4 ms·

Teachers are being replaced by software. And the reason we need to fire the bad ones is that, unlike software, you can't just replicate their product wherever

Teachers are being replaced by software. And the reason we need to fire the bad ones is that, unlike software, you can't just replicate their product wherever you need and let the bad ones wilt away through neglect.

thebooktocome 13y ago
I've worked with various online homework systems in mathematics for five years. They have not improved demonstrably in that time. I've taken a couple MOOCs, and have not been terribly impressed with the mechanical grading algorithms. Teachers may be replaced by software, but I don't believe the substitution is of equal for equal.
- WalterSear 13y ago
  I was thinking of the internet, rather than a specific scholastic tools.
endlessvoid94 13y ago
The big aspect you can't replace with software (yet) is the element of spotting the student's weakness and being a guide. It's a pretty general statement, and would require a tome to defend, but I think the spirit of the article is close.
- hershel 13y ago
  Knewton.com claims it spots student weaknesses and adapts to it. And since it can offer full attention for each student it can offer better performance than teachers. What do you mean by being a guide ?
  - michaelochurch 13y ago
    Knewton.com has claimed a lot of things and should have stayed in test prep. What they are now is a glorified ed publisher (basically, Pearson's technical arm) with crappy management but a lot of VC cash. You're talking about a very hard problem. Something like Knewton will never replace human teachers. And why is replacing human teachers desirable, anyway? If anyone succeeded at it (and no one will) it would probably be bad, on the whole, for society. If no one can make money teaching, the value of knowledge goes down. That would just lead to ignorance and bolster the already obnoxious anti-intellectualism of American society.
    - hershel 13y ago
      Why is it so hard ? At least in math, spotting areas of difficulty for students based on data on previous exercises and data from other students does seem possible.
      - thebooktocome 13y ago
        Based on my experience working on a couple different online homework systems, it's actually a hard problem to determine what kind of wrong answers belong to what kind of conceptual difficulty, even in mathematics. These systems rely on humans to curate the conceptual difficulties associated with each problem separately, but those lists are never complete and often just confuse the student further. Some systems don't even try to do what you're suggesting, and just give students the "right" way to solve the problem at hand after a certain number of attempts. These are by far the worst, as it's painfully easy to game the system.
      - michaelochurch 13y ago
        It's probably possible. With the leadership team they have, they won't be up to it.
      - acjohnson55 13y ago
        Even in math, this isn't really the case. THere are numerous reasons a student might arrive at an incorrect answer. I've seen systems that provide specific feedback on certain anticipated errors, but tailoring the remediation to individual students is just as hard as teaching the material successfully in the first place. It's often not just a case of "oh, I did this one step wrong", but a deeper issue of misunderstanding the abstraction. We haven't mastered bridging that gap with real-life teachers and tutors, let alone automated software.
  - pessimizer 13y ago
    That's nothing. Pessimizer claims he can step over a skyscraper with a single bound, and that he beat Mike Tyson in a Philippine streetfight. For what it's worth.
brianpmarks 13y ago
I believe open teaching creates transparency that will enable us to better identify the "bad" ones and allow them to improve their craft through feedback loops. This openness will generate more and better teachers. Those that simply lecture to masses are likely to be replaced because they don't provide true value to students. (disclosure: I'm co-founder of trinket.io.)
- gravity13 13y ago
  I was a bit confused by what you meant "open" until I read more of your company's blog || What is Open Teaching? || Open teaching means teaching using open materials and providing open access to those materials on the internet. I gotta say I agree, I would love to see a future where the teachers are curating the content rather than the assigned curriculum. But those bad teachers, they've really come to rely on their curriculums. P.S. looking forward to see what you guys come up with!
  - ronaldx 13y ago
    It's not exactly clear what you mean, or you need to be more specific: a curriculum is curated content. Good curriculums are covering over a lot of poor teaching. Writing a good curriculum is hard and it's exceptionally difficult to do that as a lone teacher for a novel course. The results will be variable, and this is where you will the very most awful courses.
    - brianpmarks 13y ago
      I'd say in a situation where a good curriculum exists, teachers need to take the role of coach and motivator. I couldn't agree more about the difficulty in creating a good curriculum. The big question in our minds becomes whether or not a decentralized and distributed system can create great curricula and reduce the pressure on that lone teacher. I believe the answer is yes and with such a system we end up with better courses.
    - gravity13 13y ago
      It was more a comment on teachers and their currently established ways.

thebooktocome 13y ago

I've worked with various online homework systems in mathematics for five years. They have not improved demonstrably in that time. I've taken a couple MOOCs, and have not been terribly impressed with the mechanical grading algorithms. Teachers may be replaced by software, but I don't believe the substitution is of equal for equal.

