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The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

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Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#221

Post by JasserInicide »

csa wrote: post #94
LargeWu wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What, specifically, is an example of an exam not measuring proficiency? If an exam is well designed, the student will need to figure out what is being asked and use their mastery to provide an answer.

> What, specifically, is an example of an exam not measuring proficiency Not op, but a few examples: 1. Test structures that reward good time management. The paper SAT is a good example of this. The early items in a section are (were?) easy, the middle items were medium difficulty, and the toughest items were towards the end. A good test take would manage their time so that they spent the most amount of time on quest…

I think the SAT is a ludicrous setup given that most people never see anything like it in their lives again but the practice of studying for passing an exam of some kind is an absolutely invaluable skill

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#222

Post by mbreese »

kridsdale1 wrote: post #207
sourcepluck wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "It wasn't until I found out about WGU" Could I politely suggest writing out the full acronym the first time, and then using WGU subsequently? It'd be a good deal more considerate of non-U.S. readers.

Yes it leaves me guessing. West Georgia University? Washington, George Understanding-Builder?

Western Governors University

But they rarely use the full name, even on their own site.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#223

Post by JoshTriplett »

AdamN wrote: post #110
michaelrpeskin wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's "equity" for you. We can't be unfair and give someone something that makes them better. It's easier to keep the top kids down than it is to lift the bottom kids up.

That's not necessarily the reason. OP probably was letting faster kids jump ahead but that doesn't really do anything helpful for a class that's going through a topic together step by step. Better would have been to let the faster person learn something else tangentially related to the course so that they stay engaged but they don't disengage because they're simply ahead of the rest of the class on the next topic - w…

Or just...not have students at wildly different levels in the same class.

At high school and more so in universities, there are distinct classes at different levels, and prerequisites for those classes, and students at different levels. Bring that system to all grades, rather than just having "age N = grade X" as one giant class with pressure for uniformity.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#224

Post by vundercind »

tejohnso wrote: post #99
panzagl wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife had one kid scream for 10 minutes yesterday and another throw a chair. Another just sat there and didn't do a thing for 7 hours. The Little House/Christmas Story model hasn't been able to work for a long time.

> My wife had one kid scream for 10 minutes yesterday Did she actually allow this kid to disrupt the entire class for 10 minutes? Isn't there a responsibility to all the other students that they should have a reasonable learning environment? I remember being sent to the office for a lot less than that.

- Some schools don't have the resources to send a kid who screams for 10 minutes to the office. Schools in bad areas may have a line of battery incidents waiting for admin's attention by noon. There are schools where second graders threatening the teacher with sexual assault is just a Tuesday and basically gets ignored.

- Schools in nicer areas are sometimes in the middle of some dumbshit half-implemented (the other parts made admin uncomfortable) "discipline plan" that the superintendent got sold on at some damn district-paid drinking vacation away from the family... er, I mean, education conference, which may lead to insane crap like letting a kid scream in the classroom for ten minutes (sending them to the office might get the teacher in trouble for not following the plan). Half-implemented plainly-doomed-to-fail admin-driven plans for discipline, or for education approaches to any or all subject areas, are often a factor in stupid crap schools do.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#225

Post by sixo »

leereeves wrote: post #184
dpkirchner wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, and that strong bias is likely driven by cost, not the equity boogeyman that causes many a jerked knee.

Can you name any examples of gifted programs being shut down, citing any reason other than equity? The examples I've seen, in New York, Seattle, and LA, all cited equity as the reason. Edit: I'm responding here to the comment "It's easier to keep the top kids down than it is to lift the bottom kids up."

OP said:

> It worked well, in my opinion at least, and the number of complaints and straight up threats because kids would learn things "they shouldn't be" was just… insanely frustrating. .... Now in order to keep schools paying for our services, every kid is banded into a range based on their grade

This sentiment that "they shouldn't be" learning advanced things is not an equity argument—it's probably the kids' OWN parents complaining! I certainly agree that the equity-based shutdowns in highly-progressive cities are a problem, but that's really a very limited case; this thread is really about an entirely different phenomenon.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#227

Post by dxbydt »

Afton wrote: post #106
michaelrpeskin wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's "equity" for you. We can't be unfair and give someone something that makes them better. It's easier to keep the top kids down than it is to lift the bottom kids up.

