[HN Gopher] Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high ...
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Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school
Author : webmaven
Score : 514 points
Date : 2022-04-27 06:02 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (asuprep.asu.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (asuprep.asu.edu)
| alexk307 wrote:
| No comment on the pros/cons of online high school, but Khan
| Academy got me through college Math. I learned Calculus 1,2,3 and
| differential equations primarily by clarifying what I learned in
| a lecture by watching Mr. Khan later.
| _tom_ wrote:
| ASU has an online college program. It's basically a bad port of
| their in person program. Recorded lectures by whoever is teaching
| the class this quarter, not a "master teacher", low production
| values (think webcam, not "myth busters" as someone suggested ),
| little to no interaction with teachers. (Just recorded videos)
| and no community at all.
|
| Even my local community college is doing better.
|
| Not sure why khan academy went with them. They do have
| infrastructure set up for online. They just manifestly don't know
| how to design online courses. Maybe khan can help them with that.
| t_mann wrote:
| There was an essay recently on HN on the merits of individual
| tutoring for children, in the spirit of Renaissance aristocrat
| education (not the exam-prep style tutoring that is common
| today). Projects like Khan Academy could make this extremely
| resource-intensive style of education a bit more accessible (not
| on their own maybe, but as a building block).
|
| Edit: PS: just remembered, if there were orgs like Khan or other
| leaders in online learning that managed to become accredited by
| established programs like the International Baccalaureate, that
| could be very interesting for students, as it offers practically
| universal global recognition (as well as a very well-regarded
| curriculum).
| mymythisisthis wrote:
| Until the 20th century, professors didn't make much teaching
| courses at universities. Lectures were just a publicity
| platform. Most of a professor's income came from tutoring
| students privately. The majority of a grade was the final exam,
| so all that mattered was being tutored for that final exam.
| lordgrenville wrote:
| Unless I've misunderstood the concept of aristocratic tutoring,
| I don't think a prerecorded video counts - even by a teacher as
| good as Sal Khan.
| t_mann wrote:
| The site mentions something about Oxford-style tutorials,
| that sounds like it could come a lot closer.
|
| Also, simply having a good curriculum and materials to use
| could make it easier to provide quality in-person tutoring
| for whoever does that then (eg parents).
| Diris wrote:
| Providing the link for those interested
|
| Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30698624
| endisneigh wrote:
| So instead of wasting money on college, you can waste money on
| high school too!
|
| That aside I'm curious to see how this does. Education suffers
| from selection and survivor bias greatly.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| "The program will be tuition-free for Arizona residents. Out-
| of-state students will pay tuition to attend."
| langsoul-com wrote:
| I reckon this is great for anyone who already can self learn when
| they were in high school.
|
| The cons is that how many people were self motivated in high
| school? I certainly wasn't. Online highschools fail those who
| need mentors and teachers to push them forward.
| narrator wrote:
| Has anyone ever evaluated different online education approaches
| and how they work for the not smart kids?
|
| I know it is sacrilege to say that some kids are naturally more
| or less talented than others, but most of the unending and
| relentless crisis in education it seems is with the kids who are
| not naturally talented.
|
| Maybe these online courses could do a better job at finding out
| what people are actually good at and focus their learning in
| those areas?
| gabelschlager wrote:
| I think real research in this regard is still rare. For one,
| because not many software solutions exists. But more
| importantly, performing research studies in schools tend to be
| difficult (as parents, teachers, the school, etc. have to agree
| to it).
|
| One recent approach in Germany, I'm aware of, was teaching
| students with an online text book, that immediately offered
| feedback for exercises and provided other helpful tips. The
| software was used to enhance the traditional teaching, not to
| replace it.
|
| All in all, students using it tended to perform better on
| exams, no matter how smart they previously were (though bad
| students were still worse than the good students using the
| software).
|
| So all in all, it seems to be a viable approach.
| wanderingmind wrote:
| Although this will provide highest quality of academic
| curriculum, the remote only high school also has disadvantages.
| Being with peers in a physically colocated space is critical for
| kids to learn social skills that are equally important as
| academic skills. Being able to have a hybrid model of teachers or
| volunteers who can drive these interactions in small physical
| groups will provide the best experience.
| scandox wrote:
| My instinct is to agree. However it depends on the kind of
| world that we're actually building. If the future is more:
|
| remote working
|
| controlled/elective social interactions only
|
| strong online communities disconnected from their immediate
| physical community
|
| Then perhaps those offline social skills will be a positive
| distraction!
| wanderingmind wrote:
| Schools are more than just for a career. They are one of the
| foundation pillars on which our kids character and future are
| shaped. You can't teach empathy online. They learn when they
| see their friends breakdown in their arms after first
| breakup. They learn about bonding when they experience win or
| lose together arm in arm. As I said, online can teach
| everything intellectual but hardly anything emotional.
| abrax3141 wrote:
| A lot of the problem is that Kahn is just not a great teacher,
| but he sets the tone for the whole thing. So instead of being a
| platform that amplifies great teaching, it amplifies mediocre
| teaching. It's a leadership problem where the leader doesn't
| realize that he's not the best in the world, but instead of using
| his pulpit to reach out and amplify the best in the world, he
| just amplifies himself.
| jcalabro wrote:
| I actually disagree with this; when I was in high school, some
| of his very early videos where he was speaking and digitally
| drawing helped me quite a bit with calculus. I'm not sure he
| makes any claims to be the best teacher in the world, but he
| does try to push the state of the art.
| password54321 wrote:
| You already made this point an hour ago and the fact here is
| most don't agree. Move on.
| mymythisisthis wrote:
| I can see this working if Khan World School sought accreditation
| in a large jurisdiction like Ontario, Canada. A student can take
| Khan's online math course, while still being enrolled in a
| brick/mortar school for things like chemistry and drama.
| say_it_as_it_is wrote:
| Are they dumbing down the curriculum to promote equality?
| jake_morrison wrote:
| Imagine a physics class with the budget of a Mythbusters episode.
| The result is pedagogically sound content, the best presenters,
| and a budget for graphics and special effects. With enough
| students, the cost per class is very low, less than what we pay
| for school now.
|
| Students will still need access to people to help when they have
| questions. And there is a need for some proctoring of
| exams/certifications.
|
| I expect that the top universities will create content, e.g.
| Harvard, MIT, Stanford. Then they will partner with local
| universities and community colleges. Or people can just hire
| tutors if they need them.
|
| This will wipe out a lot of lower-tier schools.
| ketzu wrote:
| > the cost per class is very low, less than what we pay for
| school now.
|
| Personally, I think adding back the assistants for questions
| and proctoring will significantly reduce the cost savings (if
| not nullifying them completely) depending on how you implement
| them.
|
| > Then they will partner with local universities and community
| colleges
|
| > This will wipe out a lot of lower-tier schools.
|
| Aren't the lower-tier schools exactly the schools that would be
| partnering with the top universities?
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| Don't really know how to feel about this kind of future. It's
| exactly the kind I'm sure many administrators want: they can
| downsize entire departments, subscribe to a "MIT Physics
| package", and just hire adjunct TAs for the class that are
| skilled in said MIT Physics package to field questions, issue
| the quizzes/tests.
| jake_morrison wrote:
| The majority of the costs associated with universities is for
| facilities, administration, and housing, not related to
| teaching.
|
| If students attend classes online while living at home, then
| the costs go down dramatically. You are left with paying on
| an hourly basis for a tutor. When my daughter took the AP
| tests in Oklahoma, some of them were done in nearby churches.
| They can deliver test proctoring for cheap.
|
| You can already get a respected online master's degree in
| computer science from Georgia Tech for around $10k. And you
| can do it at night, while working, eliminating opportunity
| costs.
|
| This is incredibly cost-competitive with traditional schools.
| The elite schools will be fine, as they are essentially
| offering a private club for rich kids.
|
| Other schools will not be sustainable. These dead
| universities will be great for remote workers, combining
| office space and housing in a nice walkable campus
| environment.
| MrBlueIncognito wrote:
| > Personally, I think adding back the assistants for
| questions and proctoring will significantly reduce the cost
| savings (if not nullifying them completely) depending on how
| you implement them.
|
| If the quality of education can be improved while maintaining
| the same costs, that's a win-win.
| huitzitziltzin wrote:
| Very favorable comments all around from the very online crowd who
| comments here. I'm much more skeptical.
|
| I have no doubt this will work well for some students, but as
| someone who taught online for the better part of two years I can
| say with _certainty_ that the experience is very different and
| (for the wide majority of students) _worse_ than being in person.
|
| My colleagues and I can attest to both general learning loss
| (ie., forgetting specific subject matter information) _and_ a
| loss of broader "studying skills" (ie., coming to class and doing
| homework) after the pandemic.
|
| In intro classes in our department, mean grades have been a whole
| standard deviation lower than the long run pre-pandemic average.
| That's a huge effect!
|
| This is also not just specific to our department or university
| but has been written about widely in the higher ed press.
|
| People have been confidently predicting that online education "is
| the future" since the 1990's. IMO the lesson of the pandemic is
| "no it's not and it's never going to be."
|
| If online works for you, awesome. Enjoy! There are great
| resources out there. But I don't think you are in the majority.
| freemint wrote:
| > In intro classes in our department, mean grades have been a
| whole standard deviation lower than the long run pre-pandemic
| average.
|
| Have you ever considered that the digital teaching methods you
| employed are subpar compared to those a dedicated online only
| teaching platform might have.
|
| I don't mean to suggest you did not try.
| itronitron wrote:
| > a dedicated online only teaching platform
|
| Can you provide links to any?
| LanceH wrote:
| The bigger effect is that kids getting sent home due to the
| pandemic weren't being enrolled in online learning. They went
| on vacation with occasional check-ins online. That's about
| how I would describe my kids' experience and they were
| solidly grounded, with supervision at home at a school well
| prepared technologically.
|
| Most kids had no interest in working without supervision
| forcing them to work. Now that they're back in school, they
| are continuing to not work and it's a disaster, with teachers
| and staff quitting or retiring en masse. Again, this is in a
| school district that people had been trying to get into for
| years.
|
| It's really not the coursework delivery style, it's about
| forcing kids to do what they don't want to do. This force
| just isn't a component of online learning -- it has little to
| do with content delivery, imo.
|
| The upside is that those kids that actually want to learn are
| freed up more than ever before and can actually thrive.
| greedo wrote:
| This tracks with what my daughter experienced. At her age
| (HS Junior), she had classes that she wasn't particularly
| interested in. In-person classes have that social/peer
| pressure to actually study and turn in work. For
| dull/uninspiring classes, this helps to push students to
| pay attention, read the texts, turn in assignments, and
| participate. With the online classes, she had an easier
| time shrinking into the background and not participating as
| much as in-person.
| huitzitziltzin wrote:
| I think it's obvious that the digital teaching methods we
| employed were not effective, but there was no information
| available at all about what worked. Also: we tried many
| different things. Certainly I did!
|
| Moreover (as I replied to a different comment above) even
| after a year of being online the students were unable to
| identify things that made any of their online classes work.
| At that point they had resigned to their classes sucking.
| (Not just my class - I asked my students to tell me what
| worked in _any_ of their online classes. Collectively that 's
| asking about the teaching methods of a few hundred
| professors.)
|
| If you have information about some methods which work, I
| would have loved to have them. I would still love to have
| them! (If you can provide some evidence about whether and how
| they are _known_ to work that would be better still.)
| freemint wrote:
| I don claim to have a good answer but i would ask myself a
| chain of questions:
|
| Were learning materials which cover the required material
| made available to students?
|
| Were those materials made available on an approachable
| platform?
|
| Were those materials made available on a platform which
| encouraged habit formation for students to work on the
| material?
|
| Are students able to track their progress?
|
| Are students able to confirm their progress and check with
| where they are supposed to be if the exam dates are fixed?
|
| Is the progress of student embedded into a (meta) narrative
| which ties together the lecture and provides topical humor
| (like a lecturer would when cleaning the blackboards)?
|
| Are means in place to ensure passive diffusion of important
| information if students are stuck?
|
| Are means in place to encourage or enforce formation of
| student learning groups and cooperation between students?
|
| The traditional lecture hall model has a lot of mechanism
| which need to be replicated in the digital sphere.
