171–180 of 229 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes indeed. College departments are well-known for cutting the ranks of the professors who have proven track records of boosting enrollment in favor of awarding tenure to the professors who can't get butts in seats.
I don’t think you understand how universities work. Which US university did you attend?
This is how higher education was done for literal centuries before moving to the written word. So it’s not exactly innovative to return to oral arguments. But what it does threaten to do is effectively abandon all the efficiencies of the written word. When higher education evolved into a mass system in the 1800s and into the 1900s, pure oral examination was looked at as super inefficient. A written paper could be han…
I'm not joking: you could have an AI quiz the students and test their understanding. That way the tests go deeper into testing the understanding by following through on the answers, and are standardized and fair for everyone. I don't think we are there yet at all but I actually think its not insane for the future. I expect downvotes though/I don't think our generation would agree with this.
What's old is new :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not familiar with the German universiry system, but I think a 1 hour, 2 professors (or one professor and one PhD student) would be impossible to scale. A class of about 100 students could take an entire month! (or better, 2-months of professor-hours!)
> would be impossible to scale I think education is something better scaled horizontally than vertically. More schools, with more professors instead increasing the student per professor throughput. The classes where I learned the absolute most, and had the best experience, were closer in size to 25 than 100.
The horizontal capacity is ineffectively used by having many degree mills and low-value degrees, but if we re-tooled the knowledge sets we could raise the bar.
This is already the case for Master's degrees and above in Denmark. I've been the opponent examining students. We ask Master's students to give US instruction on a topic (drawn randomly on a card in front of them, from a list they know a few days in advance). They do a chalk and talk on a topic for about fifteen minutes with three to five professors being "dumb students". It works fantastically and at the end it's ve…
Hi, former student with social phobia and terrified of public speaking. Today: adult with no problems doing public speaking in front of hundreds. What fixed me: more public speaking and not having the option of avoiding the task.
This is already the case for Master's degrees and above in Denmark. I've been the opponent examining students. We ask Master's students to give US instruction on a topic (drawn randomly on a card in front of them, from a list they know a few days in advance). They do a chalk and talk on a topic for about fifteen minutes with three to five professors being "dumb students". It works fantastically and at the end it's ve…
Hi, former student with social phobia and terrified of public speaking. Today: adult with no problems doing public speaking in front of hundreds. What fixed me: more public speaking and not having the option of avoiding the task.
1. Actually being very knowledgeable about the subject in question, to the extent that I can offer facts or well-reasoned opinion on the topic on essentially any reasonable question. In other words, not being a junior high school student asked to do a 15 minute speech on a topic drawn from a hat.
2. Not having the idea that the audience expects a correct and immediate answer to every possible question.
3. Not doing every single speech literally in front of 15% of my entire peer group, including all my friends, all the people I admired, and all the people who treated me poorly.
I still hate doing Zoom calls without slides or a screen to share because I can't stand having 20 people staring intently at me. It's just distracting. But otherwise I have no problem at all talking for hours on a topic I know well.
This is already the case for Master's degrees and above in Denmark. I've been the opponent examining students. We ask Master's students to give US instruction on a topic (drawn randomly on a card in front of them, from a list they know a few days in advance). They do a chalk and talk on a topic for about fifteen minutes with three to five professors being "dumb students". It works fantastically and at the end it's ve…
Hi, former student with social phobia and terrified of public speaking. Today: adult with no problems doing public speaking in front of hundreds. What fixed me: more public speaking and not having the option of avoiding the task.
This is how higher education was done for literal centuries before moving to the written word. So it’s not exactly innovative to return to oral arguments. But what it does threaten to do is effectively abandon all the efficiencies of the written word. When higher education evolved into a mass system in the 1800s and into the 1900s, pure oral examination was looked at as super inefficient. A written paper could be han…
This is already the case for Master's degrees and above in Denmark. I've been the opponent examining students. We ask Master's students to give US instruction on a topic (drawn randomly on a card in front of them, from a list they know a few days in advance). They do a chalk and talk on a topic for about fifteen minutes with three to five professors being "dumb students". It works fantastically and at the end it's ve…
Hi, former student with social phobia and terrified of public speaking. Today: adult with no problems doing public speaking in front of hundreds. What fixed me: more public speaking and not having the option of avoiding the task.
Like every time I hear "Oh I'm just not a math person." It's not that I expect everyone to like math because I do, not at all. But I do expect people to not artificially limit themselves. :/
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> would be impossible to scale I think education is something better scaled horizontally than vertically. More schools, with more professors instead increasing the student per professor throughput. The classes where I learned the absolute most, and had the best experience, were closer in size to 25 than 100.
The US has proved it can do horizontal scaling, as the majority of adults gets a college degree. The horizontal capacity is ineffectively used by having many degree mills and low-value degrees, but if we re-tooled the knowledge sets we could raise the bar.
As for the quality, I think small classrooms with good teachers probably produces a better outcome than large classrooms with great teachers.