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So a thing about AI is that, not understanding the material itself, it cannot understand what the gap is in someone else’s understanding. Students already have access to materials that will repeat important points over and over. They don’t need more.
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They particularly don’t need a thing that will repeat important points incorrectly.
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As a chem TA, one of the most valuable things I ever did with struggling students in office hours was have them narrate for me how they would solve a problem, and then figure out what it was they weren’t getting. That’s how you get the lightbulb moments.
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We have access to an extraordinary amount of materials that will explain the same concepts in twenty different ways. What most people often need is to listen to the person in question to figure out what you’re missing.
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This will also makes graduate school much, much less accessible—because teaching helps students finance their education—and less effective, because teaching the basics patiently, over and over again, and figuring out the pitfalls, really helps cement your own understanding.
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But the idea behind this—that the robot can convey information—fundamentally misunderstands what is being taught in those core classes. You’re teaching people how to do problems: how to check your work, how to solve problem sets, how to generalize solving problem sets to other problems…
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Most people will forget 80% of the information they learn in these classes. The real learning is teaching people how to tackle problems.
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For a lot of students, it’s also about identifying gaps in their high school learning and (hopefully) helping them close the gap before classes get harder. Chemistry is a lot harder if your high school algebra teacher was the football coach.
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He was pre-calculus, actually.
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So many college-level topics become much, much harder if your high school or middle school algebra and trig classes weren't up-to-snuff. (I know, not your point, but it's what I remember from my time as a TA: people would manage to fail high-school algebra in first- or second-term calculus)
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I can attest to this with a silly anecdote. When I was a freshman I had a history teacher who was young & enthusiastic, who gave students fun projects that allowed creative application of the content. When I was a senior I had the same teacher after he became the assistant football coach...
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Wherein his classes became mostly watching boring ass videos and filling in worksheets to prove we were paying attention, while the teacher sat at his desk watching replays and writing up football plays, etc. I didn't even need another history credit. I took the class expecting the fun guy.
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Agreed! I also think the attention from a human instructor plants or firms up a self-concept as a problem-solver & thinker, which is a giant part of what education really offers. (And I wish I’d been in your class — what a gift you gave those students 💚)
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And memory is contextual! You don't get to choose what you remember, so information seems like it's missing until a moment arises when you need it. So much of what people know was taught to them by an elementary school teacher but they think they just know it through life experience.
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Do people really think one day they just kind of figured out the water cycle and how tectonic plates create earthquakes? I would say I know very little algebra, but my kid brings home an algebra assignment and suddenly everything comes back to me. I know algebra, I just need context to remember.
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I really really wish more emphasis was put on *why* there's so much repetition. Like, maybe everyone else got it. Or just didn't care. But it never really clicked that repetition was so eventually you don't have to stop and think at every step. Mostly because there's no sense of progress.
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It's probably a good thing that most kids have experience with video games that do the "this is how repetition makes you better" really explicitly. Because it would have been nice for that lightbulb moment to have happened a lot earlier.
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One of the best professors I ever had was laser focused on teaching us *how* to learn. Passing quizzes was just a side-quest.
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It's almost like most of the industries/services that are rolling out AI have suffered from decades of not being led/managed by someone who is a subject matter expert in the related fields, but instead someone who passed an MBA course.
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Likely they didn't even pass an MBA class, or they would realize they're not building a sustainable business.
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I'm not sure many MBA programs focus on "the long game" (or Infinite Game to use the title of a recent business book). True story, when I rebooted my career the choice was Rad Tech or MBA. MBA was the easy choice. Talking with many senior executives, I choose Rad Tech.
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But then, I didn't attend any MBA program and so can only infer from the numerous graduates I've encountered. I should note, the majority of senior execs I talked with said that the MBA was pointless at my career stage. If i were still 20, sure. But >30 it's worthless.
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And from just anecdotal evidence, most who have gone on to their MBA >30 years old have been those where to be in the management suite the MBA is a requirement. Note to youngins, avoid those businesses.
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Finally, those >30 thinking of an MBA, don't worry about the school. Online MBA degrees are just as good as Warton or Case or any of the others. It's the paper people want to see, not the school pedigree. <30, yes, the school can be very important.
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Can you figure out many of the things in an MBA course on your own? Yes. Is it useful if you're changing careers into business from something else, or switching from e.g. HR to finance? Also yes. It's a degree, not a ticket.
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Yes, this. At the time I was 45 and had management/low executive positions in previous jobs. I didn't have an industry focus at that time (in my former profession a masters is the terminal degree). So the consensus was getting an MBA may grant me an interview, but wouldn't be of any other benefit.
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Got mine in 1999 and admittedly I went into it with a "maximize society's utility" mindset but the professors I had really did think ethics > profit. So the execs we're talking about would have dropped out or flunked my MBA program.
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That sounds like it was a decent school. (Note: many of the execs I talked/emailed with I had met through my career and had a personal connection with, all of them held MBAs from some prestigious school, and I wouldn't have asked their advice if I didn't think there were excellent business leaders)
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MBAs don't seem to be learning that anyway
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I have heard it said that the main thing college teaches you is how to learn.
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Yep, so much of the point of these classes is teaching you how to make observations, ask questions, do research, write clearly, etc. The facts you learn may be forgotten (or proved wrong!) after the class, but the SKILLS hopefully stay with you!