4 ms·

I don't know jack about teaching kids, but I do know a lot about teaching adults. The crying shame I see in this whole endeavor is the emphasis on re-creating

I don't know jack about teaching kids, but I do know a lot about teaching adults. The crying shame I see in this whole endeavor is the emphasis on re-creating the classroom online. Half of what you teach (really in any topic) is foundational knowledge -- terms, models, history, important people and events. This is better taught offline at the learner's pace. Give then ways to monitor their understanding -- ungraded exercises, graded quizzes, papers, etc. The best use of synchronous time to cover the higher level skills involving the application of that knowledge. This means interacting with the students in ways that give them the ability show they understand what you are teaching, letting them screw up, and gently guiding them back on the right path. This is also the hardest but most rewarding part of teaching. Every parent talk to (I don't have kids) complains about the same thing and the source seems to be the fact this was all jammed online in a short amount of time, without teachers being able to divide their materials into these two parts. This leads to teachers just doing what they did in the classroom but in front of Zoom. I think online learning is great, but this has led to a lot of people forming poor opinions of it, and I feel like that is a real shame. Schools should have been heading in this direction for years. The technology is there. It seems that entrenched forces have kept it from happening.

Jensson 5y ago
> I don't know jack about teaching kids, but I do know a lot about teaching adults. What kind of adults? Most adult teaching is for adults of the top 30%. School teaching has to accommodate the bottom 30%. Teaching the top 30% and bottom 30% is very different.
- bluetwo 5y ago
  Mostly corporate learning focused on specific job tasks is what I do. Building tools for online learning and using instructional design to build the training. This is very different than teaching fundamentals to kids, even beyond accommodating different skill levels. But of course it relies on people having a solid foundation. Without that you can't build anything.
supertrope 5y ago
Digital workflows take time to setup. The most naive implementations are to use computers as fancy Xerox machines by printing, editing on paper, and scanning in. The next step is to stop printing and keep it on the screens. Like how paperless bills are the exact same documents but they get to save paper, postage, and mailroom staff costs. They have still constrained themselves to the features of paper. Page dimensions, each copy can only be worked on by one person at a time and the resulting version conflicts, and manual review. Finally there’s terminals that make no pretensions as to ever exporting natively to print and can exploit automated processing and data transfer APIs.
visarga 5y ago
Most kids need the structure of the in-person school to be motivated to learn day by day, over a long period. If you give them a playlist and a bunch of problems to solve they will feel overwhelmed and alone.
- barry-cotter 5y ago
  In person school is not exactly motivating either. Trying to force information students don't care about and won't use into their heads and have them remember it is hard. Learning about things you care about is highly motivating. School has a limited amount of that. The High School Survey of Student Engagement finds that 66% of high school students are bored in class every day. Seventeen percent say they're bored in every class every day. Two percent claim they're never bored. 82% say the material isn't interesting; 41% that it isn't relevant[1]. Middle school students are bored 36% of the time during schoolwork, versus 17% for other activities. [1]Yazzie-Mintz 2010, pp.6-7 [2] Larson and Richards 1991, pp. 427-29
  - visarga 5y ago
    I agree that in person schooling also fails in motivating most children. It's a bit more effective than remote learning though. Take a look at the trajectory of MOOCs and see how hard it is to do.
- jaclaz 5y ago
  I would say that most kids need classmates more than anything else, school is (IMHO) a lot about doing other things besides listening to lessons/teachers.
  - bluetwo 5y ago
    For the first part I'm describing, no, they don't need classmates. For the second part, yes, they do.

Jensson 5y ago

> I don't know jack about teaching kids, but I do know a lot about teaching adults. What kind of adults? Most adult teaching is for adults of the top 30%. School teaching has to accommodate the bottom 30%. Teaching the top 30% and bottom 30% is very different.

bluetwo 5y ago
Mostly corporate learning focused on specific job tasks is what I do. Building tools for online learning and using instructional design to build the training. This is very different than teaching fundamentals to kids, even beyond accommodating different skill levels. But of course it relies on people having a solid foundation. Without that you can't build anything.

supertrope 5y ago

Digital workflows take time to setup. The most naive implementations are to use computers as fancy Xerox machines by printing, editing on paper, and scanning in. The next step is to stop printing and keep it on the screens. Like how paperless bills are the exact same documents but they get to save paper, postage, and mailroom staff costs. They have still constrained themselves to the features of paper. Page dimensions, each copy can only be worked on by one person at a time and the resulting version conflicts, and manual review. Finally there’s terminals that make no pretensions as to ever exporting natively to print and can exploit automated processing and data transfer APIs.

visarga 5y ago

Most kids need the structure of the in-person school to be motivated to learn day by day, over a long period. If you give them a playlist and a bunch of problems to solve they will feel overwhelmed and alone.

barry-cotter 5y ago
In person school is not exactly motivating either. Trying to force information students don't care about and won't use into their heads and have them remember it is hard. Learning about things you care about is highly motivating. School has a limited amount of that. The High School Survey of Student Engagement finds that 66% of high school students are bored in class every day. Seventeen percent say they're bored in every class every day. Two percent claim they're never bored. 82% say the material isn't interesting; 41% that it isn't relevant[1]. Middle school students are bored 36% of the time during schoolwork, versus 17% for other activities. [1]Yazzie-Mintz 2010, pp.6-7 [2] Larson and Richards 1991, pp. 427-29
- visarga 5y ago
  I agree that in person schooling also fails in motivating most children. It's a bit more effective than remote learning though. Take a look at the trajectory of MOOCs and see how hard it is to do.
jaclaz 5y ago
I would say that most kids need classmates more than anything else, school is (IMHO) a lot about doing other things besides listening to lessons/teachers.
- bluetwo 5y ago
  For the first part I'm describing, no, they don't need classmates. For the second part, yes, they do.