Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again • Hacker News Board

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#151

Post by diddypiddy » Wed, May 22, 2024, 4:19 PM UTC

megaman821 wrote: post #134

diddypiddy wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We live in a world where wealth is increasingly being concentrated at the top, social mobility for the average person is trending downwards, suicide rates in the US are at all-time highs, drug abuse rising, general deaths of despair rising, mental illness rising, climate and ecological catastrophes mounting by unchecked greed and all of this AI crap is mostly in the hands of the powerful who will use it to solidify t…

The average person has a higher standard of living and more wealth than ever before. Suicide rates are not at all-time highs, they were much higher during the World Wars and Great Depression. Drug abuse is down too, but newer drugs are more potent. Mental illness is a hard stat to compare over time since it is very sensitive to the collection mechanisms. The growth of carbon-free technologies has been exponential ove…

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Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#152

Post by w10-1 » Wed, May 22, 2024, 4:19 PM UTC

Generative AI works by selecting the most likely next words.

But students misunderstand in many different ways. How would it be tailored instead of another way of delivering lesson plans?

Even assuming you already had the topology of the problem space, you'd have to interrogate the student with all possible ways for each question to determine what's missing for them.

But part of the problem is impedance matching: failing students get little positive feedback because they have to correct many mistakes before they start getting things right. Interrogation makes the impedance-matching problem much, much worse (no matter how sweet and enticing the voice).

Sure, I believe in success patterns and strong leaders. But I'd need to see a sketch of how Khan understands and addresses the problems before I'd invest or rely on this as anything other than a stop-gap that continues the under-funding of mass education.

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#153

Post by fhe » Wed, May 22, 2024, 4:25 PM UTC

the article makes it as if the solution to education is "a dedicated tutor to every student". I do not think that's the case. The problem is that not every student has the motivation, and having a tutor on call 24-7 doesn't change it.

the article goes on to describe how such an AI tutor might work:

"As you work through a challenging set of fraction problems, it won’t just give you the answer—it breaks each problem down into digestible steps. When you get stuck, it gives you easy-to-understand explanations and a gentle nudge in the right direction. When you finally get the answer, it generates targeted practice questions that help build your understanding and confidence."

reading it, and watching the demo of gpt-4o tutoring math (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBrdd7xg-dg), I felt the opposite -- that if I had such a tutor, whatever motivation I had would have been stripped away by such a tutor. I really needed the quiet struggle with a problem, and feeling that I conquered it on my own, instead of being guided through a paint-by-number kit. I acknowledge that I might have an unusual learning style, or that I simply belonged to a generation that grew up without such tools, hence the aversion, much like my parents grew up without digital calculators (although they don't harbor any aversion to the use of calculators).

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#154

Post by Kye » Wed, May 22, 2024, 4:26 PM UTC

Pulcinella wrote: post #70

Background: I taught high school science for half a decade and now I am in tech. This will never take off. One, there is no money in Ed.Tech. There is no money in Ed.Tech. There is no money in Ed.Tech. What little money there is goes to the obvious stuff like student records databases. Anything that requires an ongoing subscription fee is dead in the water. The only reason those stupid smartboards took off is because…

>> "Three, what if the AI is just wrong and starts confusing the student? Even GPT-4 fabricates things all the time."

It was bad enough when the text was wrong because of shoddy editing.

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#155

Post by viking123 » Wed, May 22, 2024, 4:26 PM UTC

falcor84 wrote: post #68

Phiwise_ wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those 5% go on to make an upper-class salary sitting in an air-conditioned office instead of a lower-class salary turning wrenches and stacking boxes. What makes more sense than enabling everyone who can to attain that life? (Plus every one of them who gets out makes life better for the rest at least by reducing downward pressure on wages, and hopefully also by creating new business opportunities that raise wages fur…

Speaking of AI, I wouldn't be surprised if, in the next decade, jobs that involve turning wrenches would pay significantly more than most jobs that can be done fully on a computer.

I mean wouldn't those blue collar jobs get more and more saturated then if office jobs get less and less pay so people start moving to those? Personally I very much respect people who do those jobs, but I could never do them because of my disability so my only good choice is pretty much computer related jobs or then it's back to some sort of government benefits.

