"Use the method of the grandmother"
March 20, 2013 8:14 AM Subscribe
Sugata Mitra's 2013 TED Prize talk argues that learning should be viewed as self-organizing and that our educational system is a relic of the victorians. His first TED talk has slightly more detail, while his blog has considerably more.
This seems to be along the lines of Chris Alexander's writing on the subject of integrative communities, which I greatly admire.
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:55 AM on March 20, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:55 AM on March 20, 2013 [3 favorites]
So, the portrayal of the education system that he's provided is... well. It's a bit outdated, though it's true here as ever that modernity is not as widely deployed as it should be. But modern commenters about education - and I've fallen into this trap myself - should not be basing their assumptions about the education system on their own experiences, when those experiences are 20 or 30 years old. Both the theory and practice have kind of moved on from there, and making bold proclamations about the nature of education, life and the universe founded in opinions a generation old is a mistake.
That's the charitable thing I had to say. The less charitable thing is that the writing at the end of that considerably more link is seriously some nonsense.
I suspect there's some good stuff in here, but it's really hard to look past the nonsensical woo to find it.
posted by mhoye at 9:00 AM on March 20, 2013 [16 favorites]
That's the charitable thing I had to say. The less charitable thing is that the writing at the end of that considerably more link is seriously some nonsense.
The curriculum should be taken from the nature of the Universe and our purpose, if any. The universe has a scale from around zero to the 30th power of 10 as far as I can guess. Time goes from the big bang to plus infinity as far as we know. If we examine each power of ten over each epoch of time, will get a curriculum.That, like a fair bit of the writing there, is seriously about two short steps away from saying that if you don't acknowledge the supremacy of Nature's Harmonic Simultaneous Four-Day Time Cube, you are educated stupid.
I suspect there's some good stuff in here, but it's really hard to look past the nonsensical woo to find it.
posted by mhoye at 9:00 AM on March 20, 2013 [16 favorites]
Just watched this the other night. As a former math educator, I winced a little when he said kids today don't need to do multiplication in their heads. But that was my only cavil with an otherwise very inspiring talk.
posted by seemoreglass at 9:00 AM on March 20, 2013
posted by seemoreglass at 9:00 AM on March 20, 2013
Build a School in my Butt
So glad I installed that plugin.
posted by destro at 9:13 AM on March 20, 2013 [11 favorites]
So glad I installed that plugin.
posted by destro at 9:13 AM on March 20, 2013 [11 favorites]
Please, please, PLEASE sign me up to be in the Granny Cloud. I can put on a gray wig if I have to.
posted by Mooseli at 9:13 AM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Mooseli at 9:13 AM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
I found that the seductive power of the stories in his blog was nicely countered by the still active copy of the "Cloud to Butt" extension in my browser. It's funny that a person who complains about century-old outdated models wants to write about a tablet computer that lasts a century-long lifetime.
But he has good things, too, I think, mixed in with all the mystical network fetishism.
And is it true that "Both the theory and practice have kind of moved on from there" in an important way? It seems as though the good old Prussian purpose of "building citizens" is still there in education. I've certainly heard teachers get very worried about, say, home schooling, because it didn't instill the habits and values they wanted to see. And as far as I could tell, those habits and values were very much those of the compliant clerk... one who cares deeply about what he or she is told to care about.
posted by Hizonner at 9:14 AM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
But he has good things, too, I think, mixed in with all the mystical network fetishism.
And is it true that "Both the theory and practice have kind of moved on from there" in an important way? It seems as though the good old Prussian purpose of "building citizens" is still there in education. I've certainly heard teachers get very worried about, say, home schooling, because it didn't instill the habits and values they wanted to see. And as far as I could tell, those habits and values were very much those of the compliant clerk... one who cares deeply about what he or she is told to care about.
posted by Hizonner at 9:14 AM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
I think that might be a little un-generous, mhoye. I mean, I think so, but I don't know, because I'm not completely clear what he means either and I did think as I read it that this would sound pretty kooky if I hadn't seen his TED talk.
But anyway, my understanding of the part you quoted, even if the numbers are a bit mushy, is that examining the universe at different scales and and at different timescales naturally leads to interesting questions, and those questions lead to productive lines of inquiry, and if the tools to follow those lines of inquiry are given then that itself can comprise a useful education. He's also saying that the way we investigate and learn about the world should be driven more by the qualities of the world as they present themselves to us, than by an agenda of producing functioning parts for a "great human machine," especially not if the design of that machine is based on the machine of empire, and the process of trying to make parts for it is so flawed and ineffective even on its own terms. Obviously, that's not to say that education shouldn't give you useful skills for life and employment. But those should be attained by, again, a 'bottom-up' process of allowing kids to develop the skills they think it would be rewarding to develop.
Yes it's all a bit vague and could be interpreted as woo, but given it was just a short blog post I think that would be uncharitable to take it that way.
Regardless, I really enjoyed that TED talk and if his results are really replicable, then that gives me a lot of faith in humanity's options.
posted by Drexen at 9:17 AM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
But anyway, my understanding of the part you quoted, even if the numbers are a bit mushy, is that examining the universe at different scales and and at different timescales naturally leads to interesting questions, and those questions lead to productive lines of inquiry, and if the tools to follow those lines of inquiry are given then that itself can comprise a useful education. He's also saying that the way we investigate and learn about the world should be driven more by the qualities of the world as they present themselves to us, than by an agenda of producing functioning parts for a "great human machine," especially not if the design of that machine is based on the machine of empire, and the process of trying to make parts for it is so flawed and ineffective even on its own terms. Obviously, that's not to say that education shouldn't give you useful skills for life and employment. But those should be attained by, again, a 'bottom-up' process of allowing kids to develop the skills they think it would be rewarding to develop.
