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Why Education Startups Do Not Succeed (2011)

avichal.com

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Re: Why Education Startups Do Not Succeed (2011)

#61

Post by jacobolus »

analog31 wrote: post #53

I've told this story before: Back when I was in college, I had a summer internship at a place that was a service center for the K-12 schools in a large county. Microcomputers were the big new thing. We had a facility with one of each kind of computer (Commodore, Apple, Radio Shack, etc.) and all the software we could lay their hands on. Teachers could come in and try things out. My impression was that the "educationa…

There exists interesting interactive technical software (not just glorified flash cards). For instance I can remember playing some puzzle game about optics circa 2000, and another about mechanical devices. I’ve never heard of such software being used in a math class though.

The one bit of very nice software that does get used some places is interactive constructive geometry tools like Geometer’s Sketchpad (1995), Geogebra, or the like, though we didn’t know about those in my high school geometry class (also circa 2000).

Re: Why Education Startups Do Not Succeed (2011)

#63

Post by [deleted] »

azinman2 wrote: post #17
orb_yt wrote: post #14

I understand this article is a bit outdated, but companies like Duolingo or Clever seem to prove a few of the author's arguments wrong. One would think there would be a market for Duolingo style apps for other subjects, such as mathematics, where the user is simply charged on a subscription bases. Could such a business not survive?

People want/need to learn another language for a very wide variety of reasons. While it is “teaching,” it’s also squarely in its own domain. I’m not sure they’d have an easy time transitioning to Duolingo for math. While I don’t have their demo stats, language learning often extends well into adulthood... many corporations will pay for employees to learn a new language, and English schools are popular world-wide. Not…

[deleted]

Re: Why Education Startups Do Not Succeed (2011)

#64

Post by jacobolus »

geebee wrote: post #58
analog31 wrote: post #53

I've told this story before: Back when I was in college, I had a summer internship at a place that was a service center for the K-12 schools in a large county. Microcomputers were the big new thing. We had a facility with one of each kind of computer (Commodore, Apple, Radio Shack, etc.) and all the software we could lay their hands on. Teachers could come in and try things out. My impression was that the "educationa…

Part of the problem is that programming is supposed to be "fun", as in "fun and games", not as in a serious topic that you enjoy so much you call it fun. This is why a lot of programming is taught through graphical games. I'm not knocking Minecraft style programming lessons, they can be very motivational and build up programming skills and thought processes. Unfortunately, I'm not that kind of programmer. I'm more th…

Zoombinis (1996) was neat to play through with the first 2–5 loads of Zoombinis, maybe a few hours of gameplay, but the puzzles topped out at a very easy level, so continuing to play the game to get more of the little creatures to their destination (out of a possible 40 trips or something) quickly became a time-wasting grind.

I think kids would ultimately have more fun with one or more Smullyan books.

Re: Why Education Startups Do Not Succeed (2011)

#65

Post by azinman2 »

orb_yt wrote: post #37
azinman2 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People want/need to learn another language for a very wide variety of reasons. While it is “teaching,” it’s also squarely in its own domain. I’m not sure they’d have an easy time transitioning to Duolingo for math. While I don’t have their demo stats, language learning often extends well into adulthood... many corporations will pay for employees to learn a new language, and English schools are popular world-wide. Not…

I do think that the overwhelming majority of Duolingo users are likely learning on their own volition, rather than for their job. > While it is “teaching,” it’s also squarely in its own domain Could this idea simply be because, for the most part, language learning applications have been the most successful? Other than Khan Academy, which is mostly videos, i've never heard of another company building similar products…

Language is pretty unique. You can be interested in, marry into, befriend, worship in, born from, work in, read in, watch in, move to, befriend, and be moved to a new language.

