Re:The Misunderstanding About Education That Cost Mark Zucke...
by thaumasiotes on Friday October 13, 2023 @11:01AM
(#37871411)
> Personalization isn't key. Personalization from a tutor works because it's hard and costly, and convinces the student that this matters.
> That's just a theory. It's not necessarily right, but it does present a convincing explanation for what we observe
Far from it. We observe that people who already believe that they need to learn something do better with individual tutoring.
> and in particular the observation worth repeating, that no one can seem to get algorithmic personalized education to work, no matter how rich and clever they are.
People got algorithmic personalized education to work quite a long time ago. It's called a book. The algorithm is "when the student asks about something, tell them". And it works very well, just like it always has.
What people aren't getting to work is forcing students who don't want to know things to know those things anyway.
> That's just a theory. It's not necessarily right, but it does present a convincing explanation for what we observe
Far from it. We observe that people who already believe that they need to learn something do better with individual tutoring.
> and in particular the observation worth repeating, that no one can seem to get algorithmic personalized education to work, no matter how rich and clever they are.
People got algorithmic personalized education to work quite a long time ago. It's called a book. The algorithm is "when the student asks about something, tell them". And it works very well, just like it always has.
What people aren't getting to work is forcing students who don't want to know things to know those things anyway.