Yes it's all a bit vague and could be interpreted as woo, but given it was just a short blog post I think that would be uncharitable to take it that way.
Regardless, I really enjoyed that TED talk and if his results are really replicable, then that gives me a lot of faith in humanity's options.
posted by Drexen at 9:17 AM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
There are lots of things to like about his idea, but he had some strange conclusions. The hole in the wall experiment was fantastic, and very inspiring. The grandmother cloud is an inspiring idea, but the video he showed was not at all what he claimed it to be. It was a retired teacher, who was teaching in a traditional didactic fashion ("repeat after me!"); not a grandmother standing behind providing encouragement to a self-directed kid. His awe at the things the kids learned ("12 years old and she knows that neurons make connections!") seemed misplaced. You just replaced the human teacher with a software teacher, and just because she can regurgitate facts about neurons doesn't necessarily means she can understand or apply that. I mean, maybe she can, but I can't tell.
There was a lot that irritated me about his spurious conclusions, but I did like a lot of what he had to say. I guess I came away thinking that we should make an effort to put computers with educational software into a lot of remote villages around the world, where we can't afford to build schools and pay teachers. Actually, wasn't this all just an accidental advertisement for Montessori schooling?
posted by Joh at 9:22 AM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
There was a lot that irritated me about his spurious conclusions, but I did like a lot of what he had to say. I guess I came away thinking that we should make an effort to put computers with educational software into a lot of remote villages around the world, where we can't afford to build schools and pay teachers. Actually, wasn't this all just an accidental advertisement for Montessori schooling?
posted by Joh at 9:22 AM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
His dream, a school run by a limited number of humans with a huge machine super-structure, is the ultimate techno-libertarian fantasy (from a TED Talk? no way!), where you eliminate all costs and somehow, magically, computers solve everything. His idea is a common one among utopian technologists of all fields: social institutions are a Victorian relic and that we can just put a bunch of technology down for people to use and let the market take its course.
The idea of loose constructivist learning (where you give the kids the materials and let them construct meaning for themselves) and intelligent tutoring software (where you let an AI do the work of a teacher) have a pretty storied history in education literature over the past 50 years or so, and there are major problems with each. Nothing he's doing here is really groundbreaking, and I don't see how any of the poorly defined results from his experiments actually point to an exciting new direction for education. Kids will learn some parts of an exciting new technology that's introduced to them? Well... ok. What are they learning? Can they put any of that in to practice? Are they learning the actual content, or are they instead learning their own version of it with misconceptions baked in? These questions go beyond what a "granny" (and let me say how much I hate that idea) in some distant country who doesn't speak the language and isn't a part of the local culture could be expected to field.
This seems like a sales pitch for his SOLE technology, which will probably go on an incredibly large pile of stuff labeled "failed technological saviors claiming to revolutionize education".
posted by codacorolla at 9:34 AM on March 20, 2013 [17 favorites]
The idea of loose constructivist learning (where you give the kids the materials and let them construct meaning for themselves) and intelligent tutoring software (where you let an AI do the work of a teacher) have a pretty storied history in education literature over the past 50 years or so, and there are major problems with each. Nothing he's doing here is really groundbreaking, and I don't see how any of the poorly defined results from his experiments actually point to an exciting new direction for education. Kids will learn some parts of an exciting new technology that's introduced to them? Well... ok. What are they learning? Can they put any of that in to practice? Are they learning the actual content, or are they instead learning their own version of it with misconceptions baked in? These questions go beyond what a "granny" (and let me say how much I hate that idea) in some distant country who doesn't speak the language and isn't a part of the local culture could be expected to field.
This seems like a sales pitch for his SOLE technology, which will probably go on an incredibly large pile of stuff labeled "failed technological saviors claiming to revolutionize education".
posted by codacorolla at 9:34 AM on March 20, 2013 [17 favorites]
The inspiration of self-learning and investigation is great.
My biggest question is, does it take some level of fear to produce good communication skills in an individual? Increasingly my job is about the communication of ideas, not the ideas themselves. It took years of criticism in school (design & otherwise) to build those skills.
And then the conversation turns to aesthetics/marketing, and it makes me sad that consumption is driving all of that. and that's completely moving off topic
posted by Kronur at 10:03 AM on March 20, 2013
My biggest question is, does it take some level of fear to produce good communication skills in an individual? Increasingly my job is about the communication of ideas, not the ideas themselves. It took years of criticism in school (design & otherwise) to build those skills.
And then the conversation turns to aesthetics/marketing, and it makes me sad that consumption is driving all of that. and that's completely moving off topic
posted by Kronur at 10:03 AM on March 20, 2013
The curriculum should be taken from the nature of the Universe and our purpose, if any. The universe has a scale from around zero to the 30th power of 10 as far as I can guess. Time goes from the big bang to plus infinity as far as we know. If we examine each power of ten over each epoch of time, will get a curriculum.
