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Request for Education Startups

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Request for Education Startups

#141

Post by jansho »

banachtarski wrote: post #132
alexashka wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best teachers are absolutely not on the internet. How do you even make that claim? This is a typical 'technology is going to save the world' rant. No, it isn't. Technology is not a solution to short-sightedness that humans possess. Education is not in trouble - the economic model that makes it difficult to go study, learn and get to apply that knowledge and those skills to solving real problems is. Go ask enginee…

Sorry if this isn't super constructive, but I read your comment twice and don't have the foggiest idea of what you're trying to say. It feels like you're just being contrarian and ranting against, sort of everything?

It's about solutionism, mostly.

"Let's move away from traditional models (which work well most of the time) and digitalise it all! Change the world for the better, oh and make "some" money on the way."

It's a bit cynical but there's some truth in it. This is the mistake that a lot of startups made in the last edtech 'revolution' - hopefully with YC releasing this edtech list, it means that we've become more educated about the education field, to come up with better tech solutions.

Re: Request for Education Startups

#142

Post by untilHellbanned »

KGIII wrote: post #100
untilHellbanned wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ycombinator doesn't care about credentials? Sam Alton - Stanford Drew Houston - mit Collision brothers - mit/harvard Airbnb guys - RISD We could go on, so let's do... Please tell me honestly if you think google Facebook Amazon Microsoft would be where they were without the "traditional credentials" of their founders? Stanford, harvard, Princeton, harvard, respectively. At this point all these SV demigods like Ravikan…

Do those folks really count as traditional credentials? Google founders suspended their Ph.D. programs. Bezos has a BS. Gates dropped out. Zuckerberg dropped out.

Yes they are a signal at the key initiating step.

Re: Request for Education Startups

#143

Post by jansho »

graniter wrote: post #47

It seems to me that education needs its own "industrial revolution." Education with 30 kids and a teacher in a classroom for 9 months doesn't seem to scale well. There aren't enough good teachers, and it's inefficient to have so many kids together learning the same thing, and the same time, at the same pace. It's too inefficient, and any improvements are going to be cost prohibitive. I think we need to separate instr…

Interesting that you mentioned superstar tutors. Their classes tend to be large too, I've been to one that's close to a hundred pupils. A noticeable difference is that their sessions tend to be a lot more entertaining and emphasise on "tips and tricks" - not sure if school classrooms should follow the latter trend though.

It does show that it's possible to teach a large class effectively. Teaching talent makes all the difference, with technology to support it.

Re: Request for Education Startups

#144

Post by jansho »

j45 wrote: post #108
shanev wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy thinks we should flip the classroom [1]. Students watch high quality lectures at home given by the best instructors on the topic, then do "homework" in class, with the teacher being there for assistance. Sounds like a worthy approach to me. The problem is, how can you get a school board to adopt something like this? Who leads the effort? How can you implement changes to such an en…

There's a lot of buzzwords like classroom flipping floating around in education. Part of the issue is the subject matter experts (teachers and instructors) are not up to speed on the capabilities of technology, some even fear being replaced, when the real goal is having the same teachers reach more students more effectively. Education budgets rarely increase.

I see a gap for educating teachers about the potential of edtech :) Many will welcome the opportunity to focus class time on quality interaction.

Re: Request for Education Startups

#145

Post by ComSubVie »

graniter wrote: post #47

It seems to me that education needs its own "industrial revolution." Education with 30 kids and a teacher in a classroom for 9 months doesn't seem to scale well. There aren't enough good teachers, and it's inefficient to have so many kids together learning the same thing, and the same time, at the same pace. It's too inefficient, and any improvements are going to be cost prohibitive. I think we need to separate instr…

We're currently introducing "self paced studies" classes in our school (age group 14+), where the students get instructions (digitally, videos, slides, ...) and worksheets and the teacher helps them only when/where necessary.

It requires a lot more self organisation on the students side (that might be seen positive or negative) and overall the student success is similar to "classic" classes (but we've just started the second year, so we hope that get's better with experience - on the students and the teachers side).

The downside is that the preparation of the learning materials is much more work for the teacher than for a classic lecture in front of the class (but that also might get better with the years ...)

Re: Request for Education Startups

#146

Post by christudor »

germinalphrase wrote: post #14
sjg007 wrote: post #6

I would like something that increases parental involvement or at least oversight of their kids. 1:1s and close contact with your manager or team in problem solving is invaluable. What does that mean in the context of a classroom? Is it valuable? Teachers probably have 120 kids at some level so it may not scale.. And I think it's to early or weird to have kids participate in a stand up but an app to help parents under…

Canvas/Schoology/Others provide parents with the opportunity to monitor student assignments and grades. The problem with parental involvement is (usually) the desire to participate rather than opportunity.

