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Back in about 1988, I took a required history class from a local community college. (To help make up for the fact that it took me four semesters to get through

Back in about 1988, I took a required history class from a local community college. (To help make up for the fact that it took me four semesters to get through the two semester calculus course.) The course consisted of... 1. A high-production-value TV program transmitted on the local PBS channel. 2. In-person mid-term and final tests. 3. "Teaching assistants" (it was a local community college; I'm not sure what their exact status was) with office hours for questions. It...worked. I learned the material, such as it was. As such, it was somewhat better than the worst in-person classes I experienced. On the other hand, there was no engagement with the material. You read the textbook, watched the TV, and went in to take the tests. End of story. There were no asides---having a teacher take part of a class to look at some current event from the viewpoint of the class, having the teacher answer a completely off-the-wall question that leads to a good discussion. There were no discussions, in fact. I'm sure some of the students who knew the material got together to review for the test or something, but honestly, I don't see why. The whole experience was aimed at the lowest common denominator with no way for the teacher to dial it up for some or all students. It worked, but it was a worse learning experience than many 500 students classes that I had from enthusiastic, engaged teachers. I suspect that's why the model hasn't caught on, at least at the level of decent schools---people have been saying (and attempting) that video would take over from lectures literally since Edison invented the movie. (I'm sure it's more appropriate for the degree-mills of the world, though.)

garmaine 5y ago
> On the other hand, there was no engagement with the material. You read the textbook, watched the TV, and went in to take the tests. End of story. For an introverted autodidact like me, that’s all I want. But I recognize I truly am in the minority here.
- maeil 5y ago
  Don't think intro/extroversion plays much of a role here, I'm probably an extroverted autodidact and that's still my ideal model for learning. What I enjoy doing in my free time is completely separate from that. Sure, in an ideal world I'd have in-person lectures that are as high production value as the recorded lecture(/TV) in question, but 99.9% of the time I won't be getting those.
- mcguire 5y ago
  Do you ever go to technical meetups? Conferences? Get together with anyone to discuss what you've learned?
  - garmaine 5y ago
    Only those conferences work requires me to go to. I don’t get much out of them, to be honest. I never attend meetups. (I did a few times in the past, they were worse than useless to me.) I’ve had beers with other devs in my field, and very productive cross-industry meetings. But general agenda-less meetups are not useful, no.
radu_floricica 5y ago
Video _should_ take over from lectures, but there needs to be a model to properly replace it. On my part, I think it's an utter waste of the teacher's time to keep repeating the same lecture over and over, when he/she should be doing exactly the conversation and engagement part. It's just we don't have a good, universal model for this. I'm sure lots of places tried and succeeded, but for some reason no particular way of skinning this cat got out to become well known. Partly, I suspect, is because 80% of the value of education is signaling, so any "revolution in teaching" would be just optimizing the 20% left.
- mcguire 5y ago
  "Partly, I suspect, is because 80% of the value of education is signaling, so any "revolution in teaching" would be just optimizing the 20% left." I disagree rather strongly.
  - radu_floricica 5y ago
    "The Case Against Education - Wikipedia" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_Against_Education https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_Against_Education
    - mcguire 5y ago
      And I disagree strongly that the sole value of education, or a human being, is economic. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/is-education-a-waste-of-time-and-money/2018/02/16/7e3fdcfe-0a86-11e8-8890-372e2047c935_story.html?noredirect=on https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/is-education-a-waste-... https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/case-against-case-against-education https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning...
      - radu_floricica 5y ago
        I disagree :) First link is paywalled, and the second is rather unconvincing, and pales in comparison to Caplan's overly careful argumentation. I suspect we have different lufe experiences as well. For me most education years were either a waste of time, or at least came with very high opportunity costs.

garmaine 5y ago

> On the other hand, there was no engagement with the material. You read the textbook, watched the TV, and went in to take the tests. End of story. For an introverted autodidact like me, that’s all I want. But I recognize I truly am in the minority here.

maeil 5y ago
Don't think intro/extroversion plays much of a role here, I'm probably an extroverted autodidact and that's still my ideal model for learning. What I enjoy doing in my free time is completely separate from that. Sure, in an ideal world I'd have in-person lectures that are as high production value as the recorded lecture(/TV) in question, but 99.9% of the time I won't be getting those.
mcguire 5y ago
Do you ever go to technical meetups? Conferences? Get together with anyone to discuss what you've learned?
- garmaine 5y ago
  Only those conferences work requires me to go to. I don’t get much out of them, to be honest. I never attend meetups. (I did a few times in the past, they were worse than useless to me.) I’ve had beers with other devs in my field, and very productive cross-industry meetings. But general agenda-less meetups are not useful, no.

radu_floricica 5y ago

Video _should_ take over from lectures, but there needs to be a model to properly replace it. On my part, I think it's an utter waste of the teacher's time to keep repeating the same lecture over and over, when he/she should be doing exactly the conversation and engagement part. It's just we don't have a good, universal model for this. I'm sure lots of places tried and succeeded, but for some reason no particular way of skinning this cat got out to become well known. Partly, I suspect, is because 80% of the value of education is signaling, so any "revolution in teaching" would be just optimizing the 20% left.

mcguire 5y ago
"Partly, I suspect, is because 80% of the value of education is signaling, so any "revolution in teaching" would be just optimizing the 20% left." I disagree rather strongly.
- radu_floricica 5y ago
  "The Case Against Education - Wikipedia" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_Against_Education https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_Against_Education
  - mcguire 5y ago
    And I disagree strongly that the sole value of education, or a human being, is economic. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/is-education-a-waste-of-time-and-money/2018/02/16/7e3fdcfe-0a86-11e8-8890-372e2047c935_story.html?noredirect=on https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/is-education-a-waste-... https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/case-against-case-against-education https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning...
    - radu_floricica 5y ago
      I disagree :) First link is paywalled, and the second is rather unconvincing, and pales in comparison to Caplan's overly careful argumentation. I suspect we have different lufe experiences as well. For me most education years were either a waste of time, or at least came with very high opportunity costs.