WalterSear 13y ago
I was thinking of the internet, rather than a specific scholastic tools.

endlessvoid94 13y ago

The big aspect you can't replace with software (yet) is the element of spotting the student's weakness and being a guide. It's a pretty general statement, and would require a tome to defend, but I think the spirit of the article is close.

hershel 13y ago
Knewton.com claims it spots student weaknesses and adapts to it. And since it can offer full attention for each student it can offer better performance than teachers. What do you mean by being a guide ?
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  Knewton.com has claimed a lot of things and should have stayed in test prep. What they are now is a glorified ed publisher (basically, Pearson's technical arm) with crappy management but a lot of VC cash. You're talking about a very hard problem. Something like Knewton will never replace human teachers. And why is replacing human teachers desirable, anyway? If anyone succeeded at it (and no one will) it would probably be bad, on the whole, for society. If no one can make money teaching, the value of knowledge goes down. That would just lead to ignorance and bolster the already obnoxious anti-intellectualism of American society.
  - hershel 13y ago
    Why is it so hard ? At least in math, spotting areas of difficulty for students based on data on previous exercises and data from other students does seem possible.
    - thebooktocome 13y ago
      Based on my experience working on a couple different online homework systems, it's actually a hard problem to determine what kind of wrong answers belong to what kind of conceptual difficulty, even in mathematics. These systems rely on humans to curate the conceptual difficulties associated with each problem separately, but those lists are never complete and often just confuse the student further. Some systems don't even try to do what you're suggesting, and just give students the "right" way to solve the problem at hand after a certain number of attempts. These are by far the worst, as it's painfully easy to game the system.
    - michaelochurch 13y ago
      It's probably possible. With the leadership team they have, they won't be up to it.
    - acjohnson55 13y ago
      Even in math, this isn't really the case. THere are numerous reasons a student might arrive at an incorrect answer. I've seen systems that provide specific feedback on certain anticipated errors, but tailoring the remediation to individual students is just as hard as teaching the material successfully in the first place. It's often not just a case of "oh, I did this one step wrong", but a deeper issue of misunderstanding the abstraction. We haven't mastered bridging that gap with real-life teachers and tutors, let alone automated software.
- pessimizer 13y ago
  That's nothing. Pessimizer claims he can step over a skyscraper with a single bound, and that he beat Mike Tyson in a Philippine streetfight. For what it's worth.

brianpmarks 13y ago

I believe open teaching creates transparency that will enable us to better identify the "bad" ones and allow them to improve their craft through feedback loops. This openness will generate more and better teachers. Those that simply lecture to masses are likely to be replaced because they don't provide true value to students. (disclosure: I'm co-founder of trinket.io.)

gravity13 13y ago
I was a bit confused by what you meant "open" until I read more of your company's blog || What is Open Teaching? || Open teaching means teaching using open materials and providing open access to those materials on the internet. I gotta say I agree, I would love to see a future where the teachers are curating the content rather than the assigned curriculum. But those bad teachers, they've really come to rely on their curriculums. P.S. looking forward to see what you guys come up with!
- ronaldx 13y ago
  It's not exactly clear what you mean, or you need to be more specific: a curriculum is curated content. Good curriculums are covering over a lot of poor teaching. Writing a good curriculum is hard and it's exceptionally difficult to do that as a lone teacher for a novel course. The results will be variable, and this is where you will the very most awful courses.
  - brianpmarks 13y ago
    I'd say in a situation where a good curriculum exists, teachers need to take the role of coach and motivator. I couldn't agree more about the difficulty in creating a good curriculum. The big question in our minds becomes whether or not a decentralized and distributed system can create great curricula and reduce the pressure on that lone teacher. I believe the answer is yes and with such a system we end up with better courses.
  - gravity13 13y ago
    It was more a comment on teachers and their currently established ways.