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| But how are actual outcomes? I'm less concerned with how
| someones grades look in high school and more interested in how
| they perform in College for example.
| lodi wrote:
| I despise the notion that "real communism has never been
| tried!", but _real_ online teaching has, uhh, never been tried.
|
| The futuristic dream: kids use fancy tech like AR goggles and
| haptic tech to manipulate shapes in a collaborative learning
| game and ultimately learn math in an intuitive way. Think of
| the best Jypiter notebook you've seen and then take that off
| the screen and into the real world. Then add an AI assistant
| that constantly guides you through common questions and make it
| so that the whole program is continually being refined to make
| it better and better for each successive generation of kids.
| Every lesson has tens of millions of dollars poured into it
| since it will be reused potentially billions of times.
|
| The practical dream: okay we don't have money for any of that,
| but at least use the internet to break geographic constraints.
| Have actual math teachers teaching math to various classes
| around the country/world, have actual music teachers teaching
| music, immediately direct gifted kids to accelerated classes,
| have more flexibility with special needs kids (e.g. take
| classes in a different time zone so that their parents can
| help), offer a wide selection of second languages by connecting
| kids to foreign teachers, do virtual exchanges, etc.
|
| The reality: most kids don't even have computers. Actually I
| was shocked to learn that many kids don't even have _chairs and
| desks_ at home. This is in Canada by the way. My wife was
| teaching K-8 online classes to kids lying on their beds,
| propping up their mom 's borrowed iphone on their bellies,
| trying to not fall asleep as the front camera streams a dimly-
| lit view of their chin.
|
| So to summarize, we start with the same in-person learning,
| from the same teachers to the same class, remove all of the
| blackboards/manipulatives/etc., reduce the child's field of
| view to a 6" screen streaming a laggy 480p video with horrible
| sound, delete all friendships by enforcing quarantine both
| during and after school, and finally conclude that online
| learning doesn't work!
| gabelschlager wrote:
| It doesn't even need to be that complicated. Starting out
| with good software that tracks exercise progress of the
| students, giving them exercises on a suitable level and
| immediate feedback would already go a long way. And teachers
| could use it to see, how the students perform and know what
| to teach in more detail.
| phphphphp wrote:
| The lesson is that education is not one size fits all,
| something we've "known" for a long time: anyone predicting
| online is the future (or isn't the future) is missing out on
| that crucial piece. Online should be the future for people who
| grow best with online learning, in person learning should be
| the future for people who grow best with in person learning.
|
| I'd also argue that online school during the pandemic, like
| remote work during the pandemic, is not representative of
| online school during non-pandemic times.
| david927 wrote:
| _> If online works for you, awesome ... But I don't think you
| are in the majority._
|
| I think there's a huge under-served group who are specifically
| not the majority. Smart kids are generally held back by being
| shoehorned in with other kids.
|
| Personally, I think we need to figure out how to use online
| resources best and that the future will most certainly be a
| mix. But also please entertain that maybe the optimal audience
| for this program isn't the majority at all, actually. And that
| doesn't make it less valuable.
| zoom6628 wrote:
| Couldnt agree more. I personally prefer to study alone, and
| even my MBA i chose a program where class-time(f2f or online)
| was optional. I did none and still passed.
|
| Have recently watched my daughter respond quite differently
| in online learning in group environments. One is Wingchun( a
| martial art) taught by enthusiastic and outright funny
| instructors. My little girl loves every minute of class. The
| other is oddly-enough Montessori class where she feels held
| back by other kids and their chatter. But she LOVES the IRL
| Montessori classes.
|
| I feel that this form of online high school wont be for
| everyone but there is a segment of those for whom this medium
| suits them best due to combination of circumstance,
| motivation, and personality. Education is not 'one mode suits
| all'. I struggled to stay engaged at high school. Tertiary
| wasnt much better until i discovered extra-mural (distance
| education), and loved it.
| ravedave5 wrote:
| This is exactly my daughter, she thrived online when her
| teachers posted a weeks material at a time she'd be done by
| wednesday. She was so happy she could work at her own pace
| and didn't have to wait for other kids.
| tombert wrote:
| I'm a bit similar. I always did poorly in school working at
| the pace that the teachers wanted me to go. I would do well
| on the tests, but always had awful grades because I didn't
| do all my homework.
|
| When I discovered WGU 1.5 years ago, I did _much_ better
| simply by being allowed to go at whatever pace I felt like,
| and taking time off when I felt like it, and I managed to
| get through school in a fairly short amount of time.
|
| I'm doing online graduate school now, and fortunately my
| supervisors are somewhat amenable to this style; they
| simply give me a bunch of recordings of their lectures and
| all the assignments that I'm expected to do all at once.
| Some days I don't do anything, other days I'll spend six
| hours straight watching lectures and doing homework.
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| > If online works for you, awesome. Enjoy! There are great
| resources out there. But I don't think you are in the majority.
|
| I think this is exactly it.
|
| In person never worked for me. I was bored - and being bored I
| ended up with "discipline issues." I would never do my
| homework, never pay attention in class, was always late because
| I was talking in between sessions, etc. My teachers weren't a
| fan, the administrators weren't fans, parents were upset.
|
| Every year, starting in 2nd grade, at the end of the school
| year I was given "token" exercises as a way of getting passing
| grades so I wouldn't be held back. I'd knock those out and
| continue on. At the time I was thankful to the instructors for
| giving me that opportunity. In retrospect I'm fairly confident
| I know why that happened.
|
| Every year we were administered state achievement exams. The
| school was evaluated based on the students performance on these
| tests. While I was failing every subject, I carried the class
| (scoring at least 10% higher on the exam than the next highest
| grade) every year. Holding me back would have raised quite a
| few questions about their curriculum.
|
| Fast forward to 12th grade. I drop out of in-person school and
| switch to online. My in-person school refuses to release my
| records (we owed them money) so I was starting 12th grade with
| no credits. The online program was self paced. I knocked out 3
| years of eduction in 3 months. Then turned 18, walked downtown
| and took the GED instead of finishing the last year.
|
| Self paced education is huge for certain people. Every once in
| a while I think of all the kids in the world who could achieve
| so much with their youth, but instead they are strapped to a
| chair being tortured 7+ hours a day by well intentioned adults.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| In person is obviously better for actual learning. I went to
| highschool before online was an option. But a few years ago I
| was talking to a kid who had the option to do classes online,
| _at their own pace_. They were free to take final exams
| whenever they wanted. If I could complete classes like that I
| would probably have finished highschool in a couple months. I
| might not have "learned" as much, but who here actually
| learned anything inside a highschool classroom? If all you are
| really doing is box-ticking and passing exams, online learning
| is definitely the way to go. Let the kids move at their own
| pace. Let them get out from under the highschool system so they
| can go onto somewhere where they can actually learn real
| material.
|
| That said, my highschool did teach, more _forced_ , me to read
| vast volumes very quickly. That skill really helped at various
| levels later. But that can be taught in other ways than sitting
| in a classroom slowly memorizing Shakespeare.
| mattmcknight wrote:
| School would be vastly improved by the ability to pre-test
| out of topics or subjects. I actually went to an elementary
| school that let you do that for math and it was great.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Walking into a classroom and telling the teacher that you
| have already passed the final exam, that you are _done_
| with the class and will no longer be attending their class
| ... that is basically highschool fantasy.
| waterhouse wrote:
| The fact that this isn't common is mind-boggling to me. If
| a student can prove that they know the subject well enough
| that them sitting in that class would be a waste, then why
| does _anyone_ think it 's a good idea to make them continue
| sitting in that class?
|
| My first guess is "there are some pushy parents who will
| want their kid to be in a higher class even when their kid
| isn't qualified for it". The answer to this is, have a
| rigorous test and a high standard for skipping a class.
|
| My second guess is "teachers have a general stance of not
| wanting to make _any_ 'concessions' to parents, otherwise
| that will attract more pushy parents". (I did once have a
| math teacher who said "If I let you ... then I'd have 100
| parents wanting the same for their kids.") So... keeping a
| strong negotiating position for the teachers is more
| important than doing right by individual students.
|
| I think the answer is that, ultimately, the people making
| decisions about children's education don't have strong
| incentives to make it go well. If the kid sits in class
| bored but not causing trouble, that doesn't create a
| problem for the teacher or the principal; if the kid is
| enthusiastically learning in the next-level class, that
| might be nice for that teacher, but on average likely won't
| make a huge difference--and actually the teacher whose
| class the kid came _from_ will get a replacement student
| who might need help, so that teacher may be genuinely
| _disincentivized_ to recommend the kid 's advancement, even
| aside from the "negotiating position" aspect.
| mattmcknight wrote:
| For some subjects it seems that the issue is not level,
| but quantity of work. They don't want to be seen as
| letting students get away with less work.
|
| Maybe there's also something of a resentment about them
| not being needed when they encounter an autodidact? I had
| problems with an AP chemistry teacher who was angry that
| I was doing the homework in class instead of listening to
| the lecture. When I said that I thought textbook had
| explained the topic quite well, her reaction was
| extremely negative. The existence of the autodidact sort
| of threatens the proposition of school itself.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| > who here actually learned anything inside a highschool
| classroom
|
| Perhaps my junior and senior high schools, in the south west
| England in the late '60s, early '70s, were better than yours,
| or perhaps they just suited me better than yours suited you,
| but I learned a lot. We also did Shakespeare but I don't
| remember anyone having to memorize it unless they were
| actually putting on a play.
| greedo wrote:
| I'm a bit long in the tooth, so perhaps my experience is
| colored by time and nostalgia; but I found high school to be
| where I learned the most in terms of academics. It was where
| I had an outstanding English teacher who taught me to write
| with both passion and with a clarity that I cherish. A
| Biology teacher who helped direct my attention to subjects
| that helped me fill in gaps in my understanding of our world.
| A History teacher that guided me towards challenging the
| status quo, in questioning sources and understanding
| motivations. This is just a small sampling of the best
| classes, and obviously ignores the most dull and uninspiring
| teachers. Highschool was hell for me in so many ways, but
| academics was the least of the reasons.
| VMtest wrote:
| Online learning is for those who can take advantage of it and
| accelerate their learning or manage better their time
|
| For those who couldn't stand it should stay behind by attending
| classes physically
| rendall wrote:
| Are you sure this effect isn't a combination of the in-person
| education culture, developed over centuries, having
| difficulties adjusting to a new paradigm; and the measures
| themselves (e.g the skill of "coming into class") not being
| appropriate for the new paradigm?
| itronitron wrote:
| Not many people here are distinguishing between online learning
| and online classrooms.
|
| In my experience from observing my own children who universally
| despise online classes, Khan Academy has been excellent (with
| the exception of their Physics curriculum which is a complete
| mess.) I have no doubt that if I enrolled them in the 'classes'
| that they would absolutely hate it, especially based on that
| Daily Seminar image that looks like a Zoom meeting.
|
| With the shift to enrolled classes it seems like they are
| pivoting towards the Educational Industrial Complex, which is
| unfortunate. That discourages me from donating to them again.
| Although I am always happy to pay for quality learning material
| and workbooks I'm not interested in supporting online
| classrooms.
| ipaddr wrote:
| What if you and your colleague and alike were replaced with the
| best couple of teachers in the state with the rest of the money
| spent on eas who could help directly. We might see two full
| grade improvements.
|
| Trying to replicate the in person experience online is going to
| be a worse experience. The benefits, reduce costs and chances
| for a better education are there.