You missed the batshitinsane tag.
posted by unSane at 10:31 AM on March 20, 2013
You missed the batshitinsane tag.
posted by unSane at 10:31 AM on March 20, 2013
Kronur: My biggest question is, does it take some level of fear to produce good communication skills in an individual? Increasingly my job is about the communication of ideas, not the ideas themselves. It took years of criticism in school (design & otherwise) to build those skills.
I think there's also the issue that learning is hard and not always fun (even if you do it properly) and most people's intellectual curiosity isn't strong enough to propel them through most of the learning they need to do. So part of the teacher's job is to push and motivate the students through the difficult parts, kind of like a personal trainer.
posted by Mitrovarr at 10:32 AM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
I think there's also the issue that learning is hard and not always fun (even if you do it properly) and most people's intellectual curiosity isn't strong enough to propel them through most of the learning they need to do. So part of the teacher's job is to push and motivate the students through the difficult parts, kind of like a personal trainer.
posted by Mitrovarr at 10:32 AM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
The task of educating humans is AI-complete. That is, you need an intelligence equivalent in cleverness to a human intelligence to teach a human being. If the latest unsupervised feature learning and deep learning methods are not different in kind from human learning, as the most radical people claim (Kurzweil, for one, and I'm not very surprised that Andrew Ng is also at the forefront of UFLDL research), then it would be feasible to educate people using an UFLDL method, given lots more data and lots more cycles. If the technology comes into being, then it comes into being. That doesn't mean that it won't be absolutely horrific.
Let me reproduce something I said some time ago:
I once introduced a friend to the book, The Diamond Age, by Neal Stephenson. Good book. Many of you have read it. It touches on the nature of an education in the future. My friend became very interested in all this education business and in education startups and all that jazz. Make a technology, teach a lot of people. In a crazy way.
(spoilers)
He wants to make into reality an item in the book - the Primer - which educates the main character. I've also heard other education startup people talk about this. Makes sense, with Khan Academy and Coursera and all this other stuff popping up, right?
I never had the heart to tell my friend my own reading of The Diamond Age. The Primer in the book is, in one significant way, a sham in two ways: there's a real human behind the scenes voicing the teaching generated by the book-computer, one real human. And an engineer created the book in the first place.
Also, the idea as presented in the book is suffused with the most profound racism. A Chinese modern-day mandarin pirates the technology and give the book to a ship-full of little Chinese girls, who are taught to be subservient to their new leader, the white main character.
(end spoilers)
posted by curuinor at 10:40 AM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
Let me reproduce something I said some time ago:
I once introduced a friend to the book, The Diamond Age, by Neal Stephenson. Good book. Many of you have read it. It touches on the nature of an education in the future. My friend became very interested in all this education business and in education startups and all that jazz. Make a technology, teach a lot of people. In a crazy way.
(spoilers)
He wants to make into reality an item in the book - the Primer - which educates the main character. I've also heard other education startup people talk about this. Makes sense, with Khan Academy and Coursera and all this other stuff popping up, right?
I never had the heart to tell my friend my own reading of The Diamond Age. The Primer in the book is, in one significant way, a sham in two ways: there's a real human behind the scenes voicing the teaching generated by the book-computer, one real human. And an engineer created the book in the first place.
Also, the idea as presented in the book is suffused with the most profound racism. A Chinese modern-day mandarin pirates the technology and give the book to a ship-full of little Chinese girls, who are taught to be subservient to their new leader, the white main character.
(end spoilers)
posted by curuinor at 10:40 AM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
This proposal is solutionism at its finest.
It takes the defunding of education as a constraint and tries to route around it with pop-psychological theories and gee-whiz technologies, instead of questioning why education is last in line at the budget trough and how to value it correctly. We already have at least one working model of how to do this right:
Decades ago, when the Finnish school system was badly in need of reform, the goal of the program that Finland instituted, resulting in so much success today, was never excellence. It was equity.
Pure fuckwitted TED nonsense.
posted by migurski at 10:47 AM on March 20, 2013 [4 favorites]
It takes the defunding of education as a constraint and tries to route around it with pop-psychological theories and gee-whiz technologies, instead of questioning why education is last in line at the budget trough and how to value it correctly. We already have at least one working model of how to do this right:
Decades ago, when the Finnish school system was badly in need of reform, the goal of the program that Finland instituted, resulting in so much success today, was never excellence. It was equity.
Pure fuckwitted TED nonsense.
posted by migurski at 10:47 AM on March 20, 2013 [4 favorites]
Both the theory and practice have kind of moved on from there, and making bold proclamations about the nature of education, life and the universe founded in opinions a generation old is a mistake.
In Canada things haven't changed much over the past 30 years or so. Rather, it's more of a pendulum that swings from "progressive" and "learner-centered" approaches to teaching, to a more "traditional" approach.
How can things have changed much anyway? Kids still go to school for roughly six hours a day in a big box. They sit at desks, sometimes in groups, sometimes in rows. There is a teacher at the front who nominally serves as either a guide or as the source of knowledge ("mastery teaching" can realy only be practiced by teachers who have mastered teaching, and those sorts of masters don't exist).
posted by KokuRyu at 10:54 AM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
In Canada things haven't changed much over the past 30 years or so. Rather, it's more of a pendulum that swings from "progressive" and "learner-centered" approaches to teaching, to a more "traditional" approach.
How can things have changed much anyway? Kids still go to school for roughly six hours a day in a big box. They sit at desks, sometimes in groups, sometimes in rows. There is a teacher at the front who nominally serves as either a guide or as the source of knowledge ("mastery teaching" can realy only be practiced by teachers who have mastered teaching, and those sorts of masters don't exist).
posted by KokuRyu at 10:54 AM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
The big reveal was kids looking things up on google, not some kind of ganny-powered Illustrated Primer.