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#156

Post by w10-1 » Wed, May 22, 2024, 4:27 PM UTC

Jtsummers wrote: post #129

> As you work through a challenging set of fraction problems, it won’t just give you the answer—it breaks each problem down into digestible steps. When you get stuck, it gives you easy-to-understand explanations and a gentle nudge in the right direction. When you finally get the answer, it generates targeted practice questions that help build your understanding and confidence. You don't need an LLM for this. Since th…

So then what if the generative LLM is simply the "UI", tailored to the student, but working from a topological map of the subject matter in the form of quizzes? And if it were able to present questions targeted at student gaps, broken down to be challenging but achievable, i.e., to build success patterns?

Wouldn't that work for any subject matter - not just math?

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#157

Post by from-nibly » Wed, May 22, 2024, 4:27 PM UTC

Disclaimer I'm talking about the US, but I believe it applies at least somewhat to most of the modern education system everywhere.

The problem of education isn't the lack of resources it's the lack of purpose. The internet is all the resources you will ever need. Sure AI could augment this a little. Maybe it could re-explain something you can't quite wrap your head around. The problem is that kids know that the education system isn't even kind of preparing them for what's to come. Knowledge work and trades couldn't be further from what public school prepares you for. Having a teacher for every kid wouldn't change this. The problem is so fundamental, and the solution is so destructive that we can't just tack on one more thing to "fix" education.

Learning comes from doing, augmented with reflection. Public Schools don't ever do either of those things. The closest you ever get to doing anything that another human could want is building something in shop class. The closest thing you get to reflection is a grade that can only be negative feedback or the lack of feedback, plus there's no time for building on that reflection, just move onto the next thing.

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#158

Post by smugglerFlynn » Wed, May 22, 2024, 4:28 PM UTC

  > Chapter by chapter, Sal takes readers through his predictions—some have already come true since the book was written—for AI’s many applications in education. His main argument: AI will radically improve both student outcomes and teacher experiences, and help usher in a future where everyone has access to a world-class education.

I'd argue that the very thing that made Khan Academy successful in the first place was not "accessible education" or "cost prohibitive" practices, but Sal's human attention to the students needs and all the amazing content he created.

Thousands of people will pick up from this article that AI is the solution to the education, while in reality it is people like Sal who are the actual solution, with YouTube, AI and other tech just being the tools to help scaling human talent.

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#159

Post by Kye » Wed, May 22, 2024, 4:31 PM UTC

aeyes wrote: post #125

raisedbyninjas wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe no school board buys and puts it into every class. Parents will still buy it and it can supplement learning gaps when doing homework. $20/month is a rounding error compared to pre-school, clothes, extra-curricular activies, private school, private tutors, etc.

The kids of people who can afford all you mentioned usually don't have problems with education. It's those who don't have $20. My parents spent almost nothing on my education, just a couple of $ per year to buy a notebook or two. I used the same pens for almost ten years. I participated in zero sports, had zero tutors... I did ok but I had peers with even less resources and not all of them did good.

Fond memories of being mocked for wearing the same clothes I wore the previous year or two. Wait no, not fond.

The clothes were fine: good condition, clean, etc. Just old from the perspective of kids who didn't understand they came from money or that their parents were bad with money and headed toward disaster.

/u/raisedbyninjas was hopefully kinder than those kids even though it sounds like they were in the same cohort by how small $20/month sounds to them.

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#160

Post by from-nibly » Wed, May 22, 2024, 4:32 PM UTC

fhe wrote: post #153

the article makes it as if the solution to education is "a dedicated tutor to every student". I do not think that's the case. The problem is that not every student has the motivation, and having a tutor on call 24-7 doesn't change it. the article goes on to describe how such an AI tutor might work: "As you work through a challenging set of fraction problems, it won’t just give you the answer—it breaks each problem do…

Yeah that's not an unusual learning style. No one can learn without struggle. There has to be some reason for your brain to remember something. If the AI is right there ready to do it for you, then why would you remember anything?