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Sal Khan: How AI could save (not destroy) education [video]

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Re: Sal Khan: How AI could save (not destroy) education [video]

#11

Post by thatfrenchguy »

light_hue_1 wrote: post #9
akasakahakada wrote: post #3

Current education system is broken. You can't learn anything. Learning need feedback loop, but this do not exist. In school, you hand in your homework, get the feedback only after Christmas. Because human cannot evaluate 100 students' homework efficiently. Majority of academic textbook are trash. Some author even say "we have 300 new exercises in this edition" proudly, while the solution is often either nonexistent,…

I'm sorry, but I've taught a lot of students at the university level. Some of them have exactly this attitude. You're simply wrong. And on the long term path to failure. The exercises are invaluable. You don't get the answers because then you look at them. The whole point of the exercises is for you to do them, and then for you to figure out if you are right or wrong! The content of the exercises isn't in the book be…

Yeah reading and doing stuff is how you learn any topic, getting the right solution is not really the point (and arguably should not be in the book in the first place).

The main issue with education is grades and how obsessed people are with those as a sorting mechanism for students.

Re: Sal Khan: How AI could save (not destroy) education [video]

#12

Post by durub »

jacquesm wrote: post #4
asfgioanio wrote: post #2

I don't see any reason to listen to Sal Khan. As far as I can tell, he became a major figure in education, with ample resources and real power, because he is good at explaining things. Why would I assume he knows anything about how education works in general because people liked his approach to one very small part of it? At the gym, people assume anyone with big muscles must be an expert in medicine. Let's not make t…

I'd listen to him before I would listen to you.

Indeed, and I see plenty of reasons to listen to him. Khan Academy helped me immensely in college for free and Sal Khan has been at it for what, 17 years now?

I'm pretty sure he has a better than average grasp on what it means to learn and how to improve the process. And even more importantly, he's trying to! If not him, then who should we listen to?

I don't have a clue why GP reduces Sal to "good at explaining things" when Khan Academy is so much bigger than just him for a long time now. And I, for one, am very grateful that he exists. People in first world countries can't imagine the impact that free access to great education resources has in the rest of the world, like in my case.

> At the gym, people assume anyone with big muscles must be an expert in medicine. Let's not make the same mistake here.

The gym analogy falls short to me. The mistake here is assuming that someone that worked in education for almost two decades, and has achieved extraordinary results in the mean time, doesn't have any clue about education in general.

Re: Sal Khan: How AI could save (not destroy) education [video]

#13

Post by logicchains »

asfgioanio wrote: post #2

I don't see any reason to listen to Sal Khan. As far as I can tell, he became a major figure in education, with ample resources and real power, because he is good at explaining things. Why would I assume he knows anything about how education works in general because people liked his approach to one very small part of it? At the gym, people assume anyone with big muscles must be an expert in medicine. Let's not make t…

>with ample resources and real power, because he is good at explaining things

Isn't explaining things well the heart of good education?

Re: Sal Khan: How AI could save (not destroy) education [video]

#14

Post by routerl »

So, Khan Academy is experimenting with providing every student with (what they call) a "personal tutor".

Examples given are: in coding and math, identifying potential mistakes in partial solutions, and suggesting how the student might get unstuck; in literature, an AI impersonates characters in a novel so the student can ask them questions (e.g. "Mr. Gatsby, why do you keep staring at that green light?"); in writing, the AI writes with the student, rather than for students.

The flip side is teachers saving time on lesson planning, grading, etc, all the work that's adjacent to actually teaching.

A lot of this is a feature preview for Khan Academy, and a big part of it is just the ReACT pattern[1] (have people settled on this name?).

To me, even all of the above is just an efficiency increase, which means workloads will increase to fill the available time, and we might see student to teacher ratios in the order of tens of thousands to one. How much of a future teacher's career will be about maintaining their AI systems? How much of learning will be like that too?

[1] https://til.simonwillison.net/llms/python-react-pattern

Re: Sal Khan: How AI could save (not destroy) education [video]

#15

Post by dsign »

logicchains wrote: post #10

One of the biggest factors impacting education outcomes is students per teacher. Students tutored one-on-one learn better than students in small classes, and students in small classes learn better than students in large classes. Because if there are fewer students per teacher, the teacher can devote more time and attention to each student. AI promises to put a decent one-on-one tutor in the hands of every student for…

Jesus, no! Not all of my teachers were great, and most of the knowledge I got, I earned on my own. But they were part of a world that had nothing to do with the world of my parents--my teachers were learned, where my immediate family was not. My teachers were, if nothing else, an example to follow, a light, a guide.

>> No longer will private tutors be restricted to the rich only.

