The best teachers are those that can induce pro-learning behavior in others, and books are a good medium to learn from once induced but quite poor in inducing the necessary behavior by itself. Videos are usually better than books, but tend to fall behind compared to the best in-person teachers.
That said, no school is actually teaching people how to trigger pro-learning behavior in themselves. It is always assumed that either students learn it as a side product from all the other classes, or it is the responsibility of the teacher. That in my view what is missing from the picture when we a transitioning away from in-person education system into a online system.
I think a clear value proposition is something that’s really lacking for students at all levels. I remember a lot of vague “you’ll need this later” sentiment from my time in school, which is just not motivating.
That and counteracting the “I’m just not good at math (or whatever subject)” mentality would go a long way to addressing this self-learning issue
The learning principles in the summary you linked are also major themes we covered in the course, but I think the emphasis is a bit different because the 38-801 audience is primarily future educators (who are of course also lifelong learners)
0: https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/designteach/index.html 1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3557656/
• Hide the tutorial for the problem, in the "shape" of the problem, so the student won't even realize they're being taught something. (See e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH2wGpEZVgE)
• Make the student/player feel a need for a new tool, before the tool is introduced. Have them try (and perhaps fail) to solve the problem without the tool first. (See the "keys and doors" discussion in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouO1R6vFDBo&list=PLc38fcMFcV...)
• For each new concept, present its lesson as a series of spaced-chunk challenges, where each chunk ramps the difficulty up to a climax and then down again to a gentle denouement. Give the learner's mind a chance to feel a sense of mastery over already-understood concepts, not just the continual stress of new challenges. (See https://boingboing.net/2015/09/14/super-mario-maker-levels.h... or http://gameshelf.jmac.org/2011/12/a-pleasant-journey-through...)
• Gate problems behind proof of mastery of previous micro-skills, not just in the form of obvious tests, but also in the form of multi-step problems for new knowledge which can't even be approached without also having another prerequisite skill. Ensure that it becomes impossible to "leave behind" a foundational skill—i.e. ensure that the learner will get stuck without the new tool, and so realize they need to backtrack to pick up that tool, rather than flailing uselessly at the next problem.
• Meter and visualize progress. Map acquisition of micro-skills directly to some sort of measurement the student can look at (a level number; a tech tree; a skill grid), to feel that they're making progress. Ensure the system is designed such that this number goes up not just when they make progress on new skills, but also when they go back to shore up their knowledge of old skills.
Etc.
Having experienced this myself many times over, I now know exactly what to look for in a book when I am self learning. I don't know how this skill is to be taught but if remote learning was to succeed, different methods of learning needs to be outlined and taught to the students and get them to learn to select one appropriate for their learning styles and subject.
Also (another opinion) you get intuition doing practice problems and playing with the idea(s), it’s almost impossible to get intuition just by reading.
But more than that, the part I actually liked about teaching was that person-to-person engagement. The arguments, the exploring, the discovery. Seeing people (students) rise to challenges and do things they didn't think they could do. I've done a lot of online teaching, and certainly some of that can happen, but especially with struggling students -- they just don't log on. They slip away. At least if someone's sitting in your classroom you can provoke them or cajole them or charm them into a reaction that you can tease into engagement.
Interesting. I'm currently taking a Course through Rutger's University Online, and so far I and most in my class are also weeks ahead of schedule, and are just awaiting grading on our final projects. As for my grade on it: mine was based on an actual project I did while I was at BMW so I documented the entire process. I used it to get promoted and sent back to VW as I thought I was a better fit there so its well detailed and I got sent back in a month after, so it worked.
> I call it self-teaching for a reason.
I'm a big proponent of home schooling and online learning. I'm an autodidactic person, so I just took notes of what would be on the exam and tried my best to incorporate it when I studied at hoome and tried to find usecases to relearn it later and how I would actually understand it for future use. Its how I learned calculus, my last math class, after failing algebra because I tried doing everything the instructor's way in class--I had to go everyday to get the first failure dropped from my GPA.
To be honest, this is why I never did well in school for things that mattered on paper: I often got Bs and Cs most years and I was always told I was being an underachiever with much higher potential. The truth is I just realized that Schooling and Education are two very different things and the former did very little provided I landed a job in my career.
The classes I often got As in I just didn't care and repeated whatever the instructor said back to them or told them what they wanted to hear. Rote learning is a poor way to instruct, but it scales so they do it.
To this day I can still recall all of my essential amino acids, their molecular structures, most functional groups reactivity and about 50 reaction mechanisms and can explain them in depth because I found utility in them for my career within the laboratory: I graduated 11 years ago. Whereas when I went to office hours back then most of my peers found it hard to do that from semester to semester. I was a Cell/Molecular Biologist (that's where most of the jobs were) but excelled at Biochemistry and Microbiology because that's where my interests were but you probably couldn't tell from most of my grades. When I went into the Industry is when I really shined.
I think Online learning appeals most to people who have had an independent educational development environment, and thrive within it. I never took honors classes in school or university but in HS I was recommended for a few so was made to sit in them for a week and left as it looked like a hassle (the instructors heavily grade on class participation) only to find out later that they did that to weed the herd and the teacher often gave lots of time for independent learning to my dismay.
> I'm so glad I'm no longer in the classroom, frankly. Sigh.
I think the only two professors, or teachers for that matter, that I ever liked and enjoyed speaking with iwere grinding away to be able to say the same one day.
They did it because it was pre-requisite for funding their lab/research and tenure, none of them seemed to like it very much but they were awesome at it despite that because they approached the material from an Industry perspective and often went against conventional wisdom. I still my remember Chemistry professor eating his lunch and going over certain reactions on the dry board and then going to the teacher's protest afterward to try and get back pay for teaching back-back summer courses during the budget/strike days in the CSU/UC system... I wrote on my class evaluation that 'this University does not deserve him.'
And I meant it, too, he went to Oxford for his BSc and Edinburgh for his PhD and post doc, I just thought what a waste... but he later told me in private over some drinks its because his wife taught there with tenure and his kids didn't want to leave CA so he turned down offers before the financial crises so afterward he was stuck. I hope he is well.
We have the "best" teachers already providing materials: they're in books. You can go read Kolmogorov's probability books, you can read the Feynman lectures on physics. You can even listen to the Great Courses and learn whatever the bleep you want there. And do you? Do even adults have, as a group, the discipline, attention, and stamina to self-teach like this? No.
I call it self-teaching for a reason. When I taught, I looked into students' eyes and on their papers. I walked around the room. I had them present on the board. I prodded them to discuss ideas and argue with each other. I made mistakes writing proofs or calculations on the board and made students catch them, even -- yes, this is a skill math profs practice, because it's inevitable and recovering from the fall with grace is a learned skill! Every class in person was an interactive intellectual wrestling match. Video is just not the same. Interrupting others with your questions and discussion is vital to learning.
I'm so glad I'm no longer in the classroom, frankly. Sigh.