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Ask HN: How do we build the new remote education system

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Re: Ask HN: How do we build the new remote education system

#31

Post by gibspaulding »

bachmeier wrote: post #23
impendia wrote: post #13

I'm a professor at a US university. The honest answer (at least at the university level) -- probably we don't. From what I can tell, there's very little enthusiasm for online education, on the part of either professors or students. Pretty much everyone is eager to get back to normal, and I'm fairly confident that this is exactly what is going to happen. For a dissenting perpsective, read Joshua Kim's columns at Insid…

US university professor too. I agree with this: > Pretty much everyone is eager to get back to normal, and I'm fairly confident that this is exactly what is going to happen. There's no substitute for in-person education. For years, I heard from the online education cheerleaders that online can be better. Online can be a quality experience, but you can't build the same relationships, develop the same comfort with aski…

> These options aren't university classes. They're the next generation of textbooks.

Totally off topic, but if students were already paying $300 for a paper calculus book, I shudder to think of the extortion we'll see over the virtual, multimedia,cloud-optimized, probably-built-in-Adobe-Flash monstrosity that will be the "next generation of textbooks".

Re: Ask HN: How do we build the new remote education system

#32

Post by ahelwer »

Unfortunately I think good remote learning classes are only possible with a lot of resources invested in production. Think interactive visualizations, animations, excellent audio & video quality, etc. Almost no teachers have the skills necessary to create things in the same ballpark as 3blue1brown, for example - and that needs to be table stakes. Sticking a teacher in front of a laptop connected to a zoom meeting is a recipe for failure. This also requires money invested in student setups. Every student should have access to a good quality screen, headphones, microphone, webcam, and digitizer for freeform diagram input. Anything less than this will be strictly inferior to in-person teaching, no matter what.

Re: Ask HN: How do we build the new remote education system

#33

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #18

I was a homeschooling parent for some years. The world would probably do well to look to what homeschoolers know about educating children at home rather than trying to replicate classroom schooling via computer connection. I was also Director of Community Life for The TAG Project for a little while. So I joined email lists that supported homeschoolers and discussed this stuff with experts, etc. Public school is about…

Teaching kids at home is not remote schooling. Remote means the instructor is not in the same room as the student. Homeschooling implies the instructor is present in the room, probably in a 1:2 teacher/student ratio. Even if you are using online materials, you are actively there to guide your child through the material.

Re: Ask HN: How do we build the new remote education system

#34

Post by stareatgoats »

impendia wrote: post #13

I'm a professor at a US university. The honest answer (at least at the university level) -- probably we don't. From what I can tell, there's very little enthusiasm for online education, on the part of either professors or students. Pretty much everyone is eager to get back to normal, and I'm fairly confident that this is exactly what is going to happen. For a dissenting perpsective, read Joshua Kim's columns at Insid…

There is a substantial amount of inertia in the educational system: knowhow, routines, supporting systems, teachers and professors that have been tailormade for the brick-and-mortar type of educational systems that have been the norm since the beginning of the last century, or earlier.

This inertia naturally causes some friction against the trajectory towards remote education- but not yet to the level of putting up a fight. But expect this conflict deepen just as it has with news media, as the financial foundation of traditional educational systems slowly erodes in favor of the (coming) much more flexible and cheaper online systems.

Re: Ask HN: How do we build the new remote education system

#35

Post by slykar »

bachmeier wrote: post #25
slykar wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coming from a different country I don't really know why remote is not the default option. Listening to a professor speaking to himself from a distance of 10 meters is an awful experience compared to a video recording that you can stop/rewind. Heck, you can even take some proper notes that you will actually understand! For labs it's not like you get any help either. You just have to follow some instructions point by p…

You need to find a new university. If your courses are "Listening to a professor speaking to himself from a distance of 10 meters" then your professor is incompetent or lazy.

> You need to find a new university

Chances are you will have a similar experience. I'm not speaking about a single professor. I'm speaking about 9 out of 10. I'm not blaming professors tough.

My friends have similar experience at other universities in Poland. Friends who went to German universities have a completely different experience. They actually use some LMS, provide online recordings of the classes and spend 1/3rd of the time at university.

