You should read Imposters in the Temple by Martin Anderson for a full critique of academia’s pedagogical failures.
Show HN: I made a cheap alternative to college-level math & physics tutoring
51–60 of 209 posts
Re: Show HN: I made a cheap alternative to college-level math & physics tutoring
#52> Help resources become inefficient - because so much material is restricted, and so much time is spent on delivering live lectures, there’d often be 40 students competing for help from 2 TAs in a 2-hour Office Hours
I had the exact opposite problem when I was both a TA and later a professor. I would beg and plead for my students to come to office hours. "It's free one on one tutoring from the guy who writes the test! It doesn't get any better than that! If these times don't work for you, I can accommodate your schedule!" And yet very few people would come. And then I'd get feedback at the end of the semester that I "was never available to help." By the end, before I made a career change, I became pretty jaded.
So in my experience the problem does not lie with the teaching staff, but perhaps this varies from university to university.
Re: Show HN: I made a cheap alternative to college-level math & physics tutoring
#53I am 53 and cramming while relearning linear algebra, statistics, and calculus, after a 30 year break from college, in preparation for my first semester at GA Tech's online MS CS program in the fall. I love this! But...before I check it out, I'm going to be surprised if it competes with the already-incredible free help i've gotten from chatgpt-3.5. Recently I asked it the following (where it made a mistake that confu…
As someone who has used linear algebra, statistics and calculus as part of my day-to-day work for years, I would be very cautious of relying on ChatGPT as your "tutor". Occasionally I've tried to substitute ChatGPT for the shelf of reference books in my office and nearly always had poor results. The trouble is that the outputs of these models, by their very nature, look convincing . Even as an expert it takes a fair…
Yup, ChatGPT is not just a parrot but a master troll. It's purposely designed to give you a convincing answer, but there's nothing to ensure that it will be correct. And it will promptly say "actually I can't answer that question" when you ask it something it doesn't like for 'ethical' reasons, but it won't do that in any other circumstance; instead, it will just make stuff up. You have to explicitly say "please don't answer if you aren't sure it's right" and even then obviously it doesn't always work.
Re: Show HN: I made a cheap alternative to college-level math & physics tutoring
#54The blog post listed on the site is wonderful.
https://eltonlin.substack.com/p/a-story-about-802-teal
I feel like it barely connects to the rest of the story, though.
The founder basically says small group work interspersed through the learning process was a major factor in their success. I believe it.
The professor says the TEAL system worked because it forced students to regularly invest time in the class, so they realized early on they needed to do more - rather than putting it off. I believe it.
What I do NOT understand is how Explanation.app is offering either of these crucial ingredients. It seems clear this site will attract the usual desperate, last-minute-cramming crowd.
The problem of college students undervaluing their education seems to be a major obstacle to the success of this venture. MIT estimated yearly cost: $85k. Somehow $100/hour for tutoring isn't worth it, though? I agree the valuation is more complicated than I want to write here, but in the end it still does not look good to me.
Re: Show HN: I made a cheap alternative to college-level math & physics tutoring
#55I am 53 and cramming while relearning linear algebra, statistics, and calculus, after a 30 year break from college, in preparation for my first semester at GA Tech's online MS CS program in the fall. I love this! But...before I check it out, I'm going to be surprised if it competes with the already-incredible free help i've gotten from chatgpt-3.5. Recently I asked it the following (where it made a mistake that confu…
As someone who has used linear algebra, statistics and calculus as part of my day-to-day work for years, I would be very cautious of relying on ChatGPT as your "tutor". Occasionally I've tried to substitute ChatGPT for the shelf of reference books in my office and nearly always had poor results. The trouble is that the outputs of these models, by their very nature, look convincing . Even as an expert it takes a fair…
I'm actually mostly relying on textbooks, and only when i get stuck i'm trying to see if i can get unstuck w/ chatgpt. So far it has worked. I'm only using it b/c i don't have a teacher to task. I do appreciate the warnings you are giving. They are noted for sure.