It's not as simple. I've met plenty of poor people who leave well-tutored rich folk to bite the dust, and the other way around too. That's neither here nor there. A kid with all the tutors but with parents or an environment that doesn't favor learning, gets nowhere. That I have seen too, more times than I can count. And, let's face it, we have had the Internet for a few decades now, bursting to the seams with free knowledge. What difference will it make an AI system of dubious trustworthiness?

Re: Sal Khan: How AI could save (not destroy) education [video]

#16

Post by akasakahakada »

light_hue_1 wrote: post #9
akasakahakada wrote: post #3

Current education system is broken. You can't learn anything. Learning need feedback loop, but this do not exist. In school, you hand in your homework, get the feedback only after Christmas. Because human cannot evaluate 100 students' homework efficiently. Majority of academic textbook are trash. Some author even say "we have 300 new exercises in this edition" proudly, while the solution is often either nonexistent,…

I'm sorry, but I've taught a lot of students at the university level. Some of them have exactly this attitude. You're simply wrong. And on the long term path to failure. The exercises are invaluable. You don't get the answers because then you look at them. The whole point of the exercises is for you to do them, and then for you to figure out if you are right or wrong! The content of the exercises isn't in the book be…

If you choose to fight with me, I fight with you. You dig your only grave. You just jump out and admitted that you are the problematic human teacher that causing social problems.

I do my homework when I feel like I need them. Accessibility to the solutions is a problem. Learning though examples is another prominent way that you don't see. People can choose to investigate into the problem right now or absorb knowledge then think about stuffs. I have 80 years in my life expectancy to do exercise and indeed solving problems everyday is that. What is the point of "figure it out yourself" about some useless math at the moment when people have their whole life to think about it? People know nothing because you never tell anything. You failed your job as a teacher. You are doing excellent job of not documenting stuff and being anti knowledge accumulation.

Re: Sal Khan: How AI could save (not destroy) education [video]

#17

Post by A_non_e-moose »

asfgioanio wrote: post #2

I don't see any reason to listen to Sal Khan. As far as I can tell, he became a major figure in education, with ample resources and real power, because he is good at explaining things. Why would I assume he knows anything about how education works in general because people liked his approach to one very small part of it? At the gym, people assume anyone with big muscles must be an expert in medicine. Let's not make t…

> At the gym, people assume anyone with big muscles must be an expert in medicine. Let's not make the same mistake here.

Who would be better at building strawmen?

An average HN commenter, a farmer, or an etymologist?

Re: Sal Khan: How AI could save (not destroy) education [video]

#18

Post by aio2 »

logicchains wrote: post #10

One of the biggest factors impacting education outcomes is students per teacher. Students tutored one-on-one learn better than students in small classes, and students in small classes learn better than students in large classes. Because if there are fewer students per teacher, the teacher can devote more time and attention to each student. AI promises to put a decent one-on-one tutor in the hands of every student for…

That's one factor. But the way I've learned best, is through stories. My teachers told all sorts of stories, and it made me very engaged in my classes. How can the same be said with AI? How can it make an engaging learning experience?

Even if you want it to, how could it make a very engaging environment when deep down inside you know it's fake?

Re: Sal Khan: How AI could save (not destroy) education [video]

#19

Post by CamelCaseName »

aio2 wrote: post #18
logicchains wrote: post #10

One of the biggest factors impacting education outcomes is students per teacher. Students tutored one-on-one learn better than students in small classes, and students in small classes learn better than students in large classes. Because if there are fewer students per teacher, the teacher can devote more time and attention to each student. AI promises to put a decent one-on-one tutor in the hands of every student for…

That's one factor. But the way I've learned best, is through stories. My teachers told all sorts of stories, and it made me very engaged in my classes. How can the same be said with AI? How can it make an engaging learning experience? Even if you want it to, how could it make a very engaging environment when deep down inside you know it's fake?

Why would it be fake? If you can have the LLM reproduce the stories roughly as is:

Student: "Hey LLM, I'm having trouble learning this concept."

LLM: "Here's a real story that a teacher shared with us that will help explain this topic..."

(Later)

LLM: "Remember that story from before? Here's another story from that same teacher to further explain..."

Re: Sal Khan: How AI could save (not destroy) education [video]

#20

Post by akasakahakada »

akasakahakada wrote: post #16
light_hue_1 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but I've taught a lot of students at the university level. Some of them have exactly this attitude. You're simply wrong. And on the long term path to failure. The exercises are invaluable. You don't get the answers because then you look at them. The whole point of the exercises is for you to do them, and then for you to figure out if you are right or wrong! The content of the exercises isn't in the book be…

If you choose to fight with me, I fight with you. You dig your only grave. You just jump out and admitted that you are the problematic human teacher that causing social problems. I do my homework when I feel like I need them. Accessibility to the solutions is a problem. Learning though examples is another prominent way that you don't see. People can choose to investigate into the problem right now or absorb knowledge…

Tell him to figure it out himself, not read.

Ask HN: Where do I find good code to read? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37248002

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