Re: Ask HN: How do we build the new remote education system

#36

Post by bshimmin »

joshmlewis wrote: post #10

One would think teaching 20 5-year olds online would be an insurmountable task but it's actually been my wife's best year teaching after 6 years of in person teaching at one of the best schools in the county. The parents have been extraordinarily nice and have gone out of their way to share gratitude and one family even sent a bottle of wine. She went from in person teaching kindergarten last year to doing the distri…

There was a learning curve at first but now most of the students are able to login to their correct classes at the right times which blows me away. The fact 5-year olds are able to more or less keep their own schedule and do assignments on their Chromebook should not be a surprise I guess but it still blows my mind.

I don't want to doubt you, but... really? My experience of 5-year-olds is they don't have any meaningful concept of time at all; surely the parents must be plonking them in front of the computers at the right time and nagging them to complete their assignments, right?

It sounds like your wife is doing a fantastic job!

Re: Ask HN: How do we build the new remote education system

#37

Post by kerrsclyde »

My children are 16, 15, 14. They are all currently homeschooling in UK lockdown number 3.

All of their lessons are delivered via video (Google Classrooms). The quality of learning seems low, they seem unengaged and only respond to teacher when absolutely forced to. As a parent all I really do is IT support and discourage distraction (put your phone down etc).

In UK lockdown 1 in March there was no video learning. Tasks were emailed the day before. As a family we sat together round the kitchen table worked together. Questions they didn't understand were explained (my wife is a teacher) or googled. They put in about 4hrs each day and the learning experience seemed so much better, even though it took more effort from us as parents.

I don't really have any answers other than online learning for teenagers doesn't replace good teacher lead distraction free instruction in the classroom.

Re: Ask HN: How do we build the new remote education system

#38

Post by garyrichardson »

I’m in Vancouver. We haven’t closed our schools at this point so my perspective is of how we move forward and not fixing what’s broken with those locked down today. I’m more thinking at the grade school level.

My kids have started exploring outschool.com. I’m impressed with what I see. They can follow paths that interest them at their own pace with interactions in small groups with teachers. Combine this with regular school and the quality YouTube content and I think all the pieces exist. Maybe the final piece is a syllabus as a service?

Re: Ask HN: How do we build the new remote education system

#39

Post by TameAntelope »

Two questions:

1. What are the educational invariants? I would worry that someone trying to disrupt the education space would try too many new things, and lose the basics along the way, so I’d want to know what the fixed behaviors needs to be.

2. How did gamification go? It was very popular there for a second, but nobody is reaching for it on the shelf now. Why is that?

Re: Ask HN: How do we build the new remote education system

#40

Post by DoreenMichele »

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #33
DoreenMichele wrote: post #18

I was a homeschooling parent for some years. The world would probably do well to look to what homeschoolers know about educating children at home rather than trying to replicate classroom schooling via computer connection. I was also Director of Community Life for The TAG Project for a little while. So I joined email lists that supported homeschoolers and discussed this stuff with experts, etc. Public school is about…

Teaching kids at home is not remote schooling. Remote means the instructor is not in the same room as the student. Homeschooling implies the instructor is present in the room, probably in a 1:2 teacher/student ratio. Even if you are using online materials, you are actively there to guide your child through the material.

Yeah, I know. I've taken remote college classes. I'm familiar with the concept.

Have you actually homeschooled? A lot of homeschooling parents don't actively guide their kids through anything.

I used to have a page of education quotes, which included ideas like "The ability to learn is older and more common than the ability to teach" and "Education should be the lighting of a fire, not the filling of a pale."

I surveyed everything in the house -- books, games, TV shows, etc -- decided which should be counted as educational and which shouldn't and for what subjects and my kids mostly did various activities independently. I only actively worked with them when they had problems with something because they have learning disabilities.

I actually spent more time working with my kids on their homework when they were in public school plus taking them to school, attending parent-teacher conferences, etc than homeschooling took.

My oldest son tested at the senior in college level for at least one subject on a placement test at age 11. One of my rules was "If you are above grade level in the subject, you get to do whatever the heck interests you."

My kids are twice exceptional. This is probably the hardest educational profile to try to effectively educate.

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