I'm the opposite but that is largely irrelevant. First I'm a fully grown adult with intrinsic motivation. Second school should be more about socialising and hands-on learning which you can't do over Zoom. Though he isn't in school yet I'm very worried about the psychological stress this lockdown is causing my 2 year old. He is definitely not as "free" in his outside world interactions anymore. I hope this is temporary and we can reverse it through gradual rolling back of the restrictions.

Does the equation change if you get the best teacher in the world via video vs just an average teacher live?

It doesn't matter for me. In class I'm engaged with my professors. Over zoom I can't seem to get the words to stick in my brain. I have no idea why. I really try to stay engaged in zoom but somehow I can't.

It's not just class too. I forget what I talked about in meetings with colleagues. I talked to people from class and my coworkers about this, and I'm far from alone with these feelings and a lack of focus on zoom. Something to do with the cadence of speech, lack of body language maybe, maybe something deeper and more primal. I thought I would love working from home, now I'm itching to get back just so I can function again.

> Does the equation change if you get the best teacher in the world via video vs just an average teacher live?

That's a really weird way of thinking about it. You're completely ignoring the relational aspect of learning and focusing exclusively on the artifact of a particular presentation of some content. You also seems to be assuming that everyone learns the same way without variation. Commodification and mass production are improvements in a lot of areas, but not all.

I don't think you can rank the teachers of the world from best to worst, when often the best teacher is a good-enough one that understands you.

Well, sure, I guess. I suppose a great teacher can be a positive influence beyond academics in some ineffable ways. However, as far my kids are concerned, my wife and I can provide the positive influence and the teacher can handle the academics. And that aspect of the teachers job is much more quantifiable and there are definitely people who are much better than others at it.

Can't speak for the poster, but for myself it's much easier to pay attention and be present when I have a bit of a push through the simple desire to appear engaged. Otherwise it's easier to zone out.

Do you think that perhaps that issue might be alleviated if the lecture is intertwined with interactive quizzes, models, examples, things like that?

Could you replace your dog with videos of the best dog in the world along with integrated Tamagotchi-style interactive components [1]?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamagotchi

I expected different things from my dog and my teacher when I was a kid. I still do today.

Many of my teachers, most even, could have been replaced, with with some gain, by high-quality videos and quizzes.

I think the point being raised is not about the expectations of a dog and a of a teacher.

The point is between a simulacrum of a dog, and an actual living breathing dog with its own wants/needs/spontaneous behavior and personality.

Similarly, the expectations of an actual teacher, vs just self learning with tests.

This issue is captured in Blooms 2 sigma problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom%27s_2_sigma_problem

It changes based on the user.

Someone get's hives around dogs. Perhaps the online version is better.

Depends on the need.

I want to learn about all dogs. Online would offer more. I want to learn more about this one dog perhaps locally observing is better.

Depends on the technology at the time.

Online might offer the same experiences locally in the future. VR might give you the chance to meet that dog and interact virtually.

The difference between a simulacrum of a dog and a dog is important only in the context of what you trying to get out of a relationship with a dog. Similarly the difference between a virtual and real teacher. Since I am trying to get different things out of each the analogy is useless. That is what I was trying to communicate.

Possibly? My grades slipped in university once I realized that no one knew my name and no one much cared. Really it's about the interaction with my teacher and the desire to keep from disappointing.

This definitely works great. If you stop and give them an activity to use what they learned, or just quiz them to test for understanding it forces them to engage with the content and learn far better. This is basic active learning, and doesn't need to be live. Though it can probably work better live (e.g. zoom), say if you pause, then call on students randomly to embarrass the slackers into participating.

I don't know the difference between the world's best and very good, but Khan Academy is very good and teachers have already been turning their students onto it as supplemental education. We always had the ability to throw kids onto Khan Academy.

No,because in order for it to make a difference the student needs to be in a mental state for it to make said difference. It's just too hard for many kids to get motivated to self-teach, especially with no practical experience.

For me the answer is “no”. I can’t do video learning without getting distracted quickly.

This (plus at least one other here, so it's not really "just you") makes me wonder if you/some people who find this problematic have an issue like central auditory processing disorder.

People with CAPD are often dependent to a high degree on lip reading and video feed may disrupt the connection between words and mouth movements just enough to inject too much noise into the signal. If you don't realize this is what you are doing, you can't readily compensate when it gets disrupted.

In this situation we are forced to use distance learning, I’m not saying these ideas should carry over to “normal” times, only that the situation presents an incredible opportunity for testing other methods.