You might also say it contributes to social inequality by prioritising students who have parents who are willing and able to help with homework, which won't be the students from the lowest-income backgrounds.

Re: Request for Education Startups

#147

Post by jansho »

graniter wrote: post #127
matt4077 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> own "industrial revolution / doesn't seem to scale well / it's inefficient / improvements are [..] cost prohibitive / that parent pay for / can't we reward the best / We need tech / scale the classroom / deliver it cheaply / separation of concerns I'm not disagreeing that it's a good idea to always look for ways to improve schools. But i'd like to point out that you're framing these issues in almost exclusively eco…

Yes I used those terms intentionally because I think the current problem with education is being able to scale good teaching. There are good teachers, but we don't have a good way to scale them. The industrial revolution provided a way to replicate and scale good manufacturing. So maybe we can learn from that. I don't mean that education should be done like manufacturing, just that the lessons of how to scale may app…

> I think the current problem with education is being able to scale good teaching.

Well, I don't think that's the only problem with education.

Scaling good teaching, huh. Tackling this with direct technology is difficult, things like message boards for teachers are a bit crude.

So perhaps another way of approaching it is better training and support for teachers - and this is where tech can be used as support. Example, shadow a well-respected teacher with a camera, and post regularly on YouTube while encouraging open discussion.

Actually there is a lot of this content already (check out "Blended Learning" on Coursera, for example) so perhaps the real problem is actually aggregation and distribution.

Re: Request for Education Startups

#148

Post by jansho »

TarpitCarnivore wrote: post #27
grendelt wrote: post #24

PLEASE have someone with an education background on your team. (Preferably classroom experience.) Don't assume what teachers want and need. Don't just survey teachers. Get them on your team and have them help steer your product development.

I worked in a school's IT department a few years ago and the way the approach to tech worked was downright frustrating. It basically culminated in teachers request XYZ and us providing it. No one, not even our director, took the time to find out what the actual needs were for teachers. All they did was throw money and technology at the teachers and said "here, use it". I get really uncomfortable when people without a…

Upvote for you, the teacher/school buy-in is the one factor that decides whether your edtech make or break.

There's a general reluctance to switch to another way of doing things, even if it's proven to be great, unless the cost-benefit is exponentially way better. Then there's another hurdle to overcome - re-training teachers, producing new classroom materials, changing lesson plans etc.

Perhaps it's no accident that the most popular edtech that we hear right now is Clever. (Or maybe that's just because we're on HN, haha)

Re: Request for Education Startups

#149

Post by scandox »

shanev wrote: post #84

Naval Ravikant's tweetstorm today is highly relevant to this [1]: 1/ If the primary purpose of school was education, the Internet should obsolete it. But school is mainly about credentialing. 2/ Schools survive anti-educational behavior (i.e. groupthink) due to symbiosis between institutions that issue and accept credentials. 3/ Employers looking past traditional credentials can arbitrage the gap. @ycombinator made $…

> The best books are on the Internet.

I'm neutral on many of these points, except this one. This is simply not true. The Internet can be incredibly shallow on a very wide range of topics. I mean maybe if you have access to University Library systems etc...but I don't think that's the "Internet" you mean.

I hope this will get better, although the impetus to make the Internet deeper seems to have slacked off recently.

Re: Request for Education Startups

#150

Post by sannee »

scandox wrote: post #149
shanev wrote: post #84

Naval Ravikant's tweetstorm today is highly relevant to this [1]: 1/ If the primary purpose of school was education, the Internet should obsolete it. But school is mainly about credentialing. 2/ Schools survive anti-educational behavior (i.e. groupthink) due to symbiosis between institutions that issue and accept credentials. 3/ Employers looking past traditional credentials can arbitrage the gap. @ycombinator made $…

> The best books are on the Internet. I'm neutral on many of these points, except this one. This is simply not true. The Internet can be incredibly shallow on a very wide range of topics. I mean maybe if you have access to University Library systems etc...but I don't think that's the "Internet" you mean. I hope this will get better, although the impetus to make the Internet deeper seems to have slacked off recently.

I mean, it's not exactly the most kosher thing to do (though you can usually get actual oficially released ebooks for the newer stuff), but you can usually get PDF versions of whatever textbook you want on the internet.

I know about a guy with a serious hoarding syndrome, who has hundreds of gigabytes of the stuff stashed somewhere.

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