Re: Show HN: I made a cheap alternative to college-level math & physics tutoring
#56I am 53 and cramming while relearning linear algebra, statistics, and calculus, after a 30 year break from college, in preparation for my first semester at GA Tech's online MS CS program in the fall. I love this! But...before I check it out, I'm going to be surprised if it competes with the already-incredible free help i've gotten from chatgpt-3.5. Recently I asked it the following (where it made a mistake that confu…
As a counterpoint I've been studying for leisure by doing exercises in math textbooks, and with advanced undergrad/grad topics my experience with ChatGPT and Gemini is that they fail miserably where they try basic proof techniques that they think work but don't. Trying to marshal their help is a puzzle in figuring out where they made leaps in logic, pointing those out, to exhaustion until they acknowledge their lack…
It's a mistake to try to get these models to do math. Unless you explicitly have them solve problems in code they aren't going to work, they literally don't have the capability. They are usually ok to explain concepts though.
Re: Show HN: I made a cheap alternative to college-level math & physics tutoring
#57I am 53 and cramming while relearning linear algebra, statistics, and calculus, after a 30 year break from college, in preparation for my first semester at GA Tech's online MS CS program in the fall. I love this! But...before I check it out, I'm going to be surprised if it competes with the already-incredible free help i've gotten from chatgpt-3.5. Recently I asked it the following (where it made a mistake that confu…
As someone who has used linear algebra, statistics and calculus as part of my day-to-day work for years, I would be very cautious of relying on ChatGPT as your "tutor". Occasionally I've tried to substitute ChatGPT for the shelf of reference books in my office and nearly always had poor results. The trouble is that the outputs of these models, by their very nature, look convincing . Even as an expert it takes a fair…
What about gpt 4 actually backing up answers with code and executing it? I found that really helps.
Re: Show HN: I made a cheap alternative to college-level math & physics tutoring
#58> Help resources become inefficient - because so much material is restricted, and so much time is spent on delivering live lectures, there’d often be 40 students competing for help from 2 TAs in a 2-hour Office Hours I had the exact opposite problem when I was both a TA and later a professor. I would beg and plead for my students to come to office hours. "It's free one on one tutoring from the guy who writes the test…
I've literally never seen TA's/Professors competing for help on an exam. Its always begging for students to come in and ask questions because the average in the class is I think the only time I've ever seen a line during office hours is when after an exam, students would beg for improved grades.
Re: Show HN: I made a cheap alternative to college-level math & physics tutoring
#59I think, as a kind of "get an explanation for a specific thing" this is a fantastic addition to the world of teaching/tutoring and hope it succeeds.
I tutor my son in engineering level subjects some times, but I find that I need tutoring myself too to understand some of the things :-). There are various well-known homework-help sites where you can post questions and get answers from "experts", but, none that I know that use a video based approach for the response.
As an aside I think we need more videos that explain how to approach solving specific types of problems -- not just the answer, but how to tackle breaking down the question and what to look for in the question to decide what theoretical aspects apply to solving the problem. I guess once a person has sufficient theoretical knowledge, they get an intuitive understanding how to do this, but engineering coursework doesn't leave too much time to digest a subject in depth and any help provided to minimize the time to internalize concepts/insights is always good.
Re: Show HN: I made a cheap alternative to college-level math & physics tutoring
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who has used linear algebra, statistics and calculus as part of my day-to-day work for years, I would be very cautious of relying on ChatGPT as your "tutor". Occasionally I've tried to substitute ChatGPT for the shelf of reference books in my office and nearly always had poor results. The trouble is that the outputs of these models, by their very nature, look convincing . Even as an expert it takes a fair…
Yup, ChatGPT is not just a parrot but a master troll. It's purposely designed to give you a convincing answer, but there's nothing to ensure that it will be correct. And it will promptly say "actually I can't answer that question" when you ask it something it doesn't like for 'ethical' reasons, but it won't do that in any other circumstance; instead, it will just make stuff up. You have to explicitly say "please don'…
Try ChatGPT4. It's obvious that almost no one in this thread has.
It still screws up, but unlike 3.5 it sometimes catches unreasonable answers and corrects itself. Case in point: the other day I asked it for the gain of a helical antenna with certain dimensions. It said "150 dBi," then said, basically, "Wait, no, that's nuts," and used a different approach to get the right answer.
Parrots don't do that. If yours does, I would like to buy your parrot, please.
In any case, as you learn to ask it the right questions to explain, verify and correct itself interactively, you will be learning the material. I find this to be amazingly effective.