4 ms·

"The answer is simple but difficult: Switch to the Sal Khan model. Lectures at home, classes are for homework." I think this could actually work!

ksd482 4y ago
Most of the students won't have the discipline/environment to watch lectures diligently at home.
- screamingninja 4y ago
  We cannot really call them "students" then, can we?
  - adamisom 4y ago
    Well, I suspect that’s most people. So we’d better still call them students.
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    If we only care about the unusually-well-motivated with reasonably stable home lives receiving an education, we can just scrap public schools entirely and still do fairly well at that.
nickthegreek 4y ago
Not in America it can't. I've worked for a 15,000 student K-12 online school.It is truly tragic hearing about the home/living conditions that many of the students had to deal with.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  Like 99% of "what if we just..." suggestions, especially (but not only!) from those outside of teaching and education, are obviously bad ideas to anyone who's had even a little insight into how those fields actually work.
brian_spiering 4y ago
I did this for a course I taught that involved mostly coding. The student watched video lectures before class and took a quiz to make sure they understood the content. In class, I answered questions, showed how to do sample activities by live coding, and the student did activities either individually or in pairs. I gave real-time code reviews while they were working. I got pushback from the school for using someone else's videos (they really wanted me to record my own video lectures AND teach a live class). I also got pushback for not failing more students. The previous teacher just lectured, never live coded, and never did any code reviews for students. The "active learning" instruction was more effective than lecture based instruction.
cgranier 4y ago
Not sure how this would scale. Assuming all kids have access to their own computer and high-speed internet, are they supposed to spend 5 more hours at home watching internet lectures?
- micromacrofoot 4y ago
  Let's be real here for a moment... american kids aren't spending 5 hours at school learning. Maybe 1-2 at best until highschool (where it could range from 0 - 4 based on the student). It's a big daycare.
wintermutestwin 4y ago
>Lectures at home Because school is a de facto babysitting division of our industrialized society, maybe the best approach is to have a facility for kids to be supervised by non-teachers while watching lectures. Then bring in the teachers for work. Perhaps the best approach would be to have the teachers be online and on demand. This certainly solves the problem of metros that don't have affordable housing for teachers. Of course there are a million ways for this to go bad in our current society, but it is already terrible, so maybe worth trying something else?
- ducttapecrown 4y ago
  You want remote babysitting?
  - wintermutestwin 4y ago
    I was suggesting that the kids be babysat by local non-teachers.
sacrosancty 4y ago
The common name for that is "inverted classroom". Not exactly chairs bolted to the ceiling but more descriptive than a person's name.
twobitshifter 4y ago
I don’t think it would, the students can skip watching the lecture and then BS through the collaborative in-class work.

ksd482 4y ago

Most of the students won't have the discipline/environment to watch lectures diligently at home.

screamingninja 4y ago
We cannot really call them "students" then, can we?
- adamisom 4y ago
  Well, I suspect that’s most people. So we’d better still call them students.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  If we only care about the unusually-well-motivated with reasonably stable home lives receiving an education, we can just scrap public schools entirely and still do fairly well at that.

nickthegreek 4y ago

Not in America it can't. I've worked for a 15,000 student K-12 online school.It is truly tragic hearing about the home/living conditions that many of the students had to deal with.

yamtaddle 4y ago
Like 99% of "what if we just..." suggestions, especially (but not only!) from those outside of teaching and education, are obviously bad ideas to anyone who's had even a little insight into how those fields actually work.

brian_spiering 4y ago

I did this for a course I taught that involved mostly coding. The student watched video lectures before class and took a quiz to make sure they understood the content. In class, I answered questions, showed how to do sample activities by live coding, and the student did activities either individually or in pairs. I gave real-time code reviews while they were working. I got pushback from the school for using someone else's videos (they really wanted me to record my own video lectures AND teach a live class). I also got pushback for not failing more students. The previous teacher just lectured, never live coded, and never did any code reviews for students. The "active learning" instruction was more effective than lecture based instruction.

cgranier 4y ago

Not sure how this would scale. Assuming all kids have access to their own computer and high-speed internet, are they supposed to spend 5 more hours at home watching internet lectures?

micromacrofoot 4y ago
Let's be real here for a moment... american kids aren't spending 5 hours at school learning. Maybe 1-2 at best until highschool (where it could range from 0 - 4 based on the student). It's a big daycare.

wintermutestwin 4y ago

>Lectures at home Because school is a de facto babysitting division of our industrialized society, maybe the best approach is to have a facility for kids to be supervised by non-teachers while watching lectures. Then bring in the teachers for work. Perhaps the best approach would be to have the teachers be online and on demand. This certainly solves the problem of metros that don't have affordable housing for teachers. Of course there are a million ways for this to go bad in our current society, but it is already terrible, so maybe worth trying something else?

ducttapecrown 4y ago
You want remote babysitting?
- wintermutestwin 4y ago
  I was suggesting that the kids be babysat by local non-teachers.

sacrosancty 4y ago

The common name for that is "inverted classroom". Not exactly chairs bolted to the ceiling but more descriptive than a person's name.

twobitshifter 4y ago

I don’t think it would, the students can skip watching the lecture and then BS through the collaborative in-class work.