That the kids were able to learn how to use computers so quickly was impressive, but computers are uniquely ideal for self-directed experimentation because they reward experimentation with immediate and replicable feedback. And they're "safe" in that they're hard to really fail at; short of physical damage a novice user can solve most problems by rebooting. Learning how to use a computer is much more game-like than, say, semi-rigorous study of history. They also don't necessarily teach you anything other than how to use a computer, which is incredibly valuable in and of itself but is still only a means to an end. Same with looking things up on google.
It's great that a kid can so quickly learn to query a major search engine and (importantly) interpret the results, but after the talk about beaming cloud grannies around the world all I saw was some questions being passed from the teacher into the search bar by the student, and then the results parsed and returned. Student as google API.
posted by postcommunism at 10:57 AM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
That the kids were able to learn how to use computers so quickly was impressive, but computers are uniquely ideal for self-directed experimentation because they reward experimentation with immediate and replicable feedback. And they're "safe" in that they're hard to really fail at; short of physical damage a novice user can solve most problems by rebooting. Learning how to use a computer is much more game-like than, say, semi-rigorous study of history. They also don't necessarily teach you anything other than how to use a computer, which is incredibly valuable in and of itself but is still only a means to an end. Same with looking things up on google.
It's great that a kid can so quickly learn to query a major search engine and (importantly) interpret the results, but after the talk about beaming cloud grannies around the world all I saw was some questions being passed from the teacher into the search bar by the student, and then the results parsed and returned. Student as google API.
posted by postcommunism at 10:57 AM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
American society has had decades to fix education and it hasn't happened. I don't think it will anytime soon. Without endorsing any particular solution, I think it's time to give students the ability to route around broken teachers and schools.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 11:00 AM on March 20, 2013
posted by LastOfHisKind at 11:00 AM on March 20, 2013
Kronur: My biggest question is, does it take some level of fear to produce good communication skills in an individual?
This concept is so alien to me that I'm astonished you even asked the question. Not only is fear not a necessity, in my experience it is counter-productive to learning communication skills. Why is it that you associate the two?
posted by misha at 11:05 AM on March 20, 2013
This concept is so alien to me that I'm astonished you even asked the question. Not only is fear not a necessity, in my experience it is counter-productive to learning communication skills. Why is it that you associate the two?
posted by misha at 11:05 AM on March 20, 2013
American society has had decades to fix education and it hasn't happened. I don't think it will anytime soon. Without endorsing any particular solution, I think it's time to give students the ability to route around broken teachers and schools.
You’re repeating the usual argument for private or charter schools, and the predictable result has been that students whose parents have the means (money, knowledge) to recognize and route around broken schools do so, while everyone else basically lumps it. We’re living in this world right now, and it’s an unkind and unforgiving one that perpetuates generational class divisions. It’ll get worse as the left-behind grow up unable to operate on a level.
Finland got it right, the goal should be equity.
posted by migurski at 11:15 AM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
You’re repeating the usual argument for private or charter schools, and the predictable result has been that students whose parents have the means (money, knowledge) to recognize and route around broken schools do so, while everyone else basically lumps it. We’re living in this world right now, and it’s an unkind and unforgiving one that perpetuates generational class divisions. It’ll get worse as the left-behind grow up unable to operate on a level.
Finland got it right, the goal should be equity.
posted by migurski at 11:15 AM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
Previously and promising.
The take away is that our current system almost encourages swiss cheese gaps in the learning process. It needs to instead be retooled to encourage mastery...and the only way you can acheive mastery is through trial, error, and repetition. The analog lecture setup we currently have does not accomodate that. Some students race ahead, some fall behind, many fluctuate along the way...most pass to the next stage without a full grasp of the prerequisites needed for the next level. This is one area where flipped classrooms (recorded lectures/training at home, homework in the class) really makes sense. It encourages self paced learning and ensures better mastery independent of peer progress...especially with the use of technology. With Khan Academy in particular, a teacher or "coach" can keep track of every student's progress with mastery quizes...see where they're struggling, and watch that magic moment when they finally "get it" unfold in real time.
posted by samsara at 11:19 AM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
The take away is that our current system almost encourages swiss cheese gaps in the learning process. It needs to instead be retooled to encourage mastery...and the only way you can acheive mastery is through trial, error, and repetition. The analog lecture setup we currently have does not accomodate that. Some students race ahead, some fall behind, many fluctuate along the way...most pass to the next stage without a full grasp of the prerequisites needed for the next level. This is one area where flipped classrooms (recorded lectures/training at home, homework in the class) really makes sense. It encourages self paced learning and ensures better mastery independent of peer progress...especially with the use of technology. With Khan Academy in particular, a teacher or "coach" can keep track of every student's progress with mastery quizes...see where they're struggling, and watch that magic moment when they finally "get it" unfold in real time.
posted by samsara at 11:19 AM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
migurski: You’re repeating the usual argument for private or charter schools, and the predictable result has been that students whose parents have the means (money, knowledge) to recognize and route around broken schools do so, while everyone else basically lumps it. We’re living in this world right now, and it’s an unkind and unforgiving one that perpetuates generational class divisions. It’ll get worse as the left-behind grow up unable to operate on a level.