| la6472 wrote:
| There is some truth to it but teachers and professors who do
| not support online mode of teaching also work to undermine it
| for your own vested interest aka job security. I am sure a
| online school or class can do their own study and produce
| opposite results.
| WinstonSmith84 wrote:
| Maybe there is a difference with kids which have been used to
| get online schooling from the very beginning and others who
| suddenly have to study remotely. And then, it may also depend
| on your family situation at home such as having an independent,
| quiet room or a noisy shared room .. ?
| bnralt wrote:
| In my experience, in-person educators often do a rather poor
| job with online education. There's often a lot of effort to
| emulate in-person learning, instead of an acceptance that
| online education is its own thing. They also often approach
| online education with a bias against it, which I doubt helps
| things.
|
| In-person educators trying to do online learning, getting poor
| results, and then saying it's the fault of online education is
| a bit like a YouTube educator teaching in person classes, doing
| poorly, and then declaring that in-person education is
| inferior.
|
| Also worth noting that students who have spent years being
| conditioned with in-person learning might have an adjustment
| period when starting online education, one that might not go
| smoothly if it's happening during a crisis and guided by people
| inexperienced with and predisposed against this form of
| education.
| e40 wrote:
| _> In my experience, in-person educators often do a rather
| poor job with online education._
|
| This 1000x. My son is at UCSD. Very few of the online
| lectures were better, majority were worse.
|
| I think online _can_ be better, but it requires expertise
| that doesn 't exists in most teaching professionals.
| huitzitziltzin wrote:
| I don't entirely disagree, but I partially disagree.
|
| Personally I was desperate in March 2020 (as were my
| colleagues) for _any_ tips about what would work online. I
| didn 't want my classes to suck, nor did my colleagues. There
| was very little information available at the beginning about
| what worked.
|
| But what's worse (and what makes me disagree with your
| comment) is that even after a year of being online it _still_
| wasn 't clear how to make it not suck! Basically no one had
| discovered anything which made students like it OR perform
| well.
|
| I polled my students every midterm and final exam (and gave
| them actual points for their answers!) on whatever they had
| found to work in _any_ of their online classes. Collectively
| they were exposed to several hundred other professors at my
| university. While they did have _some_ suggestions (which I
| did implement), nothing really worked.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| As a student in undergrad, I got to know the people at the
| school's "teaching center" very well.
|
| This resource is available on most college campuses for the
| teachers who have the humility to ask. Those folks were
| intimately involved in MOOCs and knew a lot about how to
| make online teaching work. They might have been able to
| help, but there was a bit of a sigma around talking to
| them.
| bnralt wrote:
| One thing I've seen is that people convinced that in-person
| education is the best will try to focus on making their
| online classes more like in-person classes, when that might
| be the wrong direction needed. Particularly since it sounds
| like you and your colleagues (as well as the students) were
| thrown into things suddenly with little to no experience.
| If you were trying to discover success from your own
| classes, those of your colleagues in a similar situation,
| or those from your students, I'd imagine it'd be slow
| going, since it sounds a bit like the blind leading the
| blind.
|
| On top of this, schools tend to be constrained with trying
| to fit everything into the particular confines of what's
| considered a class. I don't know about your particular
| school, but all of the ones I've seen would never try to
| educate students with something like The Odin Project, even
| though many here think it's a great example of online
| education.
|
| Also, even with a great program and experienced teacher,
| changes in education styles entail a transition period for
| the students. We would expect this to be much slower in
| such a rocky transition with the professors themselves
| trying to figure out what to do. But even with poor
| circumstances I'd expect to see at least some amount of
| progress as students adjusted to things. Did you not see
| any?
|
| You mention them being exposed to the classes of several
| hundred professors at your university. Surely there was
| some variability in the success the professors had. What
| difference did the school see between the more successful
| classes and the less successful classes?
| leereeves wrote:
| > But what's worse (and what makes me disagree with your
| comment) is that even after a year of being online it still
| wasn't clear how to make it not suck!
|
| Were these Zoom classes? I can't think of a single
| synchronous (like Zoom) class that didn't suck.
|
| What I liked as a student was prerecorded lectures that
| could be replayed at high speed (or even skipped) on my own
| schedule. Personally I much prefer these over live
| lectures.
| xyzzy21 wrote:
| Could it be that since humans are social primates, online
| simply can never work as well as face-to-face.
|
| I work in sales and direct face-to-face sales ALWAYS has
| better close rates, happier customers, etc. than indirect
| sales through phone or internet.
| ilaksh wrote:
| There is Zoom and other stuff involving faces.
| leereeves wrote:
| As a customer, I much prefer online shopping in no small
| part because I don't want to deal with salespeople.
| greedo wrote:
| Close rates are better because a captive customer is at a
| severe disadvantage to the psychological tactics used in
| sales.
| cseleborg wrote:
| Objection, your honor!
|
| I sold private whisky casks to individuals or groups.
| Before the pandemic, I would sit down at the table with
| them and guide them through a tasting, several hours
| long. My close rate was close to 50%.
|
| With the pandemic, I switched to shipping samples and
| moderating the tasting online via Zoom or Teams. My close
| rate dropped to noise level.
|
| I don't think I fundamentally changed my "tactics", and
| since it involved drinking more than a few sips of
| alcohol, I never required the customer to sign the order
| form in my presence.
|
| In my experience, physical presence was waaaay more
| conducive to sales.
| greedo wrote:
| You're agreeing with me. Psychologically, once you have a
| potential buyer in your physical presence (especially
| outside of their environment), you have a tremendous
| advantage in closing.
|
| And sales where you're giving a sample like whisky? The
| social obligation to reciprocate for receiving something
| "free" is very strong. The idea behind giving a sample in
| a sales pitch isn't to get them to like the whisky
| (though it helps eliminate/reduce resistance), it's to
| incur that social obligation.
| v_london wrote:
| I think there's something to comparing education (especially
| when delivered remotely) to YouTube. There's a huge variance
| between the teaching skills of teachers, just as there is
| variance between how entertaining YouTubers are. The
| difference is, the best teachers get paid the same as average
| ones, while nobody knows the name of an average creator.
|
| I wrote briefly about the topic in a blog post, titled
| "Professors as Creators". It explores the idea briefly, and
| how treating teachers as "creators" could add value not just
| to remote learning, but to in-person lessons as well.
| https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/professors-as-
| creators-h...
| photochemsyn wrote:
| In both online and inperson, a major choke point occurs when
| students get stuck on a problem and have nowhere to go to get
| help, or when students don't get useful feedback after
| submitting their work. This is directly related to the
| teacher-student ratio, regardless of whether it's online or
| not.
|
| I imagine a huge factor is also parental involvement, when it
| comes to encouraging students to set aside several hours each
| night for study and homework. In the absence of parental
| involvement or in cases of parental neglect and indifference
| (woefully common in many situations), the role of the teacher
| becomes far more important in encouraging the student to
| develop good study habits. This might be more difficult in
| the online situation.
| padobson wrote:
| _This is directly related to the teacher-student ratio,
| regardless of whether it 's online or not._
|
| One of Malcolm Gladwell's books made a convincing argument
| that reducing class size quickly runs into the issue of
| diminishing returns. A cursory Googling suggests there's
| plenty of research to back it up[0][1]
|
| The effectiveness of in-person learning may have more to do
| with social interaction and peer motivation. A teacher with
| about 20 students who is able to create a general
| excitement for learning in the class seems to be the most
| effective. A classroom where the "spirit" of learning is
| alive is ideal for a lot of kids.
|
| [0]https://edcentral.uk/reading-list/431-what-we-have-
| learned-a...
| [1]http://hanushek.stanford.edu/publications/evidence-
| class-siz...
| photochemsyn wrote:
| In some of these online classes I've heard of >1000
| students signing up with one professor and maybe two
| assistants. In that case, maybe a model would be to
| recruit the top students (selected early in the course
| based on their submitted) work) to act as tutors for say
| groups of 10 or so. Pitch them on the idea with "the best
| way to learn something is to explain it to someone else."
| endisneigh wrote:
| And what happens if they don't want to do it?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Make their course completion contingent upon doing so?
| That's a bit draconian of course, but you could also
| provide something positive to juice the deal instead.
| Incentives 101.
| ILikeMathBetter wrote:
| in my school they pay students to tutor. it was actually
| quite competitive. A lot of tutors I knew went on to get
| really good jobs right after graduation.
|
| it works out really well for the student. instead of
| working a regular job during the year you get to do
| something that benefits your career, you build a
| relationship with your professors and it pays more than
| if you were working at the local grocery store.
|
| https://cse.ucsd.edu/undergraduate/readers-and-tutors
| endisneigh wrote:
| So the education system is contingent on making students
| teach other students, or else? Lol
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| It's not as if this isn't already a requirement for some.
|
| https://biosciences.uchicago.edu/content/teaching-
| assistant-...
|
| > All graduate students are required to serve as a
| Teaching Assistant in at least one course for academic
| credit before the Ph.D. degree is awarded. Appropriate
| courses may be undergraduate, graduate, or medical, but
| must be in the Biological Sciences Division (exceptions
| may be made for students in the Biophysical Sciences
| program).
| endisneigh wrote:
| Grad school is not a requirement in the United States as
| far as I know.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| How about offer to pay them for their services?
| skrtskrt wrote:
| So like being a grad student without the abuse and
| poverty pay?
| zozbot234 wrote:
| That's why you should use a "flipped classroom" model, to
| focus in-person effort on these limited chokepoints. That
| still leaves everything else that can largely be done non-
| interactively and at the best pace for each student.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| This is a really important insight and I think everyone
| should take note of it for pedagogy going forward for the
| next years
| richardw wrote:
| Some students have terrible teachers and an excellent online
| supplement can't hurt.
|
| Living in South Africa, we have a huge difference between the
| best private schools and the worst public schools. It would be
| nice to know that every child in the world has at least a base
| level of education available that reduces "quality of your
| teacher" as a variable.
|
| Obviously this assumes they're able to learn remotely. I
| realise that's not everyone. That doesn't mean this has no
| value. I had extra lessons that were part recorded (so I could
| rewind etc) and tests with a teacher who could help guide
| through aspects I didn't understand. Improved three symbols in
| one year with about a solid week of study over each holiday.
| Self study worked very well for me, as a supplement.
| bstar77 wrote:
| You are correct, applying traditional education methods to
| online/home school is unlikely to work well. Concepts like
| "homework" are generally obsolete at the home school level.
| Independent learning replaces the antiquated idea that our
| children need to be preoccupied with boring, grindy work when
| they are out of the "classroom". Children will have plenty of
| time to grind when they get older. Building a love for learning
| is 100x more important than rote memorization.
|
| The child's age is also significant... I certainly would not
| have a child under 12 working under the the same expectations
| as a teenager. Additionally, every child develops at a
| different rate, so finding that sweet spot is an important part
| of home schooling. These are all things that the public school
| mentality finds incredulous.
|
| So I agree with what you are saying, but so many people still
| think the model for home school should be the same as a
| public/private school situation, which is where things fall
| apart. It's obvious to me that children always need to be well
| socialized and have a variety of teachers and experiences, but
| that can be achieved if the parent is proactive and willing to
| spend the required time and money to foster learning over
| optimizing for succeeding in the public school system.
| rmason wrote:
| There's some truth in what you're saying but I've got to
| disagree. Right now there's a kid in a Lagos or Harare slum who
| will find the cure for cancer. This boy or girls parents will
| spend their life savings on a Chromebook for this child who
| will trek to an Internet connection in a library (or a
| McDonalds like in present day Detroit) and they will acquire a
| high school education and with that credential be accepted into
| a top university. It may not prove to be the best choice for
| some but for many kids in the third world it's that or nothing.
| Bedon292 wrote:
| While there certainly have been some negative outcomes as far
| as grades go. There have also been studies saying that school
| going online has improved the mental health of some students
| [1]. There was a decrease in anxiety, and a decrease in the
| severity of depression. Students who had lower wellbeing pre-
| pandemic were the ones who saw a significant increase in
| wellbeing going to school online.
