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Show HN: I made a cheap alternative to college-level math & physics tutoring

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Re: Show HN: I made a cheap alternative to college-level math & physics tutoring

#131

Post by WhitneyLand »

ebuck wrote: post #99
WhitneyLand wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have the opposite experience, it’s been a fantastic resource. Were you using 3.5 or 4.0? Do you have an example of of the type of question that performs poorly?

"Under what conditions does the sun appear blue?" (correct answer, on Mars) If you want to tilt the conversation towards a string of wrong answers, start off with "What color is the sun?" "Are you sure?" "I saw the sun and it was blue." "Under what conditions does the sun appear blue?" "Does the sun appear blue on Mars?" This had ChatGPT basically telling me that the sun was yellow 100%. Of course it's wrong, on Mars…

>Of course it's wrong, on Mars the sun is blue

I’m not an Astrophysicist but already this seems like shaky ground.

Apparently at certain times like during sunsets the sun can appear blue on Mars, but it’s not generally true like your comment suggests.

Moreover if you ask GPT4 about sunsets on Mars it knows they can look blue.

I’m not sure I can conclude much from the examples given.

Re: Show HN: I made a cheap alternative to college-level math & physics tutoring

#132

Post by Balgair »

VyseofArcadia wrote: post #66
pants2 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to say anything about you, but when I was learning physics, either I thought the professor was really good in which case I would usually understand the material just from lecture, or the professor was not good, in which case going to office hours wouldn't help and I would seek other resources, like YouTube videos from other teachers. A resource like OP's that could provide a different perspective and learning sty…

Good thing I wasn't teaching physics ;) I actually deliberately varied my teaching style during office hours to account for just this. I got great feedback from the few students who actually came. But by the end, I just felt all the extra effort I was putting in to be a good teacher wasn't worth the psychic damage I took from bad students. All this to say, being a good teacher, or trying to be a good teacher, in a un…

> the psychic damage I took from bad students.

> the hoards of unappreciative and entitled students who have all the tools in the world to make your life hell.

Okay, now I'm more curious about your experiences here and need some details. What kind of school were you at? US based? R1? Ivy league? Were you teaching undergrad? Were you tenured? What kinds of classes exactly, undergrad, grad, upper division, etc? Full on 300+ person intro courses? Like, I've never heard of a teacher talking about students this way before. So, sorry for the peppering here.

Re: Show HN: I made a cheap alternative to college-level math & physics tutoring

#133

Post by vundercind »

refulgentis wrote: post #127
vundercind wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve definitely noticed a type from top universities (not just MIT). It can come off as kinda in-your-face or confrontational or intense. I have some of the same tendencies, and have to rein it in because people really don’t like it—but it seems to be encouraged some places, they do it way more and harder than I ever have. It even throws me off (that part’s probably my midwesternness coming through) My guess is part…

Man you really made me think. If you just blankly asked me what I thought, I would have written your comment verbatim as a fault of the state schooler. I'll be digesting this for a while. I rarely mention it in public, it really meant a lot to me to get someone's thoughts on this, and it was a Moment for me. Cheers.

My description probably painted this type as more assholish than I intended—it’s mostly that they’re willing, even in fairly casual conversation, to really dig into fine points, to play devil’s advocate (maybe without saying that’s what they’re doing), to pursue any little thing that they don’t immediately get or that seems contradictory.

Conversationally, they poke, they prod, they chase. I assume this is from being educated in environments where that was the norm, and my guess that this is a style that starts in certain types of prep school (and is then imparted on the less-elite folks who attend a university with that set) is really just a guess, but there sure does seem to be a lot of correlation between school prestige and that kind of affect, in my experience, whatever the cause.

As mentioned, I have similar tendencies, but the tenacity at and commitment to this way of chatting from several elite-college folks I’ve met has been a bit much even for me—with more exposure I suspect I’d come to like it, but as it is it feels like being squished on a microscope slide, though I don’t exactly think that’s their fault and I don’t think they’re trying to give offense—but I do think the fact that it can put a person a bit off balance is part of why they’ve picked it up, it seems like a habit honed in a certain kind of affably-contentious intellectual environment (again, I’m just guessing at the causes here)

Re: Show HN: I made a cheap alternative to college-level math & physics tutoring

#134

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

gfodor wrote: post #72
VyseofArcadia wrote: post #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…

When I went to school office hours was where you went if you wanted to get hints on what you needed to know for the exam, not to learn stuff. It was a means to an end. Honestly I never even considered the idea that office hours could help me better understand the material. Goes to show you what the mind of a college student is like.

