Request for Education Startups • Hacker News Board

Re: Request for Education Startups

#31

Post by jpereira » Mon, Sep 25, 2017, 8:45 PM UTC

These all seem to be assuming the institution-teacher-student model of education we have today. Even the "New school models" section is assuming a delivered experience, which has an institutional bent.

I think biggest area of disruption in education would be in building fundamentally new architectures for educational systems, based on networks and social communities instead of funnels and institutions. The latter have a pretty huge list of undesirable properties and negative externalities, especially in how they limit diverse experiences and learning.

An eye-opening read on this front for me has been Deschooling Society by Ivan Illich [0]. It's insane how much of what he wrote 40 years ago still holds true.

[0] http://www.davidtinapple.com/illich/1970_deschooling.html

Re: Request for Education Startups

#32

Post by baby_wipe » Mon, Sep 25, 2017, 8:45 PM UTC

germinalphrase wrote: post #16

baby_wipe wrote: post #4

TeachBay (for grade schools) - Parents bid in an auction for seats in a teacher's classroom at the beginning of the school year, instead of having the principal assign students to teachers. This will reward the good teachers, punish the bad ones, and give everyone an incentive to do better.

Assuming parents even have adequate information to make good choices, this seems like a surefire way to create wildly unbalanced classes. Giving difficult students to a bad teacher doesn't "punish" the bad teacher - it just creates a dysfunctional learning environment for the students who need it most . I would seriously question the ethical resolve of my kid's school if they used such a system.

Adequate information - Do you think principals have adequate information? If so, why couldn't they just provide it to the parents then? Besides, there are many tools such as feedback reviews + word of mouth which would help with the information asymmetry.

Unbalanced classes - Classes may currently have balance within the school, but there is already a massive inbalance between schools. And why do we assume that all classrooms should have an equal distribution of IQ? Colleges do the opposite - they purposely exclude lower IQs.

Difficult students going to bad teachers - Maybe this is how it would turn out. I'm not sure. (But even if it did, it would be even more of an incentive for teachers to perform better - just a thought).

I would be hesitant to predict any specific outcome of this scheme, only that teachers would be more inclined to provide the service that parents actually want.

Ethical grounds - I would question the ethical resolve of any school that isn't open to whatever system will help students best.

Re: Request for Education Startups

#33

Post by tonydiv » Mon, Sep 25, 2017, 8:45 PM UTC

Kevin_S wrote: post #19

ankyth27 wrote: post #17

A professional football player starts playing at the age of 4-5, a professional dancer starts practicing right from childhood, but I see most people only get interested in code when they need a job and they start fearing. Our education system should introduce problem solving and coding right from primary classes, teachers should be trained exclusively for these, and the big G, F and others should collaborate with gov…

Disagree. Coding is one of hundreds of skills that can lead to a good career, and coding is absolutely not for everyone. Football/dance are extra-curriculars, I am all for coding being an option early on (high school?) but not anytime before then. If a kid shows an interest in coding, they'll find a way. And parents nowadays are more aware of it as a viable option Even if this seems worth it anyway, a teacher "traine…

Why not before high school? As someone teaching kids, they grasp the concepts just fine at young ages and if the material is presented in a fun and personalized way, they tend to enjoy it more than other subjects (depending on how those are taught).

Actively exposing your child to coding will greatly increase the likelihood they pursue it later on.

Our pricing is as low as $22.50 per hour with a friend, which I consider pretty affordable compared to many extra curriculars!

Re: Request for Education Startups

#34

Post by akurilin » Mon, Sep 25, 2017, 8:52 PM UTC

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.

At least based on our IK12/YC experience, it was pretty rare to run into EdTech teams with no classroom experience on their founding team.

Re: Request for Education Startups

#35

Post by jeffmould » Mon, Sep 25, 2017, 8:54 PM UTC

2arrs2ells wrote: post #30

jeffmould wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My fiance's children just started in a new school system and they use an app called ClassDojo that is intended to increase involvement between teachers, parents, and the students. At any given time, my fiance can login, see photos of what the kids are doing in class, send/receive messages with the teacher(s), check grades/assignments. Compared to their previous school system, the level of involvement is beyond compar…

ClassDojo and Remind are both alumni of ImagineK12/YC Education!

I can't speak from personal experience, but based on my fiance's feedback they are great tools!

Re: Request for Education Startups

#36

Post by baby_wipe » Mon, Sep 25, 2017, 8:56 PM UTC

jeffmould wrote: post #26

baby_wipe wrote: post #4

TeachBay (for grade schools) - Parents bid in an auction for seats in a teacher's classroom at the beginning of the school year, instead of having the principal assign students to teachers. This will reward the good teachers, punish the bad ones, and give everyone an incentive to do better.

While I believe your idea is with good intent and I am not going to bash you, I would strongly consider going back to the drawing board on this idea. I can't even imagine the number of ways this could possibly go wrong. From punishing lower-income students where parents are able to compete for the "good teachers", abuse by parents to punish a teacher, and even going as far as to create a racial barrier within the sch…

The number of ways this could possibly go wrong - It's true. It could end up being a disaster. But there are also probably unimaginable ways it could go right.