|
| Now this is speculation on my part but the students who may be
| suffering from bullying (leading to that anxiety and
| depression) now have more control of their environment and
| connections. Its easy to ignore someone typing in some chat
| room (and maybe even mute them entirely) that you can't ignore
| when they are physically in the same location as you.
|
| And I know being able to control my environment, and fidget or
| move around, or whatever I want to do allows me to work better
| than being stuck in some classroom bored and daydreaming. So
| for certain people there are definitely positive outcomes. Even
| if they are a minority. And a service like this might be a
| great asset to those people.
|
| [1] https://sphr.nihr.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Young-
| Peo...
| gcheong wrote:
| I'm curious how something like Chemistry is going to work. I
| was able to take 3 years of it at my high school and can't
| imagine not having a full hands-on lab component as part of the
| experience.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| My experience with professors and the concept of "study skills"
| is that there is often a skewed perception of how students
| should learn that is colored by their own experience. Many of
| my classmates did not regularly go to lectures, and most of
| them did very well. When they struggled in a class or the
| teacher was a good lecturer, they went. Professors who cared
| were often the ones who never missed a lecture themselves. This
| could be an indication that the traditional yardsticks of who
| is a "good student" are breaking down.
|
| I would also chalk up the students generally being less
| organized to the stress of the situation, rather than a
| degeneration of study skills.
| daneelsan wrote:
| There is a difference between online education because there is
| no other way as there is a pandemic (are the students and the
| institution ready to switch to online, are the courses even
| designed to be imparted online, etc.), and online education
| because it's a choice.
| tkgally wrote:
| One minority data point here.
|
| I teach at a university in Japan. I have been teaching my
| classes exclusively online--live using Zoom--for more than two
| years, and overall the experience has been better than with the
| in-person classes I taught for many years before. The class
| discussions have been meatier and more focused than in person,
| and the students have been turning in better papers.
|
| I recognize that the results would be different in other
| situations. I am fortunate to teach small classes of motivated
| students with good study skills. And as one of the "very online
| crowd," I might have been able to adapt to online teaching
| better than some others.
|
| But the big revolution of online learning is the opportunity it
| gives for people to take part in interactive classes regardless
| of their location. Yesterday I taught a graduate seminar with
| fourteen students, eight in Japan and six in China, including
| two in lockdown in Shanghai. Everyone was able to take part
| actively. Starting next Monday, my other graduate class will
| shift from afternoon to morning Japan time so that a student
| who is in Mexico and unable to return to Japan can take part in
| real time. This past Monday, one of the other students in that
| class was in COVID quarantine near Narita Airport but was able
| to participate fully in class.
|
| Until recently, it was assumed that the only way to conduct
| interactive classes in real time was for the teacher and
| students to all be in the same physical location. If students
| couldn't get to campus for whatever reason, they were excluded.
| Online education opens up educational opportunities for many
| people who couldn't participate before.
| huitzitziltzin wrote:
| Please tell me your secret. Is there anything you do
| differently, relative to in person? Or do you just end up
| with a selected sample of super motivated students?
|
| This in particular:
|
| > The class discussions have been meatier...
|
| is a literal miracle.
|
| I think it might be this:
|
| > I am fortunate to teach small classes of motivated students
| with good study skills.
|
| I teach an honors and a regular section of one of my classes.
| The honors students (who are more serious and motivated in
| general) definitely are affected less.
|
| If you are teaching grad students that is also not going to
| be representative of the overall population. Those guys are
| definitely in the right tail of motivation.
| tkgally wrote:
| > Is there anything you do differently, relative to in
| person?
|
| I call on students more systematically rather than just
| waiting for volunteers to raise their hand. When I taught
| in-person, it was usually the same few students who spoke
| up a lot, while others never said anything. Now everyone
| contributes, making for an overall better discussion.
|
| With my larger online classes, I will sometimes throw out a
| discussion question and give the students five or ten
| minutes to write up their responses, which they submit
| through a Google Form. I then display those responses on
| screen and respond to them. Having the time to write up
| their responses, and knowing that their responses might be
| shared with the entire class, seems to make students
| respond more thoughtfully than if they were just making an
| ephemeral spoken comment.
|
| I sometimes ask all students to submit questions to me
| through an online form, too. In in-person classes, many
| students seem embarrassed to ask questions in front of
| their peers. That doesn't apply to online forms. (When I
| display the students' questions on the screen, I don't show
| the students' names.)
|
| Some of these ideas come from workshops I attended years
| ago on "active learning" and could be implemented in the
| classroom as well. But I began using them only after I
| started teaching online.
|
| > If you are teaching grad students that is also not going
| to be representative of the overall population. Those guys
| are definitely in the right tail of motivation.
|
| You're absolutely correct.
| blip54321 wrote:
| > Is there anything you do differently, relative to in
| person?
|
| Online, everything needs to be done differently from in-
| person:
|
| - Lecture is a waste of time. Pre-made stuff will be
| higher-quality than anything you can deliver, and save a
| lot of time
|
| - Grading should be automated as much as possible.
| Immediate feedback is powerful for students, as is being
| able to move at their own pace, have targeted remediation,
| etc.
|
| - Automating stuff leaves waaaaay more time for 1:1
| interaction, reviewing student work, etc.
|
| - Audio isn't the only way to interact. Students can use
| chat, embedded surveys, forums, etc. There are many ways
| for having interactive engagement impossible in person.
|
| - You should make heavy use of peer teaching: Breakout
| rooms, structured peer review, etc.
|
| Online during COVID19 crashed-and-burned since people took
| in-person and tried to run it over Zoom. Good online can be
| better than in-person.
|
| Oh, and details matter. Everyone should have a headset.
| Mute is generally bad. You should have good whiteboarding
| tools. Everyone should have a pen tablet ($40) or copy
| stand ($100). Etc.
|
| NONE of this happened at most schools during COVID.
| bluetwo wrote:
| You nailed it.
| mindcrime wrote:
| _IMO the lesson of the pandemic is "no it's not and it's never
| going to be."_
|
| The "it's never going to be" part does not _necessarily_ follow
| from any of the data presented so far. Perhaps we simply need a
| better understanding of how people learn online, and get better
| at using technological tools to facilitate learning?
|
| I mean, is there any particular reason to think we've reached
| the pinnacle of what learning software and online educational
| platforms can do?
| ekanes wrote:
| > My colleagues and I can attest to both general learning loss
| (ie., forgetting specific subject matter information) and a
| loss of broader "studying skills" (ie., coming to class and
| doing homework) after the pandemic.
|
| No disagreement that grades are lower, but is it possible we
| are in some ways measuring the wrong things?
|
| In a modern age, "remembering information" or "doing homework"
| don't seem so applicable to the future.
|
| Being in person can be important, but it's for mostly social
| reasons, not the ones you stated.
| itronitron wrote:
| It would be nice to know whether, and at what grade levels,
| standardized test scores have been affected as I am inclined
| to believe that the standardized test scores (i.e. SAT) have
| remained stable.
| huitzitziltzin wrote:
| > but is it possible we are in some ways measuring the wrong
| things?
|
| No disagreement, but we were measuring the same things pre-
| and post-pandemic. The negative effect on those measured
| outcomes is very real.
|
| It is possible that if we were measuring the "right things"
| (whatever those are) we might see no effect. A priori that's
| a little implausible IMO but I'm willing to entertain the
| argument!
|
| > In a modern age, "remembering information" or "doing
| homework" don't seem so applicable to the future.
|
| Strong disagree on "remembering information is not applicable
| to the future." I partially concede on "doing homework", but
| honestly there is no other way to make the students attempt
| to apply the material they learn, and no way for them to
| understand what they don't understand except by attempting to
| apply it!
|
| Homework might suck, but there is a good reason everyone uses
| it!
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| Damn I spent the whole pandemic reading books and doing my best
| to get ahead as such
|
| How did everyone else mess it up so bad? I'm just reading this
| and thinking back to my resolve to use this time as positively
| as possible, like study and doing my best with savings was the
| most obvious thing at the time to me
|
| Might be something to do with me living in the third world and
| adaptation culture being different
| petesergeant wrote:
| > How did everyone else mess it up so bad
|
| Kids. A different set of mental-health challenges. Being
| worried about losing their job. Being more dependent on their
| non-coliving family than you are. Being more worried about
| their family than you are. Having a job that they're not used
| to doing online. Having a job that's hard to do online.
| Having a job that couldn't be done online. Being deprived of
| life-long hobbies and interests that can't be done online or
| in the home. etc etc.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| So get into finance options where the effort->profit ratio
| is way more favorable as a hedge against all of what you
| mentioned or you and your entire family will suffer is what
| you're saying, in the most positive interpretation possible
| PretzelPirate wrote:
| We're researchers able to separate the negative effects on
| children of online learning from the negative effects from
| other causes such as global panic and uncertainty, the
| inability to see friends, etc...?
| [deleted]
| MrBlueIncognito wrote:
| > the inability to see friends
|
| At least that last factor is directly correlated with online
| learning.
|
| Also I know from experience that most students in online
| classes aren't even actively listening. A good chunk of them
| end up on YouTube or Instagram.
| lolinder wrote:
| My experience in a physical classroom in the pre-smartphone
| era is much the same: a good chunk of the students are
| spacing off throughout any given lecture. At that time it
| was passing notes, doodling, or just staring out the window
| rather than online distractions.
|
| It might be worth considering whether synchronously sitting
| in a lecture with 30 other kids isn't, in fact, a good
| model for learning in _any_ environment, online or
| otherwise.
| a9h74j wrote:
| > in a physical classroom ... a good chunk of the
| students are spacing off throughout any given lecture
|
| Think of a meeting of 30 people in your own office
| environment and wonder how many people are spacing out at
| any given moment.
| PretzelPirate wrote:
| > At least that last factor is directly correlated with
| online learning.
|
| Unless they live in rural settings, it's likely a very
| loose correlation.
|
| When I was a kid, I grew up in a neighborhood in a walkable
| town and my friends and I saw each other everyday, though
| we went to different schools or were in different grades at
| the same school.
|
| I later moved to a rural area for high school and only saw
| people at school due to how far away we all lived from each
| other.
|
| In the first situation, I suspect online learning would
| have been great for me since I could do it at home and I'd
| still have plenty of social interaction without the
| downside of hauling books between classes, sitting in an
| uncomfortable classroom environment, and largely not paying
| attention since there wasn't any way for the teacher to
| track my participation in a large class.
|
| I'm not sure how physical education would have worked at
| that time, but maybe fitness trackers help with that
| nowadays.
|
| I do suspect that online learning isn't great for lower
| income households since they may not have dedicate space
| set up for learning, and it would be a shame to create yet
| another class difference in education.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| I'm sure online teaching is worse than in person teaching, at
| least the way most online teaching is done now. But who is the
| target audience here? I was homeschooled for many years and the
| parent doing my teaching was not very effective. I'm positive
| that this online teaching would be better than that was.
|
| In fact, my homeschool friends who did remote video courses (as
| close as you could get to online at the time) were much better
| at many subjects than I was.
|
| I don't think its online vs in person. It's online vs nothing
| or online vs shitty teaching.
| pbreit wrote:
| I don't think any of this is necessarily true and I hope few
| believe this at this point.
| mymythisisthis wrote:
| I see private tutors enrolling kids into Khan Academy and
| helping them pass the Khan Academy math courses. You get tutor
| help for your child, at the same time get some formal credit in
| the process.
|
| Khan Academy has very strong brand recognition.
|
| Many parents pay to have their child tutored. Partially because
| the quality of math teachers in high school is random (some are
| very good, others are not). Partially because one on one help
| is always very useful.
| mynegation wrote:
| Counterpoint to your counterpoint: I think it is wonderful and
| we need more of these!
|
| It may not work for everyone but the important thing is that it
| may and will work for someone for whom other options are not
| available or subpar.