There's also the problem that it allows broken parents to route around functional schools. It makes it really easy for lunatic parents to get together and make sure their children aren't exposed to any actual knowledge or anyone who doesn't believe exactly like them.
posted by Mitrovarr at 11:23 AM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
There's also the problem that it allows broken parents to route around functional schools. It makes it really easy for lunatic parents to get together and make sure their children aren't exposed to any actual knowledge or anyone who doesn't believe exactly like them.
posted by Mitrovarr at 11:23 AM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
I can't watch the TED talk at work. I read the top entry on his blog, and it was pretty much pure drivel as near as I could tell. (Kids are literally incapable of learning (neuroscience!) because they fear the teacher? "The Universe" should supply the curriculum?)
I work all the time with poorly educated people who don't know the first thing about the job they are supposed to be doing (which happens to be helping some of the most disadvantaged among us--poor people with chronic and severe mental illnesses), and show no inclination (or even ability) to learn more. I have literally no idea how either a curriculum based on "the scale of the Universe," or self-organized learning would help this situation. I have a pretty good idea of how requiring that people working in these positions have a graduate degree from an accredited program in the social services would help (hint:IMMENSELY). While I'm sympathetic to the notion that kids get bullied by some of the more retrograde parts of schooling, that school is not engaging, and that there are serious problems with our school system, I feel much less sanguine about the notion that the hard work that needs to be done in the world is likely to get done best by people who have no formal education.
posted by OmieWise at 11:43 AM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
I work all the time with poorly educated people who don't know the first thing about the job they are supposed to be doing (which happens to be helping some of the most disadvantaged among us--poor people with chronic and severe mental illnesses), and show no inclination (or even ability) to learn more. I have literally no idea how either a curriculum based on "the scale of the Universe," or self-organized learning would help this situation. I have a pretty good idea of how requiring that people working in these positions have a graduate degree from an accredited program in the social services would help (hint:IMMENSELY). While I'm sympathetic to the notion that kids get bullied by some of the more retrograde parts of schooling, that school is not engaging, and that there are serious problems with our school system, I feel much less sanguine about the notion that the hard work that needs to be done in the world is likely to get done best by people who have no formal education.
posted by OmieWise at 11:43 AM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
Some students race ahead, some fall behind, many fluctuate along the way...most pass to the next stage without a full grasp of the prerequisites needed for the next level. This is one area where flipped classrooms (recorded lectures/training at home, homework in the class) really makes sense. It encourages self paced learning and ensures better mastery independent of peer progress...especially with the use of technology. With Khan Academy in particular, a teacher or "coach" can keep track of every student's progress with mastery quizes...see where they're struggling, and watch that magic moment when they finally "get it" unfold in real time.
Or you go back to the one-room schoolhouse where the students who are ahead help teach the students who are behind, further the cementing the learning they've already done. Oh and it fosters a sense of community and charity.
posted by one_bean at 11:49 AM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
Or you go back to the one-room schoolhouse where the students who are ahead help teach the students who are behind, further the cementing the learning they've already done. Oh and it fosters a sense of community and charity.
posted by one_bean at 11:49 AM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
With Khan Academy in particular, a teacher or "coach" can keep track of every student's progress with mastery quizes...see where they're struggling, and watch that magic moment when they finally "get it" unfold in real time.
A youtube video is better at this than a full-time teacher?
I’ve long been influenced by E.D. Hirsch’s concept of Cultural Literacy, the idea that a good education produces people with a basic foundation of shared cultural reference points. In the United States today, that includes civics, algebra, a little Shakespeare (there’s a book of these) and a mountain of other tacit knowledge that educated people expect other educated people to be familiar with. The “magic moment” is a side show to the decade-plus process of cultural immersion that produces a literate person. We’ve largely given up on this process as a country, and tried to replace it with a skills-based, test-driven approach. When that approach inevitably starts to falter, we turn to charlatans like Sugata Mitra for answers.
posted by migurski at 12:13 PM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
A youtube video is better at this than a full-time teacher?
I’ve long been influenced by E.D. Hirsch’s concept of Cultural Literacy, the idea that a good education produces people with a basic foundation of shared cultural reference points. In the United States today, that includes civics, algebra, a little Shakespeare (there’s a book of these) and a mountain of other tacit knowledge that educated people expect other educated people to be familiar with. The “magic moment” is a side show to the decade-plus process of cultural immersion that produces a literate person. We’ve largely given up on this process as a country, and tried to replace it with a skills-based, test-driven approach. When that approach inevitably starts to falter, we turn to charlatans like Sugata Mitra for answers.
posted by migurski at 12:13 PM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
In Canada things haven't changed much over the past 30 years or so. Rather, it's more of a pendulum that swings from "progressive" and "learner-centered" approaches to teaching, to a more "traditional" approach.
