This is where most learning resources fall short of ideal - if you work on a problem without human guidance, you can often either work through it in whole and learn, or check out the solution if you get stuck, have a short "ah, of course!" moment and not learn much at all. A tutor can sort of "debug" through questions and targeted hints where you're going wrong, and thus make the concepts stick in a more lasting way.

I wonder if there's potential for some sort of digital learning medium which actively tries to "figure out" where the student's misunderstandings and gaps lie and addresses them in a more targeted way (optional hints are a first step, but there must be better).

The chain of concepts to be taught was linear, and for each concept there would be a few paragraphs of instruction, followed by a set question with multiple choice ("if you think the answer is X, turn to page Y") set. A correct choice would lead to the next concept, while the available incorrect choices would each lead to material clearing up that presumably common misunderstanding[1] (leaving the reader with uncommon gaps to reread the intro?).

I can no longer remember if the clarifications included check-up questions or just looped back to the original.

[1] In book form, this approach wouldn't work well if the concepts had long-tails of possible misconceptions. Online, that could be less of an issue.

And yes, schools are for both daycare and learning - or acclimating, indoctrinating the young into our society.

As a result, there are a huge number of people learning themselves by explaining to other people, practising by solving other people's problems, and answering the beginner questions over and over.

I think things like that have got to be part of the future of learning online, instead of dumping what you know into a FAQ and pulling the ladder up after you, closing the community from outsiders.

0: https://mobile.twitter.com/deangeliscorey/status/12975304053...