|
| I grew up in a small backwater-ish city and school was useless,
| outside of socializing. By far, the most important thing I did
| for my education was enrolling into a distance learning physics
| and technology school managed by one of the nation's top
| technical universities. You would receive learning materials
| and exercises several times during the school year by snail
| mail (yes, I am that old) and send your answers back for
| grading.
|
| Whatever I am and the life I have started with this.
| screye wrote:
| I have been sceptical of online schools and will continue to be
| a sceptic. Khan Academy is one of the most competent
| organizations to try such a thing, but I deem the problem to be
| completely intractable.
|
| In person learning is about learning from your peers as much as
| it is about learning from your instructors. People are quick to
| point out that the commonly occurring bad in-person instructor
| can be compared to online-learning. But, they leave out the
| fact that online-learning completely sidelines any prospects
| for peer-learning. I am not even bringing up the role schools
| play in socialization, physical health and as day-care. No
| amount of online-anything is going to replace that.
| mattmcknight wrote:
| I think the key advantage of this kind of method is that rather
| than proceeding at a single pace, the students can stay on a
| topic until they master it, and then move on. It's kind of a
| way of ensuring every student gets at least a 90% in a course,
| but the amount of time it takes them to get there can vary.
|
| While this is obviously a little more difficult in a classroom
| format, I have seen it done in the 80s completely offline for
| math where the whole grade of students take a bunch of pretests
| at the beginning of the year (including the tests for the prior
| year material) and then are assigned to two week groups or
| classes for the topics they need. After two weeks, they get a
| post test. If they haven't passed at 90%, they stay in that
| topic until they complete it. If they have, they move on to the
| next topic. It got a little complicated as a few people were in
| groups that went down to one person after a while, and they
| were just giving me worksheets and then I would ask if I had a
| question, but I was able to proceed at more than 2x the normal
| pace for a few glorious years.
|
| So, maybe doing the Khan Academy thing in the building, where
| you have a supervisor there to keep kids on task and prevent
| cheating, as well as ample people to whom one can ask
| questions, could be a net improvement.
| throwamon wrote:
| > What type of student is this school designed for?
|
| > Highly Engaged + Self-driven + Enthusiastic
|
| Nice to see that they will discriminate against socially anxious,
| depressed and otherwise neurodivergent students from day one.
| abrax3141 wrote:
| The Kahn Academy is boring online trash dressed up with famous
| media hype, and this sounds like more of the same. They seem to
| have anti-learned the lesson from the year* of pandemic online
| school: So, that was terrible, let's do more if it and make it
| sound like a 6 hour straight zoom meeting isn't everyone's worst
| nightmare.
| Marcan wrote:
| Why would you say that? Can you elaborate? As far as I'm
| concerned, it is a great free online resource which makes
| learning accessible to everyone. Sal Khan is also an excellent
| teacher.
| abrax3141 wrote:
| There's like 500 way better online resources for any given KA
| topic. Take any KA video and compare it with the same topic
| from Numberphile, VSauce, or even just a random person who
| knows how to teach.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Have you watched all of the above? Kahn is learning-grade,
| while the others are high-quality pop-sci/math.
| grapeskin wrote:
| You're comparing short entertainment videos vs something
| meant to break down subjects and teach them bit by bit.
|
| Nobody is using Vsauce to help them study a college course.
| The videos simply _don't exist_ , and I say this as someone
| who's watched the channels you mentioned.
| abrax3141 wrote:
| Apparently you haven't. DrPhysicsA is literally ALL of
| physics. Strang is ALL of linear algebra. For any topic
| there's someone who's done it better then KA. I agree
| that it requires meta-organization, and that's a valuable
| contribution, but KA should stick to that par, bcs their
| teachers are uniformly soporific.
| MrBlueIncognito wrote:
| > DrPhysicsA is literally ALL of physics.
|
| There's more to physics than what one person or
| organization can teach.
| abrax3141 wrote:
| And Ps. I say this as a teacher, a cognitive scientist, a
| computer scientist, an education researcher, and most
| importantly a parent whose kid's teachers have
| (thankfully rarely) forced his kids through the KA video
| tunnel of drone, which I've had to subsequently un/re-
| teach nearly every single time. (BTW, KA "lectures" are
| quite often, IMHO as a teacher, simply wrong in approach.
| It's like they took a standard textbook and made a video
| out of every paragraph. What a nightmare. Even a book
| would be better - at least you could flip back and
| forth.)
| tombert wrote:
| I feel like you're comparing apples and oranges.
|
| I love Numberphile, but they work best as an _exposure_ to
| new concepts. I 'm not watching Numberphile to help me with
| my statistics homework, I'm watching to be introduced to
| the concept itself in a relatively entertaining way. It's
| closer to recreational math than a learning aid.
|
| On the other end, I find KA videos to be a bit dry, but are
| useful when I need help with a specific concept in
| statistics or calculus or something.
| hhmc wrote:
| > Numberphile, VSauce
|
| I just looked at the video listing for these creators and
| there's nothing but pop-science.
|
| I don't understand how it's at all comperable to KA?
| abrax3141 wrote:
| A. You didn't look very hard. B. Okay, try PBS space
| time, Dr PhysicsA, 3Blue1Brown, Strand's MIT series,
| Red&Blue. There are so many wonderful resources online to
| learn from that just need to be meta-organized, KA is the
| bottom of every heap except for the meta-organization.
| (And, BTW, many of the others have internal meta-
| organization.)
| JackMorgan wrote:
| Except those videos don't have the adaptive learning, practice
| exercises, and tests that KA has. Maybe the videos are higher
| quality, but introducing the material is only part of
| education, you also need, planning, assessment, and practice,
| which is where KA is unparalleled.
| abrax3141 wrote:
| The KA assessment platform (at lest in Algebra and Geometry)
| is pretty a boring mainstream online problem delivery engine.
| What's unparalleled about that?
| Bedon292 wrote:
| I am not sure about main Khan Academy, but Khan Academy Kids
| has been a great resource. Completely free educational app with
| no advertisement in it. It has been hard to find anything else
| that can compare. Does it go down hill from there?
| umangrathi wrote:
| I am looking forward to the day, when quality formal education is
| available online to all which you may complete at your own pace
| instead of going with a strict semester and class system. Also,
| along with offline schools for supporting social learning and
| helping classes which require offline components like labs, in
| person support classes, interest based study groups etc.
| endisneigh wrote:
| How exactly is what you're describing going to work
| logistically?
| mattferderer wrote:
| It probably doesn't meet your definition, but if you were a
| K-12 student you could:
|
| * Homeschool
|
| * Use your local school's curriculum or a public one like
| Common Core or another one of your choosing
|
| * Use one of many amazing online sources, like Khan. The great
| thing is if you struggle, you can always find an alternative
| teacher. I've found sometimes I need multiple different
| explanations over the course of weeks to understand a topic.
|
| * Many communities in larger towns & cities have tons of
| offline learning opportunities for groups.
| yupper32 wrote:
| > Many communities in larger towns & cities have tons of
| offline learning opportunities for groups.
|
| Yeah, schools.
| andrepd wrote:
| Unless we automate teachers in the near future, I wouldn't hold
| my breath. Educational content on the internet is paradigm-
| changing, don't get me wrong: with access to the internet you
| can access a _virtually unlimited_ set of learning materials:
| high-quality encyclopedias, books in the public domain, (books
| outside the public domain if you 're willing to pirate),
| endless videos on virtually any language, any musical
| instrument, lectures by illustrious thinkers on topics from
| economics to physics. You cannot overstate how big this is,
| most of it would be unthinkable that _anyone_ on earth could
| access it.
|
| But learning needs teachers, and it needs teachers in small
| groups (classroom sizes of 20-30 are far too big). You cannot
| solve this with tech alone.
| bsenftner wrote:
| We can't automate teachers, in any effective manner. To teach
| requires an empathetic comprehension of the student's
| misunderstanding. That right there requirements an AI goal so
| far a head of our current capabilities, it may as well be
| called impossible. Modern AI has no capacity whatsoever for
| comprehension, and that is about as big a failure as
| something called an artificial intelligence can fail.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| We can definitely automate many parts of tutoring, but
| physical teachers will still be important for the reasons
| you describe.
| bsenftner wrote:
| My point being, the critical support a teacher provides
| when they "help a student" requires the teacher to
| comprehend the misunderstanding of the student - that
| comprehension step is beyond current known science to
| artificially replicate.
| Diris wrote:
| I'm not saying you're wrong but maybe this'll be
| interesting to some.
|
| A New Era: Intelligent Tutoring Systems Will Transform
| Online Learning for Millions
| https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.03724
| shreyshnaccount wrote:
| That, and the education structure guided by actual research
| instead of politics, is the holy grail
| [deleted]
| Yajirobe wrote:
| MIT OCW
| BouffantJoe wrote:
| I love MIT OpenCourseWare, but they only seem to have video
| lectures for a small proportion of the courses. Mostly the
| introductory courses with the larger audiences. I'd love for
| them to try and get video for more lectures because I don't
| feel confident enough to try and understand many with the
| lecture notes alone.
| BoxOfRain wrote:
| My school made foreign languages completely unappealing to me
| by teaching them in the most dull, tick-box way possible in a
| school where even the top set contained pupils who massively
| cut into teaching time by behaving like animals, if you've ever
| seen the UK series _The Inbetweeners_ my school was basically
| that but with grotty 1950s asbestos-chic buildings that hadn 't
| really been upgraded since they were built. I thought I hated
| learning languages and promptly forgot the little I learned,
| but online learning at my own pace rather than a hastily
| thrown-together timetable with a course that's not being
| disrupted by constant piss-takers is a completely different
| experience. I've started learning French and the experience is
| night and day.
|
| I can't help but feel very let down by my state education
| experience, it feels like British state schools are a uniform
| Ford-esque production line that takes children as an input,
| utterly breaks their spirit, and produces a docile blue-collar
| workforce that doesn't really ask questions as an output.
| Private schools on the other hand actually seem to set their
| pupils up for life rather than simply being a cog.
| andrepd wrote:
| You would be mistaken if you think that is not by design.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Care to explain how you think that is by design? I think
| it's more a side effect of trying to measure everything or
| design a system that is easy to measure.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| When a culture/society becomes intensely class-stratified
| and divides into an aristocratic (British posh) and serf
| (British prole) structure, this kind of educational
| system (one tier for the aristocrats, another for the
| serfs) is very likely to arise. It may not be 'by design'
| as much as something that develops over time and becomes
| an unconscious social norm.
|
| The driving force behind this is that the well-paid jobs
| requiring certain skills like facility with maths,
| excellent reading and writing and verbal communication
| (presentation) skills, etc. end up being reserved for
| members of the aristocratic class and are obtained more
| by social connections than by some open competitive
| process. These include professions like lawyers,
| corporate managers, etc.
|
| Hence, the educational programs for the serfs are cut
| down to the bone (as the serfs are not going to need
| those skills in their jobs as assembly line workers,
| miners, agricultural field hands, janitors, etc.). This
| of course helps perpetuate the class division in such
| stratified societies. Incidentally, encouraging contempt
| for education and skill development in the serf class is
| part of this whole problem. "What, do you think you're
| smarter than everyone else?" etc. Kids getting bullied
| for getting straight A's etc.
|
| There has always been a strange borderland between these
| two zones, however, where the technologically adept can
| arise and prosper. Michael Faraday is perhaps the best
| example of a member of the serf class who broke the
| pattern.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| So it's not by design. I like your response though, good
| jumping off point.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| The notion of a conspiratorial cabal of aristocrats
| plotting together to sabotage working class education in
| the name of preserving their exclusive privileges makes
| for good cinematic content, but I'd guess simple
| indifference and the desire to pay less taxes is more of
| the issue.