I would respectfully disagree. I don't know your background, but I've been teaching high school English for the past 8 years, and my methods have little resemblance to those I experienced as a student in the 1980s. Back then, English class was: here's a book, read it, answer these questions, listen to me tell you what it means, now write an essay. For good or bad, that was the pedagogy of the times. I don't know any teacher who does anything resembling this. That doesn't mean that students don't read, or write essays, but a huge focus is on skill building, not literature. This, necessarily, has to be taught in a different way. Is it more "progressive" or better? It depends on when you ask me.
posted by trigger at 12:17 PM on March 20, 2013
I would respectfully disagree. I don't know your background, but I've been teaching high school English for the past 8 years, and my methods have little resemblance to those I experienced as a student in the 1980s. Back then, English class was: here's a book, read it, answer these questions, listen to me tell you what it means, now write an essay. For good or bad, that was the pedagogy of the times. I don't know any teacher who does anything resembling this. That doesn't mean that students don't read, or write essays, but a huge focus is on skill building, not literature. This, necessarily, has to be taught in a different way. Is it more "progressive" or better? It depends on when you ask me.
posted by trigger at 12:17 PM on March 20, 2013
migurski, I believe the point was that, because the Youtube video can take over the "talking head" part of the process, the full-time teacher is then free to give the students interactive help and individual attention. I didn't read "flipped classrooms" as "leave the students to watch the video and ignore them otherwise". More as "free a valuable resource".
posted by Hizonner at 12:22 PM on March 20, 2013
posted by Hizonner at 12:22 PM on March 20, 2013
I never experienced “talking head” education until I got to University, and even then the professor delivering the same lecture for the fourth year in a row would stop to clarify points or answer questions. I believe Khan is trying to streamline an aspect of education that largely doesn’t exist in the strawman form that they claim.
posted by migurski at 12:31 PM on March 20, 2013
posted by migurski at 12:31 PM on March 20, 2013
I mean, we had filmstrips and videos and things. The only one I can recall is the spaceman + chicken + corn one on energy conversion and entropy. Mostly I and my classmates perceived videos as an opportunity to tune out.
posted by migurski at 12:33 PM on March 20, 2013
posted by migurski at 12:33 PM on March 20, 2013
trigger, I'm comparing mostly what my memory of learning was back in the late 70's and early 80's in elementary school, and what my son is experiencing at school now.
I graduated from high school in Victoria BC in 1989, and when I did my practicum for my B.Ed (social studies) in 1999, the curriculum and the approach was about the same. In fact, some of the textbooks were the same ones I had studied from 10 or 11 years before. Grade 12 History was the prestige class in the department, and for some reason most of the curriculum, which was driven by the final exam focused on World War II.
Now, I have not taught in the BC school system since about 2000, so I admit: I have no idea how high school is approached these days.
However, after putting our eldest through six years of elementary school here, I think it's safe to say I have some idea of what kids are learning in primary grades, and how they're learning it.
And not much has changed, really, except there is more "inclusion", where special-needs kids are included in regular classes (they would have gone to a special school when I was a kid), which is either good or bad, depending on the funding.
If anything, education has gotten worse as society ages, as the teaching workforce ages (higher wages, expensive to fund retirement plans) and there are fewer and fewer resources for children.
posted by KokuRyu at 4:12 PM on March 20, 2013
I graduated from high school in Victoria BC in 1989, and when I did my practicum for my B.Ed (social studies) in 1999, the curriculum and the approach was about the same. In fact, some of the textbooks were the same ones I had studied from 10 or 11 years before. Grade 12 History was the prestige class in the department, and for some reason most of the curriculum, which was driven by the final exam focused on World War II.
Now, I have not taught in the BC school system since about 2000, so I admit: I have no idea how high school is approached these days.
However, after putting our eldest through six years of elementary school here, I think it's safe to say I have some idea of what kids are learning in primary grades, and how they're learning it.
And not much has changed, really, except there is more "inclusion", where special-needs kids are included in regular classes (they would have gone to a special school when I was a kid), which is either good or bad, depending on the funding.
If anything, education has gotten worse as society ages, as the teaching workforce ages (higher wages, expensive to fund retirement plans) and there are fewer and fewer resources for children.
posted by KokuRyu at 4:12 PM on March 20, 2013
David Hapgood a strong counterargument to Mitra:
posted by humanfont at 5:08 PM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
Mitra’s got a bad case of straw man disease here, but the most striking thing about his exposition is that he seems to believe our educational system was invented a specific time to solve a well-defined, identifiable problem: the production of clerical workers. And further, Mitra asserts that this need for Victorian clerks is in fact the reason the school exists as it does today.After that he could have dropped the mic, but he went on for several paragraphs until finishing with:
This is crazy. And I contend it’s crazy for you to listen to a man who thinks this way. ....
The history Mitra narrates is this. There once was a race of Victorians. They built a can opener called education, and nobody has changed that can opener since, even though we no longer eat from cans. But we no longer eat from cans! Give me a million dollars, please.
posted by humanfont at 5:08 PM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
That Hapgood article is a terrific response to this.
posted by codacorolla at 6:39 PM on March 20, 2013
posted by codacorolla at 6:39 PM on March 20, 2013
A youtube video is better at this than a full-time teacher?
I'm not sure if you watched the second video I linked. I think Khan pretty much agrees and explains that video lecturing is not a replacement for student/teacher interaction...it is rather a tool that puts the student in control of the lecture's pace. A "flipped" classroom basically consists of studying the lectures and doing follow up quizes while at home, and doing the "homework" in the classroom with a live teacher among peers (more of a study workshop).
