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> Aligning digital teachers with our broken education system that thinks “answers” are the important part of education is a terrible terrible idea. Your positi

> Aligning digital teachers with our broken education system that thinks “answers” are the important part of education is a terrible terrible idea. Your position is inherently incorrect and a conflation of what you think is being done. Being provided the answer might be a decent method to learning X concept. But the answer is ALWAYS downwind of the techniques, which you are actually being taught every step of the way, in every single teaching system. If you learned+mastered the technique or concept, getting to the answer is just proving it with those things, and mostly mechanical while you write down the steps. How would you solve a problem that no one has ever touched before, and that no one knows the answer to? Where are you going to be provided the answer?

itronitron 3y ago
But if you are provided the answer, you can work backwards to figure out the technique. There is a large contingent here on HN that learned electronics by taking things apart, not by reading linearly through textbooks.
- raccoonDivider 3y ago
  Reverse-engineering the technique from the answer is a different skill from creating the answer though. The latter requires more creativity, the former is deduction.
- latency-guy2 3y ago
  I'd say test your theory, breaking electronics apart need only be a test to reverse the order in which you took them apart. That is only about as good as a memory test. Test your theory on something that requires quite a few years of intuition building and understanding. From my days as an MLE: Why does stochastic gradient descent, work? From that question, you know the answer - it works! Great, now why should I believe you? I.e, prove it. The knowledge to answer that question only really requires some understanding of stochastic processes, randomness, and vector calculus. But you would be pressed to get an answer like I did out of numerous people who did ML research and put things into all the types of conferences, and these people were not dumb at all, yet all of them used SGD in some form without really getting into why it works, effectively they do not get the tools they're using.
juniperror 3y ago
> How would you solve a problem that no one has ever touched before, and that no one knows the answer to? Where are you going to be provided the answer? This is very near and dear to my heart. We are talking about “teaching” and I doubt anyone who supports the current education status quo is advocating to teach using unsolved problems. That said, I do feel, personally, and have long advocated for, teaching using unsolved problems as a better technique, because you learn strategies for approaching a problem much better than: here’s theorem 13.4 heres an exercise problem that uses the theorem, what’s the answer? It reads like you see my opinions are black and white and yours as spectra. Using your own reading on your own comment the logical conclusion is “a system that teaches to an answer will be unable to answer unanswered questions because the students were only taught to answer questions that already have answers.” A great example of the answer being the most useless part of one’s own personal knowledge is Timothy Gowers YouTube content: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=byjhpzEoXFs https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=byjhpzEoXFs But who’s cares what some YouTuber is up to? He’s just out here promoting an inherently incorrect education method wrought from a dysfunctional mind.
- latency-guy2 3y ago
  > It reads like you see my opinions are black and white and yours as spectra. No, we're talking past each other. Your claim is the current system is "broken" because you think teachers believe the "answer" is the ultimate goal. I refute that. The teacher does not believe the "answer" is the ultimate goal, they are teaching you techniques on how to solve problems, and the answer is the standard upon which you are being measured in correctness. This is why "show your work" exists, your steps to get to the end (the answer) is employing the techniques, they measure how effective you are at getting there. The best teachers even mark you down if you make a mistake somewhere, but still get the right answer without proving it fully.
scblock 3y ago
Hilarious, given how many real world problems start with the "answer" and the actual question is "how do we get there?".
anon22981 3y ago
I hope you are not an education professional with a view that narrow-minded.
- latency-guy2 3y ago
  Find me an "education professional" that disagrees with me, and we'll work on getting their teaching credentials revoked ASAP.
pokerface_86 3y ago
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itronitron 3y ago

But if you are provided the answer, you can work backwards to figure out the technique. There is a large contingent here on HN that learned electronics by taking things apart, not by reading linearly through textbooks.

raccoonDivider 3y ago
Reverse-engineering the technique from the answer is a different skill from creating the answer though. The latter requires more creativity, the former is deduction.
latency-guy2 3y ago
I'd say test your theory, breaking electronics apart need only be a test to reverse the order in which you took them apart. That is only about as good as a memory test. Test your theory on something that requires quite a few years of intuition building and understanding. From my days as an MLE: Why does stochastic gradient descent, work? From that question, you know the answer - it works! Great, now why should I believe you? I.e, prove it. The knowledge to answer that question only really requires some understanding of stochastic processes, randomness, and vector calculus. But you would be pressed to get an answer like I did out of numerous people who did ML research and put things into all the types of conferences, and these people were not dumb at all, yet all of them used SGD in some form without really getting into why it works, effectively they do not get the tools they're using.

juniperror 3y ago

> How would you solve a problem that no one has ever touched before, and that no one knows the answer to? Where are you going to be provided the answer? This is very near and dear to my heart. We are talking about “teaching” and I doubt anyone who supports the current education status quo is advocating to teach using unsolved problems. That said, I do feel, personally, and have long advocated for, teaching using unsolved problems as a better technique, because you learn strategies for approaching a problem much better than: here’s theorem 13.4 heres an exercise problem that uses the theorem, what’s the answer? It reads like you see my opinions are black and white and yours as spectra. Using your own reading on your own comment the logical conclusion is “a system that teaches to an answer will be unable to answer unanswered questions because the students were only taught to answer questions that already have answers.” A great example of the answer being the most useless part of one’s own personal knowledge is Timothy Gowers YouTube content: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=byjhpzEoXFs https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=byjhpzEoXFs But who’s cares what some YouTuber is up to? He’s just out here promoting an inherently incorrect education method wrought from a dysfunctional mind.

latency-guy2 3y ago
> It reads like you see my opinions are black and white and yours as spectra. No, we're talking past each other. Your claim is the current system is "broken" because you think teachers believe the "answer" is the ultimate goal. I refute that. The teacher does not believe the "answer" is the ultimate goal, they are teaching you techniques on how to solve problems, and the answer is the standard upon which you are being measured in correctness. This is why "show your work" exists, your steps to get to the end (the answer) is employing the techniques, they measure how effective you are at getting there. The best teachers even mark you down if you make a mistake somewhere, but still get the right answer without proving it fully.

scblock 3y ago

Hilarious, given how many real world problems start with the "answer" and the actual question is "how do we get there?".

anon22981 3y ago

I hope you are not an education professional with a view that narrow-minded.

latency-guy2 3y ago
Find me an "education professional" that disagrees with me, and we'll work on getting their teaching credentials revoked ASAP.

pokerface_86 3y ago

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