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I think you underestimate the amount of time that it takes to convey information in a high school classroom. For example, four years of language instruction at

by dhosek 5y ago

I think you underestimate the amount of time that it takes to convey information in a high school classroom. For example, four years of language instruction at the high school level, assuming that the student manages to pass the AP exam at the end of it, gives that student the equivalent of two semesters of language instruction at the college level. A one-year math class in high school (with roughly 180 classroom days) is taught in colleges in a single semester (with 45 classroom days). Part of this is that there will be a lot of hands-on in-class experience as part of the instruction. Illinois requires 9 weeks of consumer education which is usually made part of another class although the local high school's requirement is either a semester-long class or AP Economics.

urthor 5y ago
Keep in mind also that that's because in high school the number of hours per week are far more limited. High school has a part of a highly varied curriculum. For example, students almost never spend more than 25% of their time on just math. Whilst in university, a single paper involves spending 25% of your time on a single sub topic like geometry.
- dhosek 5y ago
  >Keep in mind also that that's because in high school the number of hours per week are far more limited. I don’t understand what you’re claiming here. At least in terms of classroom contact time, the number of hours is much higher in high school (typically five 50 minute periods per week vs. three 50 minute periods per week in college) and the school year is longer (20–21 weeks per semester vs 15 in college).
julianlam 5y ago
> A one-year math class in high school (with roughly 180 classroom days) is taught in colleges in a single semester That's forgiving. One year of calculus in high school (first principles and derivatives) was taught in a single week (3 hours) in undergrad calculus. University of Toronto. Infamous for taking in a ton of undergrads for the money, giving as few supports as possible, and then just failing a whole lot of them out.
jacobolus 5y ago
Language instruction by traditional courses/curriculum is grossly inefficient and ineffective, because courses focus on judging and ranking the students in whatever way is easiest for the teacher to measure rather than on language acquisition per se. Many students come out of several years of instruction with next to no proficiency in the target language, and when they visit a country speaking that language end up lost and confused, unable to follow the most basic native conversations, let alone speak fluently themselves. Courses should focus substantially on maximizing comprehensible input of spoken language for at least the first half year, with negligible emphasis placed on students trying to learn formally (grammar, spelling, etc.) or make utterances in the target language. After 2–3 years courses should predominantly focus on reading. Get one student to take a traditional 1 hour per day Spanish course for 3 years and another student to watch an hour of https://youtube.com/c/DreamingSpanish/ https://youtube.com/c/DreamingSpanish/ every day for 1 year and the second student will come out ahead. And that’s just completely passive content from YouTube: a student who has conversations for an hour per day with native target-language speakers (where the student doesn’t try to produce the target language themselves but only listen to it) is going to do better still.

by dhosek 5y ago

urthor 5y ago

Keep in mind also that that's because in high school the number of hours per week are far more limited. High school has a part of a highly varied curriculum. For example, students almost never spend more than 25% of their time on just math. Whilst in university, a single paper involves spending 25% of your time on a single sub topic like geometry.

dhosek 5y ago
>Keep in mind also that that's because in high school the number of hours per week are far more limited. I don’t understand what you’re claiming here. At least in terms of classroom contact time, the number of hours is much higher in high school (typically five 50 minute periods per week vs. three 50 minute periods per week in college) and the school year is longer (20–21 weeks per semester vs 15 in college).

julianlam 5y ago

> A one-year math class in high school (with roughly 180 classroom days) is taught in colleges in a single semester That's forgiving. One year of calculus in high school (first principles and derivatives) was taught in a single week (3 hours) in undergrad calculus. University of Toronto. Infamous for taking in a ton of undergrads for the money, giving as few supports as possible, and then just failing a whole lot of them out.

jacobolus 5y ago

Language instruction by traditional courses/curriculum is grossly inefficient and ineffective, because courses focus on judging and ranking the students in whatever way is easiest for the teacher to measure rather than on language acquisition per se. Many students come out of several years of instruction with next to no proficiency in the target language, and when they visit a country speaking that language end up lost and confused, unable to follow the most basic native conversations, let alone speak fluently themselves. Courses should focus substantially on maximizing comprehensible input of spoken language for at least the first half year, with negligible emphasis placed on students trying to learn formally (grammar, spelling, etc.) or make utterances in the target language. After 2–3 years courses should predominantly focus on reading. Get one student to take a traditional 1 hour per day Spanish course for 3 years and another student to watch an hour of https://youtube.com/c/DreamingSpanish/ https://youtube.com/c/DreamingSpanish/ every day for 1 year and the second student will come out ahead. And that’s just completely passive content from YouTube: a student who has conversations for an hour per day with native target-language speakers (where the student doesn’t try to produce the target language themselves but only listen to it) is going to do better still.