Ask HN: How do we build the new remote education system • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by lambda_obrien » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 6:30 PM UTC

bitstan wrote: post #122

randomsearch wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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! Ok. That's a win for remote. Now my turn: how easy is it to gauge the mood of your entire class, turn to the person next to you and whisper a question or look at their notes? Go for coffee…

I think when VR technology improves a bit more it'll be the superior learning experience. Imagine learning history interactively. Don't just read about Julius Caesar being stabbed, why not stab him yourself? You could explore physics in a sandbox environment. Learn geography by going there. Practice theater by performing. Grabbing a cup of coffee is fun but so is hopping into a game of virtual paintball.

I personally know 3 people who get pretty ill from VR, so that's not an option for everyone.

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

#152

Post by tenacious_tuna » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 6:30 PM UTC

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #134

tenacious_tuna wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinking on this more: There's a high level of self-direction required of students in a flipped classroom model, and by my experience in the US public school system, the kids who're already doing well will do just fine in a flipped (or otherwise self-directed) model, but the at-risk kids are the ones who would need more attention--just like in the classroom.

So I'm friends with one college student, and she hates flipped classrooms. It's not because she's irresponsible, either. (This is college, not high school.) She feels like it takes more time and she gets less out of it. It really doesn't work for her. So I think that > the kids who're already doing well will do just fine in a flipped (or otherwise self-directed) model is not true in all cases. I suspect she's not the…

Ahh, that's very fair as well. I guess the underlying issue is, of course, different people learn differently, and we shouldn't have a one-size-fits-all solution... even though that's what we're driven to: efficient-in-terms-of-quantity systems to churn through large piles of students with minimally enforced expectations of the quality of received instruction.

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

#153

Post by godot » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 6:34 PM UTC

slykar wrote: post #14

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…

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…

I went to a University of California some 15-20 years ago for undergrad and none of your 4 points are true in my experience.

> 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.

It's not an awful experience, in fact, you can often ask questions during or after lectures. It also has the benefit of being similar to the stage of life you just came from (high school, for most students), so you're not switching to a different mode of learning.

> For labs it's not like you get any help either. You just have to follow some instructions point by point and if you do not understand something, tough luck, the professor has already moved to the next exercise.

All labs sessions I've had always had a TA present. I've gotten countless help from the TAs during lab sessions. The only times they're not there is if you start early or stay late and they've left. TAs also lead discussion sections. In general they are a huge help and it's their job to help students because a professor can't always be there.

> The worst part is that you have to spend 6-8 hours a day, 5 days a week like this and then you still need to find online materials to actually learn the thing. Some people have to work too.

This is simply false. I was a full time student and took a full 15+ units per quarter (which is more than average) and it was barely 2-3 hours of lecture a day on average over 5 days, plus ~1 hour of discussion section per day on average. Most of the rest of time is intended to be for homeworks, studying, lab sessions, etc.

Maybe I'm too old and times were different, but we've never had to find online materials to accompany anything we learned over classes, in all of my classes (computer science or others). Everything we needed was included in textbooks, notes from the professor, or discussed in lectures/classes. Also, I know I might be of the minority opinion here, but I actually did find much of the knowledge from computer science classes helpful for future work (been a software engineer for 15 yerars now).

> Did I mention 2 hours of commute time every day?

I don't know what it's like outside the US, but in the US it's common for students graduating high school and going to college to leave their hometown and rent an apartment in their new college town. Commutes are typically under 15 minutes by bike/walk/bus in my college town. You could live literally in any part of that (small) city and be within 15 minutes from campus one way or another.

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

#154

Post by tenacious_tuna » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 6:34 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #135

tenacious_tuna wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm personally appalled that instead of leaning hard into a "flipped classroom model" by having kids watch (or read!) lectures on material on their own, and then working in small groups with their teacher, the US public school system has instead doubled-down on just retrofitting the classroom environment into remote hell. As a developer it's difficult enough trying to remain engaged on any remote meeting with more th…

> "flipped classroom model" by having kids watch (or read!) lectures on material on their own Pretty much all classes before college I had were mixture of in-class exercises and teacher explaining things. It is not like teachers in high school would talk for an hour straight and then sent us home with homework. Plus, people asked questions or teacher prompted people to answer teachers questions. That does not really…

> no consequences

Wouldn't the consequences be doing poorly on future assessments, or otherwise other visible ways of not understanding the material?