|
| I think it's disastrous to the long-term success of any
| nation, however. If America continues to slide towards
| such a system, it will fall behind China in technological
| development. Britain seems to have suffered from this
| issue: even though Britain was an early leader in
| computer technology (Turing, Colossus, etc.) they never
| had a Silicon Valley moment.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > The notion of a conspiratorial cabal of aristocrats
| plotting together to sabotage working class education in
| the name of preserving their exclusive privileges makes
| for good cinematic content
|
| Except that it's happening in California as we speak...
| Earlier thread:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31170431
|
| The "Progressive" model of education was very consciously
| planned with the intention of keeping the riffraff down,
| and far away from "elite" studies. It's "Progressive" in
| the early 20th c. sense of that word.
|
| Of course one can also err in a different direction,
| devaluing practical education altogether and leading to
| "overproduction" of aspiring elites that are wholly
| parasitical on their surrounding society. And the two
| problems can even coexist, as seen in the US today!
| Extreme credentialism at the highest end (due to elite
| overproduction) coexists with the most dismal failure to
| achieve even basic educational outcomes for the bulk of
| the population.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| This is just another paid MOOC, and it seems very expensive for
| students from outside AZ/the U.S.? I find it kinda disappointing
| that the Khan folks are getting involved in this kind of thing,
| as schools might now have reason to start distrusting their
| previously-successful model of just offering content and support
| to students and educators in a fair and non-discriminatory way.
| danuker wrote:
| > I find it kinda disappointing
|
| Khan Academy is still free, but it looks like Khan World School
| has actual humans.
|
| > Much of the learning and assessment happens through in-depth
| discussion with teachers, peers and industry experts.
|
| https://asuprep.asu.edu/khan-world-school/academics/
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > Khan Academy is still free, but it looks like Khan World
| School has actual humans.
|
| Yes, but there are real questions of self-imposed incentives
| and broader optics. What will the Khan folks actually be
| focusing on going forward? Will they be trying to pivot their
| Khan Academy offering into a "freebie" funnel, steering their
| students towards this paid-for MOOC? I'm not saying that this
| is going to happen, I'm just saying that many schools,
| educators etc. might naturally worry that it might happen and
| want to avoid reliance on Khan Academy as a result, perhaps
| staying away from it altogether.
| wanderingmind wrote:
| Given the war on math happening in public school systems in
| multiple states, this is a fantastic antidote for anyone who
| can afford it.
| profunctor wrote:
| War on math?
| Keyframe wrote:
| https://stanforddaily.com/2022/04/07/stanford-and-cal-
| profes...
| kecupochren wrote:
| Offtopic but it kills me Khan Academy doesn't hire outside the
| US. Would love to work for them
| another_story wrote:
| The pay seems quite low.
| vincentmarle wrote:
| The concept of an online high school may sound terrible, but
| sooner or later it's bound to happen: quality education will keep
| consolidating until there's one super school left.
|
| Outlier is doing the same thing but on the college level: why
| deal with a mediocre local math teacher if you can get taught by
| the best?
| Mvandenbergh wrote:
| As others have said, the fundamental challenge is that
| teaching, as usually defined, doesn't scale like that and that
| turning it into a non-interactive process removes much of what
| makes it more effective than just giving out a textbook.
|
| Part of the problem is that many people take undergraduate
| lectures as a reference point and then think "well, there's no
| reason this couldn't be recorded, have interactive quizzes
| added, and then be better than physically attending a lecture
| of 200 people". That isn't wrong per se but mega lectures are
| barely teaching as it is and we should not be seeking to
| replicate them!
|
| I know people bang on about the (much misunderstood) 2 sigma
| problem but I'm going to do it as well. Regardless of the exact
| result, we know a few things:
|
| First, we know that intensive 1:1 tutoring moves the mean
| performance up by two standard deviations.
|
| Second, we know from other research that there is a correlation
| between class size and performance.
|
| That is obviously linked in that as classes get smaller,
| teaching styles can get progressively closer to 1:1 tuition. A
| class with ten people in it has room for a substantial amount
| of brief 1:1 interventions, especially if there are no
| behavioural problems in the group (so the teacher is not
| diverting massive amounts of time to classroom management)
| whereas a class of 30 makes that much more difficult.
|
| Conclusion from that, plus the fact that undergraduate classes
| are often taught by research experts with no teaching nor
| mentoring in pedagogic technique, is that the undergrad chalk-
| on-board lecture with 200 students is at the far end of
| effective use of time from 1:1 tuition. So if tuition is the
| most "taught" of the learning styles, a large lecture is all
| the way over on the opposite end with "just read a textbook".
|
| In fact, universities know this which is why they supplement
| lectures with grad-student led problem solving / discussion
| sessions, seminar groups, and small group tutorials. Some
| universities, for some subjects, use only small group tutorials
| (e.g. Oxford colleges for many humanities subjects) and
| lectures if they exist are very much optional. Most
| universities do not have the resources to do very much of this
| except for more advanced subjects but this has nothing to do
| with these techniques only being appropriate for such subjects
| - small group classes are _also_ the most effective way of
| teaching Intro Calculus or Introduction to the Novel. Arguably
| they might be even more important in that context.
|
| So the modern formulation of the two sigma problem to me is as
| follows: given that we can currently duplicate the (very bad)
| mega lecture format using technology, how much of the
| performance from actual teaching (the purest form of which is
| 1:1 tuition) can be captured using something less resource
| intensive?
| frontman1988 wrote:
| This is indeed the future of education. It is something the
| governments should do now in countries with substandard
| educators. A few superstar rockstar teachers can replace
| millions of average teachers. The offline physical teacher will
| be there to merely solve doubts(and ensure kids are actually
| watching stuff) while the online teacher streams live to
| millions of students. The biggest challenge will be to make the
| experience so immersive that kids can learn online. VR might be
| able to help in this regard.
| maaanu wrote:
| If you think that your description is teaching, you never had
| a teacher or only very lousy ones.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Because there's more to high school than just classes. It's
| important to learn how to deal with people as well. A purely
| virtual high school experience sounds extremely lonely and thin
| for the soul.
| donthellbanme wrote:
| The minute I found out I could work, and go to a Communty
| College, instead of going to high school I thought I won the
| lottery.
|
| Long story short my high school allowed gave credit for
| working, and going to a Communty College.
|
| Once I got to the CC it was relief. My classmates were a lot
| older, but that was great. Their was no BS. I made great
| friends.
|
| I didn't like high school much. I was respected because I was
| a good athlete, but hated high school. I also got a few
| brownie points because I survived a fight with the ultimate
| school bully. I went to the same school that our CA governor
| went to. He was ahead of me, but only graduated because his
| parents helped him out along the way. I could go on, but
| don't have the energy tonight. He is very open about his
| learning difficulties.
|
| O.k. so back to my high school memories. My acne was so bad,
| I just wanted to hide. My hormones were crazy. I remember
| having to get to the school at 7:00 for no reason other than
| listening to some disenfranchised tenure teacher rattle on
| about their gripes in life. The only thing I liked about high
| school was a kind biology teacher, and looking at those cheer
| leaders.
|
| Even at the time, I thought those four years in high school
| could have been condensed to two year if properly
| administrated.
|
| If I had a kid, and they hated high school like myself, I
| would walk them into a CC admissions office.
| gscott wrote:
| So many high schools are dysfuntional I was able to get my
| son into Cc for the last two years of high school. Made a
| huge difference in his life.
| DocTomoe wrote:
| And we all know the best way to learn about how to deal with
| people is putting them in a group of incompatible people in a
| high-stress, prison-like environment. What could possibly go
| wrong?
|
| As long as high schools are facilities that push some people
| to extreme actions I think the 'social education' you would
| get there is too expensive for society as a whole.
| [deleted]
| andrewinardeer wrote:
| I find that your first paragraph is very negative and has
| an insular posture.
|
| Dealing and managing with other people who are incompatible
| with your ethics and morality is an important skill to
| learn. Not only does it help you learn asseriveness and
| diplomacy it also allows one to gain an insight into your
| own personal bias and teaches you how to respond and not
| react. A lot of grown, so called 'adults' still need to
| learn this skill set from my observations in day to day
| life.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Yeah I definitely remember everyone learning to be
| diplomatic in high school. /s
| DocTomoe wrote:
| I love how you bring up diplomacy. It brings up all kinds
| of associations, good old Clausewitz not being the least
| of them when you consider what else happens at schools.
| password54321 wrote:
| In a perfect world that's what school teaches you. What
| gets you through high school in a lot of social
| circumstances is nothing close to any sort of diplomatic
| behaviour or assertiveness. The louder more aggressive
| person usually came out on top. Maybe a lot of people
| here went to some private school where somehow logic,
| analytical ability and being polite is what got you
| through but that certainly doesn't describe where I went
| and can't imagine a public school being this way.
| magpi3 wrote:
| I hear this argument a lot, but lets's ask the question: are
| high schools the best way to learn to "deal with people?" How
| much trauma have high schools inspired and can we do better
| now that we have other options?
| azinman2 wrote:
| No one is shitty like children are. It's part of growing up
| and a great source of bad interactions that teach us about
| the world and ourselves. If the only thing you do in life
| is protect yourself into a perfect atmosphere, the less you
| are prepared for the real world which is unpredictable and
| full of trauma.
| frontman1988 wrote:
| Social learning can happen outside school in sports or other
| hobby related activities. High school is actually quite a
| weird place to learn social skills.
| MrBlueIncognito wrote:
| Not every kid is going to be a part of sports and hobbies
| clubs. A lot of us never had any friends outside of school.
|
| We need some kind of institution to facilitate social
| interactions between children. Till date that has been the
| function of schools.
|
| Moving away from this model, without proper deliberation,
| is sure to cause problems afterwards. And then we'll all
| look back and ask why the world's feeling more isolated
| than ever.
| DeWilde wrote:
| Yes, but the 5-6 hours you spend within a school alongside
| 3-4 hours you can spend on sports and hobbies probably out-
| competes just sports and hobbies.
| nvarsj wrote:
| Learning social skills in high school is more like learning
| how to survive in a prison yard - it couldn't be more far
| removed from adult social skills. I'd say functional, healthy
| high schools are in the tiny minority, and generally are
| private and small.
| irjustin wrote:
| > one super school left
|
| I don't believe so there is huge problems with hybrid/offline
| learning at scale with distractions, social interactions etc
| that cannot be fundamentally solved by Khan Academy.
|
| But having a 'master teacher' is something I definitely welcome
| because my education, like so many others, varied year to year,
| on say math, because of educator quality.
|
| Khan's 'reverse school' is something I wish I could have
| experienced growing up as I think it would personally have
| worked for me.
| vampiretooth1 wrote:
| Turning standard education into something scalable is going to
| be very interesting. We're already seeing this with MOOC and
| all, but when it's a part of a national network that students
| can plug into - I'm excited about the potential here. I like
| the super school idea, gives me the impression of a merit-based
| winner-take-all system
| dodyg wrote:
| > quality education will keep consolidating until there's one
| super school left.
|
| Right, we are all graduated from Harvard here.
| csande17 wrote:
| Online high schools are already a thing; Connections Academy is
| the largest where I live.
|
| I took a few classes there, and from what I remember, the
| primary mode of instruction was a janky early-2000s webapp that
| presented excerpts and quiz questions from a textbook. There
| were teachers and lectures, but a lot of kids didn't show up to
| those, and class sizes were relatively small. (I was frequently
| the only kid who dialed in to the conference call for my French
| conversation class, so I got a lot of one-on-one time with the
| teacher.) Social events like clubs were primarily handled
| through web forums that I didn't spend much time in because I
| wasn't a full-time student at the school.
|
| The marketing copy here makes it sound like Khan World School
| is fundamentally the same model, but hopefully Khan Academy's
| online textbooks are a little less janky.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > why deal with a mediocre local math teacher if you can get
| taught by the best?
