NancyLebovitz comments on Stupid Questions January 2015 - Less Wrong

8 Post author: Gondolinian 01 January 2015 02:30AM

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Comment author: NancyLebovitz 03 January 2015 01:07:47AM 2 points [-]

Could that kind of thing be a loss in the long haul? You're able to create the superb lecture (assuming it's actually superb) because there are a large number of teachers whose knowledge about lecturing you can draw on.

Use those superior lectures enough, and you have many fewer experienced teachers as new subject matter gets added.

Comment author: adamzerner 03 January 2015 01:18:08AM 0 points [-]

Interesting point. I don't know. Some thoughts:

I still think that there's a place for teachers. I agree with richard_reitz that individual attention is overrated. That if lessons were good enough there'd be much less of a need for teachers to diagnose holes in students understanding and tutor them. And that there isn't really too much individual attention in todays system anyway.

However, I think that even with these great lectures, there will still be holes in students' understanding, and that using a human is the best way to diagnose and address them. Like Sal Khan has talked about, I think that if these lectures were available, it'd actually free up teachers to spend more time providing personalized attention. I suspect that there's enough of a need for this such that teachers will still be employed.