To be fair, it is less about "keeping top kids down" and more about "let's use our very scarce resources helping the bottom kids". Put that way it seems less malicious, and more like probably the right thing to do over all, while still being extremely frustrating if you are, or are the parent of, a 'top kid'. I know that in Seattle, I've been very frustrated with all the talk and promise of our school to provide enri…

> "let's use our very scarce resources helping the bottom kids"

So why does the richest country on the planet have "very scarce resources" only when it comes to educating its kids ? Of course, that very same public school has a stadium that is easily several times larger than facilities provided for Olympic level athletes in a poor country like India. That same school has a music program with a huge ballroom, recording studio, fancy musical instruments...bass sax, harps, bassoons and contrabassoons, double bass, violas...like literally, even a top of the line Bollywood studio doesn't have half of this. USA has chosen to prioritize just about everything other than basic classroom stem education. Then when you ask the math teacher why the kids don't know their logarithms and trig tables, he is like...well we have calculators and chromebooks. I have spent multiple years trying to engage with school board officials in public schools here in the mid-west. The most reasonable, unemotional, takeaway after all this engagement is that Americans are simply not interested in classroom education. They don't have teacher, don't have the time to teach, don't care for books or chalkboards...its simply not their thing. That's fine. I do hope all of this hyper-investment in music and sports produces some world class track and field athlete who can run a mile under three minutes while playing the bassoon.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#228

Post by uncletaco »

ryanmcbride wrote: post #132
tombert wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit tangential but related. I dropped out of college in 2012 and was one of the very lucky few who managed to find software engineering work almost immediately [1]. I had a bit of a complex about not having a degree, and a few times I tried going back only to drop out again because I would get bored; by the time I had gone back, I already knew enough stuff to be qualified as an engineer, and as such I didn't feel l…

I dropped out and became an engineer at almost the exact same time. I've thought about going back for a degree but I was always so horribly bad at school that it's scared me off. I was bad at it mainly for undiagnosed ADHD reasons that I'm now getting successfully treated, but I'm still worried that if I went back the same things would just happen again. I'd join a class, I'd already kind of know what they're teachin…

I dropped out of school for adhd reasons and after getting treatment I went back and finished my last couple semesters (and wrote a novel, that first year on vyvanse was insanely productive). I found it a lot easier to engage with the work and pay attention long enough to take notes in class.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#229

Post by ericmcer »

brainwipe wrote: post #32

IMO education is still built around Victorian structures and needs to be reworked from examinations downwards. Examinations are an exercise in being good at examinations, not proficiency in the subject. Once you strip that away the you wind back all the structures that feed it. You can see this working at schools designed for the neuro diverse. Those students simply can't sit and listen to a teacher all day, so each…

Yeah definitely agree. Tech at my kids school just means all the tests and homework are done on a computer instead of on paper, but it is still the same format as it has always been.

Would be cool to see more open ended long running projects instead of the standard 'lecture > homework > test' pipeline. Kids are also given a crazy amount of leeway and teachers/parents will drag a negligent kid to their diploma. Even if a kid tried to fail they would be met with a bunch of counselors and special classes begging him to put forth a minimal effort. It might help if we moved the guardrails back a bit and let kids know that failure is a very real possibility.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#230

Post by JasserInicide »

areoform wrote: post #147
empressplay wrote: post #27

It seems the real issue here is that school devices should be locked down better? It's honestly shocking they aren't already. Why on Earth would kids be allowed to access TikTok over their school network? Mind-boggling, seriously.

I get culture shock on HN these days. People on HN advocating for locking down school computers? What in the dystopia is happening? I'm personally glad that they're circumventing these "protections." At least, they'll learn something along the way.

So you're fine with your tax dollars going towards your kids browsing TikTok all day in school instead of fucking learning?
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