|
| Because...you actually can't. Static media (like books and non-
| interactive lectures) scales easily, but that's _not teaching_
| (even if, especially in large lower-division courses, that's
| what university faculty essentially does.)
|
| Human interactivity, which is what teaching fundamentally is,
| _doesn't_ scale, which is why those large lecture classes
| typically also have smaller TA-led "discussion sections" or
| sonething similar. And, in many cases, as well as not scaling,
| it works a lot better in person than remotely.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| To be fair, there are "interactive" teaching methods that
| scale very well. In old-time schools, it was common for a
| single teacher to teach a large number of students, who would
| rote learn a teacher-prepared "lesson" and chant it back
| word-for-word when prompted. Students would similarly be
| introduced to practice in e.g. grammar or math, simply by
| hearing problem questions from the teacher and shouting back
| the right answers. Thus they were prepared for anything that
| might turn up on a later test. This education system could be
| carried forward to quite advanced levels, equivalent to a
| modern high school education or even to some parts of
| community college. Abraham Lincoln was taught in this way,
| and like many other students he had a habit of rehearsing his
| material out loud while going to school and back. It was not
| ineffective, though individual tutoring would've been the
| gold standard even back then.
| [deleted]
| MrBlueIncognito wrote:
| > To be fair, there are "interactive" teaching methods that
| scale very well. In old-time schools, it was common for a
| single teacher to teach a large number of students, who
| would rote learn a teacher-prepared "lesson" and chant it
| back word-for-word when prompted.
|
| > [...]
|
| > It was not ineffective, though individual tutoring
| would've been the gold standard even back then.
|
| Then it doesn't scale very well.
| Claude_Shannon wrote:
| But you don't learn by by attending lectures. You pick up
| book and you do all the exercises, no need for teachers.
| dalbasal wrote:
| I don't think you can usefully define what teaching
| fundamentally is.
|
| _Learning_ is the anchor, not teaching. Teaching is defined
| relative to learning. Anything that enables, delivers,
| structures or otherwise makes learning happen.
|
| For me, classroom teaching was never helpful. I zoned out in
| classes from first class to university (where I just didn't
| attend lectures). I had a little private tutoring in 12th
| class that was very helpful. In college, small group
| tutorials where we reviewed homework problems also worked for
| me. The majority of "teaching" hours were entirely
| irrelevant.
|
| Past very early grades, I would estimate the useless/useful
| ratio of teaching hours at <10%... maybe <5%. I don't think
| my experience is unique.
|
| Anyway, I did benefit from educational structure. Essays,
| exams, teachers nagging. I don't think online-only would have
| worked for me. I needed eyes on me, and parents wouldn't have
| been sufficient.
|
| If I were to design an educational system for child me it
| would have: (1) 0 hours of large class time. (2) 1-2 hours
| per day of intense small group learning. (3) 1-2 hours per
| day of private or semi private tuition. (4) self paced
| learning with a coach encouraging progress.
| andrepd wrote:
| >I had a little private tutoring in 12th class that was
| very helpful. In college, small group tutorials where we
| reviewed homework problems also worked for me.
|
| Isn't this _exactly_ what the person was saying?
| bonoboTP wrote:
| That's what we need. The best resources online from truly
| great teachers, then a discussion session locally with a
| local teacher. Just look below any comment section of a great
| science lecture or course on youtube. Tons of people grateful
| that finally someone explained it in an understandable and
| non-dry way, including the "why" questions, the context, the
| intuition etc. instead of how they were taught by their own
| teacher.
| [deleted]
| Foobar8568 wrote:
| That's already the case today if you are not in a very good
| sector, at least in France and Switzerland.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| so this is specifically for US students only?
|
| also, is this like a permanent school? like you can be registered
| in khan world high school and not be enrolled in any "physical"
| school? do you drop out of your previous/current school? what
| about if you want to join this school as well as your existing
| school?
| sinuhe69 wrote:
| Because the school is an online school in-person presence
| format, I think compatible time zones play an important role,
| too. Even though, I can imagine a flexible organization for
| discussion groups and collaborations.
| petesergeant wrote:
| On the landing page: "Students from around the world"
| Arnavion wrote:
| They may accept students from around the world, but whether
| it counts as a high school for the purpose of continuing on
| to higher education is country-specific, which (I assume) is
| why 2Gkashmiri asked what they did.
|
| Also, based on the About Us page, the requirements for
| submitting an application are quite US-centric ("Student must
| be proficient in Algebra 1", etc). I did not try to fill out
| an actual application to see if they accept other countries'
| alternatives (I assume they do).
| barry-cotter wrote:
| > Tuition for all students does include the opportunity to
| take two university courses per semester and earn college
| credit.
|
| Even the most irritatingly bureaucracy obsessed box ticking
| country, i.e. Germany, would accept a transcript with two
| college courses per semester as a university preparatory
| high school.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| In Germany there's mandatory schooling meaning the
| students have to visit a school in person. Online
| learning or home schooling is illegal for those students.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jan/27/german-
| home-sc...
| searchableguy wrote:
| Many countries do not accept online education as a valid
| form of education.
|
| India doesn't unless the institution is approved by the
| UGC or act of Parliament.
|
| Same story in China.
|
| American credits are also treated very differently
| outside.
| watwut wrote:
| > Even the most irritatingly bureaucracy obsessed box
| ticking country, i.e. Germany, would accept a transcript
| with two college courses per semester as a university
| preparatory high school.
|
| It would not necessary. They want recognized diploma and
| may recognize diploma from this school (and likely there
| is a process you can follow). But, transcript from two
| college courses per semester is the thing that will make
| it on itself.
| aaws11 wrote:
| the accessibility widget in the site is probably the sweetest
| thing I've ever seen on the internet.
| anandchowdhary wrote:
| Actually -- these are not good for accessibility [1] [2] [3]
| [4] [5]. These companies have raised millions in funding on the
| false premise that they make your website accessible. This is
| of course not the case and these companies are currently part
| of large lawsuits.
|
| Source: I built of them [6] many years ago.
| [1] https://adrianroselli.com/2020/06/accessibe-will-get-you-
| sued.html (about this particular one) [2]
| https://silktide.com/blog/accessibility-overlays-dont-work/
| [3] https://level-level.com/blog/accessibility-overlays-common-
| sense-and-nonsense/ [4]
| https://www.accessibility.works/blog/avoid-accessibility-
| overlay-tools-toolbar-plugins/ [5]
| https://www.siteimprove.com/blog/seen-through-the-eyes-of-a-
| blind-user-why-overlays-are-not-the-answer-to-web-
| accessibility/ [6]
| https://oswaldlabs.com/platform/agastya/
| ChicagoDave wrote:
| I swear I just had a dream this morning of partnering with Khan
| Academy on a new free education curriculum that focused on
| variation and deep dives. (I once had a story-based ed-tech
| platform)
|
| Then I wake up to this announcement. (Brain exploding emoji)
|
| This is the way.
| gapovaj742 wrote:
| oh wow, this is going to make things more accessible!
| buggythebug wrote:
| Took enough time....
| aero-glide2 wrote:
| I wish I was born 20 years later.
| kkfx wrote:
| Mh... I'm a big fan of remote in general, mostly because I choose
| to live in a nice place, I have a nice home, nice surroundings
| etc things cannot exists in modern European cities and in cities
| in general BUT for young, people who can't and shouldn't already
| have their own family being together of almost the same age means
| being able to know each others, socialize, better exchange ideas,
| cementing relations etc. ALL those things can't be really done
| remotely.
|
| In schooling terms I suggest the Idriss Aberkane "Liberez votre
| cerveau !" vision where he say a school is like a very rich
| buffet where when you arrive you are told: "you have to eat
| _anything_ in a given time at a certain peace, we know you can
| because we design anything on standard human eating habits, you
| need to conform ". Schools must not be like that, surely their
| main point is giving a certain set of common knowledge on various
| topics to from tomorrow mature Citizens, but aside they are also
| the first step toward the external world outside family. Remain
| inside, watching the world from remote, is just like watching an
| XXX movie instead of actually perform, not at all a good thing.
|
| Once we have our own family, earned enough (well, or being rich
| enough anyway) to have a home, a stable situation than WFH is a
| godsend (unless you can't afford a good home or have family
| issues) but before... We are social animals. If we are able to
| craft a new society where we can have a local social life with
| enough variety of people around of our cohort like at a physical
| school and we can separate the studying part from that... Well,
| ok, I'm interesting in discussing it's design and see if and how
| can work but so far we do not have anything like that. Surely
| except for very remote/rural living humans we normally all have
| neighbors and them are from various age so _someone_ of nearly
| the same age is likely there but that 's typically _far_ from the
| "high school"/"uni" diversity just in mere numbers, if we add in
| personal interests and culture terms...
| TheMagicHorsey wrote:
| As far as I can tell, the failure of schools at online education
| in 2020-21 was because they were trying to use offline methods
| online. That's not how you do online education. Everyone here
| that has been in a zoom meeting knows that.
| petesergeant wrote:
| where price tho?
| jordank wrote:
| "The tuition for full-time students who are Arizona residents
| will be paid for by the state at no cost to families.
|
| Students who live in the US, but outside Arizona, will pay
| $9,900 per year tuition. Students who live outside the US will
| pay $12,900 per year."
| vardhanw wrote:
| That's too high if you are considering students from all over
| the world. Why should it be more for outside US students?
|
| OTOH, this looks promising (though I haven't read his 2012
| book which spells out the 'vision'), and would be great if
| this can provide a framework for a democratized online
| schooling system with the flexibilities and features it
| provides.
| Bedon292 wrote:
| I have also seen Universities in the US to charge higher
| tuition for foreign students. Not entirely sure why. Mostly
| seems like it is because they know they can, and those
| students will pay in full. With no tuition assistance or
| anything like that.
|
| In this case I am wondering if it could be related to
| needing additional staff to cover other time zones? Or
| maybe there are additional administrative paperwork needs
| for those students?
| petesergeant wrote:
| > That's too high if you are considering students from all
| over the world
|
| I think you under-estimate how much fancy schools cost
| worldwide. In Bangkok, for example, a very good British-
| style education will cost you $18k per year at Patana, and
| if you really want to flash your cash you can drop $30k at
| Shrewsbury (British) or $30k at ISB (American).
|
| I grew up as an expat kid, and this would have been a
| reasonable alternative for my parents, with the added bonus
| that I could have stayed with the same peer group and
| curriculum while they moved country. Socialisation would
| have been a bit harder but far from impossible.
|
| > Why should it be more for outside US students?
|
| My guess would be the US subsidises some aspect of this?
| alvah wrote:
| https://asuprep.asu.edu/khan-world-school/about-us/
|
| -The tuition for full-time students who are Arizona residents
| will be paid for by the state at no cost to families.
|
| -Students who live in the US, but outside Arizona, will pay
| $9,900 per year tuition.
|
| -Students who live outside the US will pay $12,900 per year.
|
| -Tuition for all students does include the opportunity to take
| two university courses per semester and earn college credit.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Seems like a lot for online courses. You can do an in-person
| course for that money.
|
| On the other hand I think it is competitive with e.g. The
| Open University though who also charge the same fees as
| normal unis.
| Bedon292 wrote:
| Putting the FAQ under About Us definitely confused me a bit.
| I totally missed where the Tuition was and ended up out at
| ASU Prep which has slightly lower Tuition.
| frankfrankfrank wrote:
| I realize this community is extremely biased as it relates to
| this announcement, however, this looks like yet another
| unnecessary funneling and pipeline to force everyone into the
| exorbitant and group-think conditioning college system.
|
| If they want to have an impact, focus on education for vocational
| and blue collar employment; from agricultural workers to general
| laborers and small business owners. Americas needs more people
| who can actually accomplish things, not spilled university
| students that are profit centers for universities that take all
| the profit and ensnare dim witted children into debt slavery at
| the public's expense.
|
| And seriously, ASU? Not LSU or FSU while they're at it? Just
| alone the choice of university says something about the
| orientation, focus, and purpose of this effort.