Its also cultural. Office hours never even crossed.my.mind.

Who am i to take a full hour of the prof? Am i a remedial student? Ive never had to consult with anyone for my grades. What is this tutor everyone speaks of? My parents never had to pay for any tutor.

For me, the whole office hours its like eating raw meat. You know people do it. But you are not running on those circles, you donr go to those restaurants, and you dont even know the food name and you couldn't tell if it was raw meat even if someone threw it at your face.

Its a resource for those willing to take advantage of the system as it is set up. And in the odd case everyone does, well, eventually the service degrades enough so that one of the students eventually creates an app for it.

Re: Show HN: I made a cheap alternative to college-level math & physics tutoring

#135

Post by gfodor »

copperx wrote: post #87
gfodor wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop whatever you're doing right now and go sign up for $20/mo at claude.ai and use Claude Opus. There's something like 20 or 30 IQ points you can add to your experience by just doing this simple step.

Why not ChatGPT 4?

Claude's better.

Re: Show HN: I made a cheap alternative to college-level math & physics tutoring

#137

Post by eltonlin »

v_london wrote: post #20

Hey Eltonlin, this sounds really cool and I hope you can make an impact in improving access to education. Some time ago I wrote a blog post titled "Professors as Creators" which discusses the impact the Creator Economy could have on education - how in other fields (e.g. writing and videos) creators are increasingly leaving large organisations like newspapers and film studios to create content on their own using platf…

I just read it, I agree with your points wholeheartedly.

Re: Show HN: I made a cheap alternative to college-level math & physics tutoring

#138

Post by eltonlin »

julianh65 wrote: post #84

I'm going to give this a go, I've been self studying linear algebra, and there are certain questions that I can't seem to find good answers or explanations to online that ChatGPT or Claude cannot answer sufficiently. The one concern I have with this, is the async nature of it. One of the reasons I like using ChatGPT or Claude (or a real human if I can find one) to learn is because I can ask clarifying questions and t…

Ah I see why you'd want realtime interaction. In earlier versions there used to be voice chat, so when the learner-and-teacher happen to both be free, you'd talk in real-time. It was removed to focus on the async video aspect, but hearing what you said puts that back in my radar...

When you mention "good prompts", is that in the context of AI, or with asking questions in general? Is it easy/hard to create good prompts from your past experience?

As for Linear Algebra, I noticed you didn't sign up - did something change your mind? Feel free to be brutally honest as it helps me make real progress! If it's easier, feel free to call +1 503 250 3868 (Tokyo time zone), or email eltonlin@alum.mit.edu anytime!

Re: Show HN: I made a cheap alternative to college-level math & physics tutoring

#139

Post by ginbazinga »

andrewlgood wrote: post #46

I am always curious regarding new education solutions. I firmly believe the US pre-college education systems are fundamentally broken most benefit from edtech (huge fan of Khan Academy). As an MIT alum myself ('89), I am surprised to hear your description of your experience at MIT. Did you experience this across all classes and departments or only for a few (e.g. 18.01 which is required for most freshman)? While cert…

I'm also enthusiastic about new education solutions, and I found traditional MOOCs are 1. too long for one sit; 2. passive; 3. lack personalization. So I'm building a new solution that aims at solving these problems: https://afaik.io/, and you can learn college physics and calculus for free.

The goal is to map out the prerequisite structures among all subjects as knowledge is actually a continuous map, and let everyone have their own personalized learning path. It's visualized like this: https://afaik.io/nebula?category=brickset&id=VLlOnZLl&mode=d.... The learning unit (called brick, like Lego brick) is designed to be 10 minutes, questions are asked at the end to check understanding.

Don't get me wrong; I love OCW and I think it's still one of the best free resources online. But I do think great resources combined with AI can bring such innovative edtech solutions that everyone can have their own private tutor almost for free, and most importantly, without worrying about hallucination effects.

Re: Show HN: I made a cheap alternative to college-level math & physics tutoring

#140

Post by [deleted] »

godelski wrote: post #117

> It turns out that universities succeed by being prestigious, not by teaching well. As someone that's gone to mid schools and has lots of friends that went to top schools, I was surprised to find that I think I got more education out of my experience. BUT they certainly got far more opportunities (internships, RSUs, ability to publish, networking, etc). I could sit down and solve a problem faster than them but they…

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