As humanity requires language, learning a new one can happen at any stage of life. Rarely do people spend casual time learning what is typically taught in youth. Yes there are always people interested in TED talks but that’s effectively TV. Yes people go back to school but that’s focused structured time. Language is better if learned interactively, in both casual and formal settings. I can read a history book and feel accomplished. Reading a French textbook without application won’t work as well. Language requires active learning, where as many other subjects do not. Language apps such as duolingo are well suited accordingly (even better would be a really great conversational bot that could help you better pronounce your words).

I’m not saying there aren’t other markets, but I am positing it’s def not evenly distributed across subject matter.

Re: Why Education Startups Do Not Succeed (2011)

#66

Post by jadbox »

mikekchar wrote: post #55
rahimnathwani wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"1:1 tutoring is the gold standard for educational outcomes." Is it? I'd be interested to see some data to support or refute this. I'd always assumed that students benefit somewhat from other students being around (due to observing how others learn, being pushed to be better etc.), so perhaps the ideal ratio would be in the 1:2 to 1:4 range. If people have really figured out that 1:1 is better than 1:2, 1:3 and 1:4,…

I worked in a high school for 5 years teaching English as a foreign language. I was not a great teacher because being a teacher is really hard, but I learned a lot in those 5 years. I will let you in on a secret. Education is not what the teacher does: it's what the student does. Most people think that the job of a teacher is to organise information and explain it to students to make it "easy to understand". This is…

I feel good online classes fit this scenario. Often all the material required for the course is presented and allows students to work at their own pace. Homework/papers are due every week to allow teachers to understand if students are learning the material properly. If not, the teachers will spend time with those students via video conference and other means to sheppard their performance. Of course, I've taken several bad online courses too where the teachers simply do not interact with students hardly at all.

Re: Why Education Startups Do Not Succeed (2011)

#67

Post by smallnamespace »

mikekchar wrote: post #55
rahimnathwani wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"1:1 tutoring is the gold standard for educational outcomes." Is it? I'd be interested to see some data to support or refute this. I'd always assumed that students benefit somewhat from other students being around (due to observing how others learn, being pushed to be better etc.), so perhaps the ideal ratio would be in the 1:2 to 1:4 range. If people have really figured out that 1:1 is better than 1:2, 1:3 and 1:4,…

I worked in a high school for 5 years teaching English as a foreign language. I was not a great teacher because being a teacher is really hard, but I learned a lot in those 5 years. I will let you in on a secret. Education is not what the teacher does: it's what the student does. Most people think that the job of a teacher is to organise information and explain it to students to make it "easy to understand". This is…

My first day with my new violin teacher, he asked me who my teacher was. I gave the normal answer, and he said 'Wrong! You are your own teacher. I am just here to help you teach yourself.' Have never forgotten those words.

We need teachers who will enable their students to learn for themselves. Only then can the teacher no longer be the bottleneck.

Re: Why Education Startups Do Not Succeed (2011)

#68

Post by jamesrcole »

avichal wrote: post #15

Ah yes, the annual resurfacing of this blog post :) unfortunately I think most of it is still true. I should do a follow up... Edit: I'll address the comments/thoughts here in a follow up blog post. Glad to see so many people thinking about this space. It's a great thing for the world to have entrepreneurs building here.

"The underlying culture will change and expose interesting opportunities in the long term, but probably not for another 5 years."

Given those 5 years have now passed, what's your assessement of the situation now?

Re: Why Education Startups Do Not Succeed (2011)

#69

Post by thelock85 »

Lots of solution-focused dialogue here but from my experience, I've come to believe that education startups fail because the education marketplace is actually a loose confederation of communities and consumer preferences are more akin to individual values and beliefs. This makes it really difficult to market evidence-based solutions or scale your sales strategy.

Re: Why Education Startups Do Not Succeed (2011)

#70

Post by smallnamespace »

Couple of other causes:

- It's very hard to measure to value add of education; people have spent lives working on this

- Only half the value of educational institutions comes from educating people; the other half comes from the credentialing where they pick out the 'brighter' individuals, but measuring how much a credential is worth is almost impossible for most individuals

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