| dalbasal wrote:
| Online learning resources are amazing. Compared to pre-internet,
| the depth, quality and accessibility is amazing. It really does
| open an opportunity route for a lot of people.
|
| However...
|
| Institutional learning, whether it's K-12, colleges, techs or
| whatnot have barely changed. The same fundamental dynamics exist,
| whether it's tertiary sorting and prestige or primary teaching
| methods. Education still serves and fails the same groups of
| people as it did before, in much the same way.
|
| Education is an enormous "industry." It's in the same realm as
| defense, energy or transport. Possibly even more important.
|
| I really hope to see online resources develop in such a way that
| schools can be built around them. A formula that a middle school
| principal anywhere, no matter how rural and remote, can
| implement. Why can't we have the best of both worlds?
|
| The classroom model didn't work well for me as a student. I don't
| think remote-only would have worked either.
| vosper wrote:
| > I really hope to see online resources develop in such a way
| that schools can be built around them.
|
| You might be interested to know that Salman Khan has built a
| physical school
|
| https://www.khanlabschool.org/about/about-kls
| dalbasal wrote:
| This is interesting, but I was somewhat disappointed by the
| website.
|
| They call it a "lab school." I was hoping that meant
| developing a model which other schools can follow. No shade
| to Sal, obviously. He does plenty, and does it well.
| unixhero wrote:
| Better than no website!
| dalbasal wrote:
| I meant disappointed by the content of the website.
| MrBlueIncognito wrote:
| Agreed. What we might need is a mix of online resources for
| teaching with offline schools for other aspects of child
| psychological development.
| codingdave wrote:
| > It's in the same realm as defense, energy or transport.
|
| There is one important difference - almost all the school
| district leadership I have talked to supports change. They are
| held back not because they want to stick to the status quo, but
| because the funding model is driven by test scores, so the
| curriculum needs to follow the testing. That is what holds back
| innovation.
|
| This effort by Khan and ASU bypasses that problem by not being
| free. Tuition is $9900 per year for students outside of
| Arizona. You have much more flexibility to innovate when you
| have non-federal funding.
| dalbasal wrote:
| >> They are held ... because the funding model is driven by
| test scores, so the curriculum needs to follow the testing
|
| There are many, many educational metastructures large and
| small around the world. Public, private, religious, regional,
| national, etc. By an large, the status quo persists much more
| widely than some specific incentive or funding structure.
| That doesn't mean test scores are good. It does mean that
| replacing the test score system will not, in itself, change
| much.
| panick21_ wrote:
| I always liked the Khan model where you do the theory at home
| and in school you do the work on online platform.
|
| The teacher can focus on helping the people who need help, or
| ask a more advanced student to help out the struggling student.
|
| The also allows that in school you could do more interesting
| stuff then just the teacher giving the same boring lectures
| over and over.
|
| For me, I would have blown down the math part of the whole
| thing like 3 years early and would have had so much more time
| on French. Not that I would have enjoyed that but still.
| aaron695 wrote:
| nebula8804 wrote:
| I am not too sure about accessibility of all subjects. More
| esoteric information is still locked away deep in forums,
| youtube videos, or maybe paid online classes. For example a few
| years back I quit my job and spent two years slogging through
| trying to learn ruby and ruby on rails. There are countless
| tutorials and videos detailing how to get simple stuff going
| but more advanced stuff seemed to only be available if you end
| up in a Rails shop and learn hands on with experienced
| developers. All the interviews would catch me off guard asking
| about more intermediate ways of writing code in the "Ruby way".
| As someone who wrote Java, if the logic seems right to me, how
| would I know if I am doing it the "ruby way"? Same goes for
| Rails(things like active support are not covered by many
| learning locations).
|
| This also bit me yesterday in a completely different fashion. I
| was attempting to replace the battery of an iPod Nano 3rd
| generation. This device is notorious for being very fragile to
| disassemble and repair. I managed to solder in the battery
| connectors only to start seeing the board heat up immensely. In
| removing the wires I burned one of the vias. Now I spent hours
| looking for a schematic or some info explaining what each via
| was for. I had to resort to looking up various youtube videos
| and asking on discord...no dice.
|
| There is something special of having a structured curriculum
| that is trialed and tested so that you can go from a to b. I
| don't know if Khan Academy is that but local school curricula
| may be still relevant because of this.
| gsatic wrote:
| Online resources are not very different than having access to
| good libraries.
|
| Great libraries have existed for thousands of years but you
| won't find examples, anywhere in the world, where kids are just
| left at the library to learn.
|
| One of the fundamental aspects of learning is practice.
| Teachers/coaches/guides and mentors play a big role in keeping
| kids on track. It's not just about the best quality content. Or
| getting them interested. It's about keeping ppl on track when
| the repetition and practice gets boring. This is easy to do
| with small groups.
|
| But very hard as group size increases which is why I don't have
| too much faith in the online model.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| > Online resources are not very different than having access
| to good libraries.
|
| When I was 10 or 11, I was trying to use some operating
| system call on my Acorn Electron. The manual said one of the
| parameters had to be supplied using "two's complement". I had
| no idea what that was, and no idea how I might find a good
| explanation in the local library.
|
| Today, a kid could find a great explanation in 2 mins,
| without walking to the library.
| visarga wrote:
| > It's about keeping ppl on track when the repetition and
| practice gets boring.
|
| That's the missing ingredient for online learning. I think
| being part of a class, having friends there, and not wanting
| to be left behind plays a huge role.
| Bedon292 wrote:
| But the inverse can also be true. When you don't have
| friends there, and are already ahead of most of the class
| you have no motivation or incentive to keep going.
| WinstonSmith84 wrote:
| Maybe. But I feel like I wasted so much time when I was at
| school, playing around with others, not motivated to learn
| (but I did), sometimes feeling behind on some topics while
| feeling bored/ahead on others. We were all envious of
| having rather A than F, or stressed when we underperformed,
| but being "cool" was not about having the best grade. And
| being cool was part of the "culture" - totally pointless in
| retrospective. I don't know if online schooling might have
| been better but clearly when thinking about it, on site
| schooling has been filled with a lot of inefficiencies that
| maybe online schooling is doing better. I guess at least
| that parents have to be behind in order to "coach".
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| > Online resources are not very different than having access
| to good libraries.
|
| The guidance is the biggest differance. When you have
| limitless resources to learn from its hard to know where, and
| more importantly, and why to focus your attention.
|
| Online resources typically give you a very clear path and
| often a clear why something is important to learn.
| dalbasal wrote:
| They're not _fundamentally_ different, but I don 't think
| fundamentals matter here.
|
| The mobile internet of 2022 is not very different, in
| principle, to the 2000 internet. But it is much more
| available and accessible to many more people. That means it
| has very different consequences.
|
| So yes, as good Will Hunting said, you could get an ivy
| league education at a library. Some kids (and adults) did.
| Online resources make that pool of people much bigger.
|
| I agree though that access to an online school is not a
| substitute for school. Most kids still need structure,
| coaching, support and peers. That said, it's still really
| important to have libraries, and that's what Khan is doing
| here. This is commendable.
| Kosirich wrote:
| In my mind a "better high school of tomorrow" would be the one
| that utilizes the best available classes and material available
| online in a physical class room environment, except for classes
| that are unique to the national curriculum. So a school would
| have people employed in some new role of mentor/teacher with whom
| you take the classes online with help and guidance.
|
| What would be the stoppers from implementation of this that are
| not bureaucracy and rent seeking by existing structures... or
| just pride?
| sinuhe69 wrote:
| Yep, it calls blended learning and already
| implemented/practiced in many schools.
| https://study.com/academy/popular/top-50-blended-learning-hi...
| amitport wrote:
| Students! Many of them actually want and need to sit in a
| classroom and have someone teach (!) them.
|
| Having a shared syllabus is not really the problem.
|
| (I am teaching... I wish more people would actually study
| independently and I could just mentor them, but in my
| experience this isn't the case for many students. You may claim
| it's a matter of habits and education but that's not
| bureaucracy)
| Kosirich wrote:
| Thanks for the reply. Let me start of by saying that I'm
| aware that a good portion of students will require a more
| direct approach the same way they will require "parental"
| oversight for homework. Perhaps I should have restricted the
| question to the kids/students who have enough
| discipline/drive/habits for more self-study oriented
| education.
| frontman1988 wrote:
| Virtual learning will cause massive unemployment among teachers
| given a virtual teacher can replace the millions of chalk and
| board teachers. So there's that big lobby who will always
| oppose such digitalization. Secondly online education is not
| that good right now. Kids with tiktok attention spans haven't
| really been thriving in online schools during covid.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| One-on-one tutoring with a mastery-learning approach can
| raise educational outcomes by two sigma compared to mass
| lecturing with no differentiation. There will always be
| plenty of work for good teachers.
| agent008t wrote:
| I think a competitive, decentralized system is the way to go.
|
| Basically, you would have independently set and assessed
| requirements. In the case of universities, it would be
| admission requirements, that the universities set and
| independently assess. Students, that want to get to these
| universities, then use any resource available to them to learn
| to those requirements. This could be through a mix of online
| and offline classes, remote learning, evening classes, day
| school, textbooks, tutors etc. "Official" high school is de-
| emphasized in this scheme, as there is no way it can provide
| the right thing for everyone. Nobody should be punished for
| school absences for pursuing their (academic) interests.
|
| Schools should also do all they can to emphasize academics and
| de-emphasize sports, to counter-balance the natural tendencies
| of teenagers.
| MrBlueIncognito wrote:
| > Schools should also do all they can to emphasize academics
| and de-emphasize sports, to counter-balance the natural
| tendencies of teenagers.
|
| You are over-generalizing. This "natural tendency" does not
| apply to good portion of teenagers, they are all very
| different.
|
| More importantly, if they show an inclination towards sports,
| then why must we nudge them away from that? Is there
| something fundamentally wrong about teenagers engaging in
| sports?
| maccard wrote:
| > except for classes that are unique to the national curriculum
|
| Curious where you draw the line on this one? At high school age
| _most_ subjects are unique to the local area. <insert language
| here> literature classes would likely focus on more local
| authors; when I studied english lit in ireland 15 years ago our
| focus was on Irish authors. You would expect UK based students
| to study English/scottish/welsh authors, and americans to study
| american authors. My middle school and equivalent geography
| classes were predominantly talking about globally applicable
| topics but with more local examples.
| spupe wrote:
| In some places, remote learning can be far superior to locally
| available education. I love the Khan Academy and I hope they are
| successful in this project too.
| k__ wrote:
| Also, in some situations.
|
| I know a social worker who said, there were problematic kids
| that started "going" to school in the pandemic because it was
| now from home.
| jonshariat wrote:
| I'm surprised I had to go so far down in the comments to see
| this pointed out.
|
| This is an international venture. There are lots of places in
| the world where no high school education is offered but an
| internet connection is, or like you said this offering is
| better.
|
| Online learning is very different and we haven't had many years
| of experience to perfect it yet. My guess is we will see its
| effectiveness grow for a few more decades as the nuances get
| figured out.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| There's definitely a market for it. I recently learned about
| expatschool(dot)io, which does the same thing and targets expat
| kids. Their concept is interesting, they don't give grades,
| it's similar to Montessori education but they claim to have a
| strong math/science focus for students who want to go that way.
|
| Imo online learning should always be a last resort though. The
| socializing aspect is important, having kids grow up in from of
| a computer screen without being able to fool around with their
| friends and explore the physical world around them seems sad.
| fullshark wrote:
| I read Kahn's book: "The One World School House." I was not a fan
| of his vision of basically all education being run by a single
| technology platform, with teachers serving as localized
| technicians/tutors helping students interface with that
| technology. This seems like an attempt to make that a reality. I
| get that this may be better than alternatives for some people,
| but what I saw during the pandemic basically did little to make
| me doubt my position.
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