos/do the assignments.
  - rgblambda 6y ago
    Students also sit and daydream in the classroom. In college, you have to physically walk to class and take notes/do exercises. Nobody will help you or make you do it. I've seen many students who studied hard to get in to college then drop out due to poor work ethic as there's less direction.
LockAndLol 6y ago
I think the model you're describing is the flipped classroom [1]. If all course materials are put online and lessons consist of requiring pupils to prepare by using the materials and whatever else they can get elsewhere, it might actually increase engagement. Probably doubly so if all of the information learned is used for projects or goals e.g by the end of this year, you will understand how a CRT works and have to provide all the requirements needed to build one with the following characteristics: X nits, Y colors, Z resolution, etc. Similar things could be done with art, music, maths and more. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flipped_classroom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flipped_classroom
artificialLimbs 6y ago
Much of this is the premise of 'unschooling', Sandra Dodd's conception of learning wherein students set the curriculum. I'm not a fan of a lot of her ... ways ... but the idea does have some attractiveness and seems to work well in at least some instances. https://www.sandradodd.com/ https://www.sandradodd.com/
tenacious_tuna 6y ago
I'm personally appalled that instead of leaning hard into a "flipped classroom model" by having kids watch (or read!) lectures on material on their own, and then working in small groups with their teacher, the US public school system has instead doubled-down on just retrofitting the classroom environment into remote hell. As a developer it's difficult enough trying to remain engaged on any remote meeting with more than 5 participants, I can't fathom how kids behave. I imagine a huge component is the school-system-as-babysitting dynamic. If kids were left to their own devices to learn without any adult supervision it's possible (likely even) that they'd end up distracted at best, or at rick of causing or experiencing damage to themselves or their environment at worst. So... I guess I'm not sure what the model ought to be. I'm sure there's some contrast to be found to cultures where there's more live-in family (grandparents, aunts uncles etc.) than you find in American/Western households.
- tenacious_tuna 6y ago
  Thinking on this more: There's a high level of self-direction required of students in a flipped classroom model, and by my experience in the US public school system, the kids who're already doing well will do just fine in a flipped (or otherwise self-directed) model, but the at-risk kids are the ones who would need more attention--just like in the classroom.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    So I'm friends with one college student, and she hates flipped classrooms. It's not because she's irresponsible, either. (This is college, not high school.) She feels like it takes more time and she gets less out of it. It really doesn't work for her. So I think that > the kids who're already doing well will do just fine in a flipped (or otherwise self-directed) model is not true in all cases. I suspect she's not the only outlier, either.
    - 6y ago

by qsort 6y ago

rgblambda 6y ago

>>Put content online, have the students access it at their own leisure. I second this. This will allow school lessons to better resemble learning the workplace.

mattbk1 6y ago
Is there evidence that the way people "learn in the workplace" is better than the way they learn in college? Is there evidence that the way people "learn in the workkplace" is always the same?
- tenacious_tuna 6y ago
  Personally I've found all my workspace learning to be far, far more effective and enjoyable than my school experiences. A lot of it is the 1-on-1 mentoring I get in my work environments, or the much more hands-on learning I can do (writing code or making changes myself). This, combined with a much less intense deadline culture (no exams, no hard assignment deadlines), work has always been a more enjoyable learning environment for me. I realize I may be in the minority here, but I find it very hard to see how an apprentice-mentor relationship could ever be outstripped by large-scale lecture-audience dynamics in terms of quality. (Excepting, of course, a poor mentor, but that's balanced out by poor instructors anyway.)
dorchadas 6y ago
Unless the student is self-motivated, often 'access it at their own leisure' means never. Dealing with that currently with all my students who are failing right now because they just didn't think they needed to watch the videos/do the assignments.
- rgblambda 6y ago
  Students also sit and daydream in the classroom. In college, you have to physically walk to class and take notes/do exercises. Nobody will help you or make you do it. I've seen many students who studied hard to get in to college then drop out due to poor work ethic as there's less direction.

LockAndLol 6y ago

I think the model you're describing is the flipped classroom [1]. If all course materials are put online and lessons consist of requiring pupils to prepare by using the materials and whatever else they can get elsewhere, it might actually increase engagement. Probably doubly so if all of the information learned is used for projects or goals e.g by the end of this year, you will understand how a CRT works and have to provide all the requirements needed to build one with the following characteristics: X nits, Y colors, Z resolution, etc. Similar things could be done with art, music, maths and more. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flipped_classroom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flipped_classroom

artificialLimbs 6y ago

Much of this is the premise of 'unschooling', Sandra Dodd's conception of learning wherein students set the curriculum. I'm not a fan of a lot of her ... ways ... but the idea does have some attractiveness and seems to work well in at least some instances. https://www.sandradodd.com/ https://www.sandradodd.com/

tenacious_tuna 6y ago

I'm personally appalled that instead of leaning hard into a "flipped classroom model" by having kids watch (or read!) lectures on material on their own, and then working in small groups with their teacher, the US public school system has instead doubled-down on just retrofitting the classroom environment into remote hell. As a developer it's difficult enough trying to remain engaged on any remote meeting with more than 5 participants, I can't fathom how kids behave. I imagine a huge component is the school-system-as-babysitting dynamic. If kids were left to their own devices to learn without any adult supervision it's possible (likely even) that they'd end up distracted at best, or at rick of causing or experiencing damage to themselves or their environment at worst. So... I guess I'm not sure what the model ought to be. I'm sure there's some contrast to be found to cultures where there's more live-in family (grandparents, aunts uncles etc.) than you find in American/Western households.

tenacious_tuna 6y ago
Thinking on this more: There's a high level of self-direction required of students in a flipped classroom model, and by my experience in the US public school system, the kids who're already doing well will do just fine in a flipped (or otherwise self-directed) model, but the at-risk kids are the ones who would need more attention--just like in the classroom.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  So I'm friends with one college student, and she hates flipped classrooms. It's not because she's irresponsible, either. (This is college, not high school.) She feels like it takes more time and she gets less out of it. It really doesn't work for her. So I think that > the kids who're already doing well will do just fine in a flipped (or otherwise self-directed) model is not true in all cases. I suspect she's not the only outlier, either.
  - 6y ago