The power of video is that you can pause it...you can rewind it...you can leave and return to it where you left off. Leveraging that with other technologies to track and assess progress is something we've never had during the industrial age when it came to education. It's not simply watching youtube videos (even though Khan is available on Youtube for *anyone* with a passing interest), it's using those videos in conjunction with teacher guidance and powerful on-line tools designed to ensure students are achieving milestones and mastering concepts before moving forward. (there's even a World of Warcraft style achievements system for added encouragement)
Without mastery you are left with gaps in knowledge that lead to difficulty understanding more complex concepts that build upon previous concepts. I think this analogy Khan used pretty much describes the issue with our current class/grade-based progression paradigm in education:
Imagine learning to ride a bicycle, and maybe I give you a lecture ahead of time, and I give you that bicycle for two weeks. And then I come back after two weeks, and I say, "Well let's see. You're having trouble taking left turns. You can't quite stop. You're an 80 percent bicyclist." So I put a big C stamp on your forehead and then I say, "Here's a unicycle." But as ridiculous as that sounds, that's exactly what's happening in our classrooms right now.
posted by samsara at 8:36 AM on March 21, 2013
I'm not sure if you watched the second video I linked. I think Khan pretty much agrees and explains that video lecturing is not a replacement for student/teacher interaction...it is rather a tool that puts the student in control of the lecture's pace. A "flipped" classroom basically consists of studying the lectures and doing follow up quizes while at home, and doing the "homework" in the classroom with a live teacher among peers (more of a study workshop).
The power of video is that you can pause it...you can rewind it...you can leave and return to it where you left off. Leveraging that with other technologies to track and assess progress is something we've never had during the industrial age when it came to education. It's not simply watching youtube videos (even though Khan is available on Youtube for *anyone* with a passing interest), it's using those videos in conjunction with teacher guidance and powerful on-line tools designed to ensure students are achieving milestones and mastering concepts before moving forward. (there's even a World of Warcraft style achievements system for added encouragement)
Without mastery you are left with gaps in knowledge that lead to difficulty understanding more complex concepts that build upon previous concepts. I think this analogy Khan used pretty much describes the issue with our current class/grade-based progression paradigm in education:
Imagine learning to ride a bicycle, and maybe I give you a lecture ahead of time, and I give you that bicycle for two weeks. And then I come back after two weeks, and I say, "Well let's see. You're having trouble taking left turns. You can't quite stop. You're an 80 percent bicyclist." So I put a big C stamp on your forehead and then I say, "Here's a unicycle." But as ridiculous as that sounds, that's exactly what's happening in our classrooms right now.
posted by samsara at 8:36 AM on March 21, 2013
I’m familiar with Khan’s line of reasoning, I just don’t think it’s new, interesting or worth $1 trillion. The benefits of video (pause, rewind, your own pace) are identical to the benefits of books, and we’ve had take-home reading with in-class discussion for as long as we’ve had schools. He’s not wrong per se, but he and the rest of the Stanford MOOC crowd are approaching the problem backwards, because they are technological solutionists. Producing videos and promising that some coach or teacher will make them work for kids, while the lack of support for teachers is the problem! The video will never help you ride a bike!
As far as WoW-style achievements, I fail to see how these are any different from our current class/grade-based progression. I guess they have the contemptible new veneer of pointsification applied?
posted by migurski at 10:36 AM on March 21, 2013
As far as WoW-style achievements, I fail to see how these are any different from our current class/grade-based progression. I guess they have the contemptible new veneer of pointsification applied?
posted by migurski at 10:36 AM on March 21, 2013
I get what you're saying with books, although I would say they are far from identical. If it's worth anything anecdotally, exploring concepts via lecture and/or video have solidified my understanding many times in the past where I just couldn't achieve the same via books. I'm sure for many folks the opposite is even true...we're all wired uniquely...and we're beginning to adapt to those unique needs with the help of newer technologies. But do say video lectures aren't useful...that's really reducing the value of exploring different mediums and different ways to reach students.
What Khan is saying isn't new, you're right. He's taking these concepts and forging a path into exploring new ways of learning where other approaches have failed. He's not the only one, but currently is the one lots of us are listening to because his methods are demonstratively successful. And that's what we care about at the end of the day right? Results?
And true the WoW style achievements aren't a new concept. That's something that's existed as far back as we have written history. It's the way that's applied that makes it interesting...as it encourages students to be social in their learning and earn bragging rights along the way (as well as have the level of proficiency to help their peers when needed). The technology gives teachers a MUCH clearer picture of where their class stands and who needs help...rather than relying on the students to raise their hand during class. Hand raising can still occur, and the traditional classroom setting doesn't have to disappear. The idea of a flipped classroom is that it makes the lecture/learning process much more efficient (given that the students can access the material of course...that's the one big challenge I see in adopting it nation wide unless there's funding to back it).
Again, did you give that second link a fair look? I think it's only 20 minutes or so in length. I don't think you got the part about the bike. The mastery part isn't from watching the videos over and over...it's from taking the quizzes. These aren't one-off quizzes that you can memorize or bypass really (nor would you want to)...but are like drills that keep checking certain knowledge areas until you consistently answer the TYPE of problem correctly. (And this is nothing new...think of daily warmups or quizzes given in classes, just in a more relaxed self paced manner).
I think the biggest hurdle on education is getting out of the assembly line 1st - 12th grade level mentality and getting more towards one that focuses on the mastery of various subjects. It's so foreign to our policy and interpretation of education in and outside of the classroom that it's also a paradigm that is difficult to explain to the general public until they see how much more effective it is in action.
I hope that explains it better....but again, watch the video which should clear up some of the assumptions.
posted by samsara at 10:58 AM on March 21, 2013 [1 favorite]
What Khan is saying isn't new, you're right. He's taking these concepts and forging a path into exploring new ways of learning where other approaches have failed. He's not the only one, but currently is the one lots of us are listening to because his methods are demonstratively successful. And that's what we care about at the end of the day right? Results?