The frustrating thing for me as a student was always either (a) when I understood the topic and was bored out of my mind sitting through explanations of it or (b) when I didn't understand the material, and was trying to, but the other students in the class/room who did understand and were bored were distracting or otherwise soaking up the instructor's attention.

In my imagination there's some flavor of system where students can opt-in to exactly as much hands-on instruction as they want for a particular subject... but that does assume "good faith" on part of the students, and that they're motivated to be engaged.

Probably too utopian, but still.

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

#155

Post by sdevonoes » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 6:38 PM UTC

slykar wrote: post #14

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…

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…

I kind of agree. Among all the professors I had when I did my bachelor, perhaps one or two were worth listening to in person (because you could interrupt them and ask questions if needed. They really knew their subjects and were good communicators). All the knowledge the other professors were broadcasting was vastly inferior in comparision to reading the top two books (from cover to cover) for their given lecture.

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

#156

Post by dash2 » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 6:41 PM UTC

kayodelycaon wrote: post #58

onion2k wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For labs it's not like you get any help either. You just have to follow some instructions point by point and if you do not understand something, tough luck, the professor has already moved to the next exercise. People shouldn't just accept this sort of thing as normal. You're paying (in the US or UK anyway) a lot of money for a degree level education. That means it needs to be fit for purpose, and if you're not learn…

> You need to stop the lecturer and ask them to go over the point you didn't understand, or ask for additional time after the lab, or at a push, make a complaint to the course leader that the lecturer isn't teaching you well enough. I foresee this strategy ending badly for a number of professors I've had.

Professor here. Any professor that punishes you for asking for stuff/asking for time is not doing their job and you should feel happy to complain about them. Ditto if they bawl you out or make you feel bad. Don't tolerate it.

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

#157

Post by ska » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 6:45 PM UTC

slykar wrote: post #14

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…

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…

For what it's worth, your experience is not universal.

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

#158

Post by jasonjayr » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 6:45 PM UTC

randomsearch wrote: post #87

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…

> 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! Ok. That's a win for remote. Now my turn: how easy is it to gauge the mood of your entire class, turn to the person next to you and whisper a question or look at their notes? Go for coffee…

I've heard accounts of conferences where the attendees ad-hoc setup a collaborate editing environment while the presentation was going on with the facility wifi, and organized notes, formed questions and generally improved the quality of the interaction with the group. IMHO this goes a long away to replacing the "peer to peer" interaction when you're in the audience, and has a potential to engage the learners more.

I imagine K-12 Remote learning is hesitant to do that so as to not lose control of the messaging. The teacher has enough burden to make sure their lesson is communicated effectively; that moderating a realtime chat is just not possible.

From my own anecdotal experience with my kids, I have one is super hesitant to stick their neck out and participate where the whole group can see (either on video, or embarrassed for asking too many questions), where this model might bring more anxiety.

This is frustratingly not an easy problem to solve.

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

#159

Post by noobly » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 6:48 PM UTC

randomsearch wrote: post #87

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…

> 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! Ok. That's a win for remote. Now my turn: how easy is it to gauge the mood of your entire class, turn to the person next to you and whisper a question or look at their notes? Go for coffee…

What I would want, and what makes sense to me, is a system that uses online material and lectures in conjunction with an in person, immersive physical meeting place where questions may be asked and problems worked through or tips given. I think that's the best of both worlds and utilizes the low-latency environment of a classroom best, while still capturing the in-person benefits you mentioned.

Unfortunately, class time is generally largely spent observing lecture, and the real meat of the learning is generally spent alone in a high latency environment (with feedback available via email or forums). I don't like going to class just to watch a video, and going home just to do problems out of a book (by myself), and that has been my experience so far.

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

#160

Post by NationalPark » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

TuringNYC wrote: post #56

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…

>> 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. This isnt surprising -- you are probably polling people inside the system -- what about the many more people who cant join the system? I'll bet they have a very different opinion. Th…

Aren't the people inside the system the ones you should be listening to most? You talk about surivivorship bias in university students, but I think it's a lot more likely that the survivorship bias is really, "people who value education". That is, the people currently in traditional university are by and large the majority of the people in whatever hypothetical online next-gen education system you're imagining.

I think it's really unlikely there are a whole lot of geniuses for whom school, "just doesn't work". I've met a lot of people who think of themselves like this, and honestly, they're usually just stupid or lazy. High achievers figure out ways to take advantage of the systems that are in place, they don't admit defeat and blame "the system" for their failure.