Lower-income students being punished - Lower-income students are already being punished for living in poor neighborhoods and being forced to go to terrible schools. Parents are already competing for good teachers by moving to wealthier neighborhoods. It wouldn't bother me one bit that some kids would get better teachers than others because I believe this system would provide better education for all students in an absolute sense.

Abuse by parents - I'm not sure what mean by "abuse". I am certainly not advocating for physical violence. I wouldn't use the word "abuse" for teachers having to be responsive to parents' demands.

Racial barrier - I'm not sure why anything in this proposed system would inherently be racist.

Re: Request for Education Startups

#37

Post by TarpitCarnivore » Mon, Sep 25, 2017, 8:56 PM UTC

tonydiv wrote: post #33

Kevin_S wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. Coding is one of hundreds of skills that can lead to a good career, and coding is absolutely not for everyone. Football/dance are extra-curriculars, I am all for coding being an option early on (high school?) but not anytime before then. If a kid shows an interest in coding, they'll find a way. And parents nowadays are more aware of it as a viable option Even if this seems worth it anyway, a teacher "traine…

Why not before high school? As someone teaching kids, they grasp the concepts just fine at young ages and if the material is presented in a fun and personalized way, they tend to enjoy it more than other subjects (depending on how those are taught). Actively exposing your child to coding will greatly increase the likelihood they pursue it later on. Our pricing is as low as $22.50 per hour with a friend, which I consi…

There's no issue with having an introduction to computer classes and the fundamentals to some, but the original comment was more in the line of making it a mandatory class. They need exposure, but it shouldn't be forced on them. Fostering an interest is far better than demanding kids sit in a 40 minute class to learn functions.

Also $22.50 may seem cheap, but it is quite expensive especially if a family has 2-3 kids that they'd like to enroll.

Re: Request for Education Startups

#38

Post by avip » Mon, Sep 25, 2017, 8:57 PM UTC

baby_wipe wrote: post #32

germinalphrase wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming parents even have adequate information to make good choices, this seems like a surefire way to create wildly unbalanced classes. Giving difficult students to a bad teacher doesn't "punish" the bad teacher - it just creates a dysfunctional learning environment for the students who need it most . I would seriously question the ethical resolve of my kid's school if they used such a system.

Adequate information - Do you think principals have adequate information? If so, why couldn't they just provide it to the parents then? Besides, there are many tools such as feedback reviews + word of mouth which would help with the information asymmetry. Unbalanced classes - Classes may currently have balance within the school, but there is already a massive inbalance between schools. And why do we assume that all c…

>teachers would be more inclined to provide the service that parents actually want.

Teachers are there for the children. Satisfying parents is orthogonal, and often conflicting, objective.

Re: Request for Education Startups

#39

Post by jtbigwoo » Mon, Sep 25, 2017, 9:01 PM UTC

baby_wipe wrote: post #4

TeachBay (for grade schools) - Parents bid in an auction for seats in a teacher's classroom at the beginning of the school year, instead of having the principal assign students to teachers. This will reward the good teachers, punish the bad ones, and give everyone an incentive to do better.

I did a fair amount of volunteering in my kids' school. There is a huuuuge difference between the effective teachers and the teachers that parents like. The school is a public school that uses a lottery to determine admission because 200-250 kids apply for 100 spots each year. Because of this, parent involvement is considerably higher than an ordinary school. You’d expect that this would be the kind of school that would embrace great teachers.

There are a few terrible teachers at the school but they aren't the ones that the parents complain about. As long as a teacher is nice and most kids get good grades, nobody complains. The most hated teachers are the ones who actually try to get kids to behave better and learn more. This is because most parents look at test scores when choosing a school, but they don’t really care about their kid’s score. (It’s easy to rationalize a poor test score--"The test doesn’t measure what’s wonderful about Taylor.") Instead, parents mostly want their kids to be happy and stay out of trouble. A teacher that doesn’t make her students work very hard and doesn’t demand good behavior meets those criteria perfectly.

Re: Request for Education Startups

#40

Post by baby_wipe » Mon, Sep 25, 2017, 9:02 PM UTC

pergadad wrote: post #21

baby_wipe wrote: post #4

TeachBay (for grade schools) - Parents bid in an auction for seats in a teacher's classroom at the beginning of the school year, instead of having the principal assign students to teachers. This will reward the good teachers, punish the bad ones, and give everyone an incentive to do better.

Even more pressure for teachers to teach tu the test and /or give inflated grades. Even less incentive for teachers to accept /focus on weaker students.

Teach to test + inflated grades - If that turns out to be true, then I suppose that is what parents want. Who else should be the one deciding how/what students are taught?

Weaker students - Maybe. But if weaker students are being overlooked then that could also create a market opportunity for other teachers to focus on those weaker students. Again, I would be hesitant to predict any specific outcome, only that teachers would be more responsive to what parents wanted.