And true the WoW style achievements aren't a new concept. That's something that's existed as far back as we have written history. It's the way that's applied that makes it interesting...as it encourages students to be social in their learning and earn bragging rights along the way (as well as have the level of proficiency to help their peers when needed). The technology gives teachers a MUCH clearer picture of where their class stands and who needs help...rather than relying on the students to raise their hand during class. Hand raising can still occur, and the traditional classroom setting doesn't have to disappear. The idea of a flipped classroom is that it makes the lecture/learning process much more efficient (given that the students can access the material of course...that's the one big challenge I see in adopting it nation wide unless there's funding to back it).
Again, did you give that second link a fair look? I think it's only 20 minutes or so in length. I don't think you got the part about the bike. The mastery part isn't from watching the videos over and over...it's from taking the quizzes. These aren't one-off quizzes that you can memorize or bypass really (nor would you want to)...but are like drills that keep checking certain knowledge areas until you consistently answer the TYPE of problem correctly. (And this is nothing new...think of daily warmups or quizzes given in classes, just in a more relaxed self paced manner).
I think the biggest hurdle on education is getting out of the assembly line 1st - 12th grade level mentality and getting more towards one that focuses on the mastery of various subjects. It's so foreign to our policy and interpretation of education in and outside of the classroom that it's also a paradigm that is difficult to explain to the general public until they see how much more effective it is in action.
I hope that explains it better....but again, watch the video which should clear up some of the assumptions.
posted by samsara at 10:58 AM on March 21, 2013 [1 favorite]
The benefits of video (pause, rewind, your own pace) are identical to the benefits of books
I imagine a visual learner or an auditory learner would be able to explain the difference.
posted by Vysharra at 11:01 AM on March 21, 2013 [1 favorite]
I imagine a visual learner or an auditory learner would be able to explain the difference.
posted by Vysharra at 11:01 AM on March 21, 2013 [1 favorite]
I imagine a visual learner or an auditory learner would be able to explain the difference.
This is true, but sort of beside the point. My first summer job in college in the mid-90s was at a company that produced social studies learning materials, great big binders full of words and pictures and audio cassettes and in-class play-acting exercises. Fantastic, wonderful educational material that addressed many cognitive styles of learning and assisted teachers in communicating material. Curriculum is a well-established industry, and if that’s all Khan was promising they wouldn’t be on the cover of Forbes. This stuff exists, and very smart people have been unglamorously working the problem in cooperation with teachers, schools and districts for a long-ass time. I can assure you that the unique needs of students and different mediums are very much top-of-mind for people you’ve never heard of. With Khan and the MOOCs, I get the feeling that the desires of Youtube, Google, Stanford, TED and the VC industry are conveniently aligning with the assumed needs of some students, nothing more. If they prove successful and get bought by an educational publisher, this will be considered a failed exit by the Sand Hill Road crowd.
If there’s an assembly line mentality to education, it’s being promoted by the same neocons who are fighting against teachers and defunding education. The idea that education should be measured by “efficiency” is a categorical error, a mistaken assumption and a disaster in the making. Equity and access should be our yardsticks.
We’re not listening to these new education gurus because their methods are successful (we won’t know this for many years, if ever), we’re listening to them because they made a few cool demos and then the leg-humpers at TED put them up on the big stage. Everything TED has ever shown on that stage has been 90% promise and 10% track record—new ideas that “could” change the world, new technologies with “potential” to save everything. I’ve changed how I dry my hands thanks to TED, so I guess it’s not a complete loss.
posted by migurski at 11:43 AM on March 21, 2013 [2 favorites]
This is true, but sort of beside the point. My first summer job in college in the mid-90s was at a company that produced social studies learning materials, great big binders full of words and pictures and audio cassettes and in-class play-acting exercises. Fantastic, wonderful educational material that addressed many cognitive styles of learning and assisted teachers in communicating material. Curriculum is a well-established industry, and if that’s all Khan was promising they wouldn’t be on the cover of Forbes. This stuff exists, and very smart people have been unglamorously working the problem in cooperation with teachers, schools and districts for a long-ass time. I can assure you that the unique needs of students and different mediums are very much top-of-mind for people you’ve never heard of. With Khan and the MOOCs, I get the feeling that the desires of Youtube, Google, Stanford, TED and the VC industry are conveniently aligning with the assumed needs of some students, nothing more. If they prove successful and get bought by an educational publisher, this will be considered a failed exit by the Sand Hill Road crowd.
If there’s an assembly line mentality to education, it’s being promoted by the same neocons who are fighting against teachers and defunding education. The idea that education should be measured by “efficiency” is a categorical error, a mistaken assumption and a disaster in the making. Equity and access should be our yardsticks.
We’re not listening to these new education gurus because their methods are successful (we won’t know this for many years, if ever), we’re listening to them because they made a few cool demos and then the leg-humpers at TED put them up on the big stage. Everything TED has ever shown on that stage has been 90% promise and 10% track record—new ideas that “could” change the world, new technologies with “potential” to save everything. I’ve changed how I dry my hands thanks to TED, so I guess it’s not a complete loss.
posted by migurski at 11:43 AM on March 21, 2013 [2 favorites]
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posted by No Robots at 8:54 AM on March 20, 2013