[shanev]

Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy thinks we should flip the classroom [1]. Students watch high quality lectures at home given by the best instructors on the topic, then do "homework" in class, with the teacher being there for assistance.

Sounds like a worthy approach to me. The problem is, how can you get a school board to adopt something like this? Who leads the effort? How can you implement changes to such an entrenched system?

[1]: https://www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_rei...

[rtpg]

This is how my math classes in the early 2000s worked.

We show up to class. Teacher talked for maybe 5 minutes. Then we would sit down in groups of 4 and work on exercises. These exercises were very socratic method. Ex:

- Measure some right triangles

- calculate the squares of the lengths of the sides

- Do you notice anything?

- Here's some non-right triangles, does your hypothesis still stand?

Then some application of the introduced concepts.

Kids would help each other within the group, and a teacher would come in to help facilitate this.

This was all the math classes for about 3 years, and was great at helping kids learn to do math, explain solutions to others, and build basic social skills.

I've had a couple programming workshops like this as well, and they're invariably successful. Even the worst people can find help from either the teachers/coordinators or people who aren't having difficulties.

[j45]

There's a lot of buzzwords like classroom flipping floating around in education.

Part of the issue is the subject matter experts (teachers and instructors) are not up to speed on the capabilities of technology, some even fear being replaced, when the real goal is having the same teachers reach more students more effectively.

Education budgets rarely increase.

[jansho]

I see a gap for educating teachers about the potential of edtech :) Many will welcome the opportunity to focus class time on quality interaction.

[clintonb]

> Many will welcome the opportunity to focus class time on quality interaction.

No they won't. Some may value that opportunity, but I wouldn't say "many". I've seen the word "scale" tossed around in the comments. I'll add two more: economics and politics. Until we as a voting people elect leaders who value education, we will continue to see stagnant or falling education budgets.

EdTech will remove some teaching jobs. As a principal, if I can rely on the Internet educators to do a significant portion of the instruction, I don't necessarily need the best teachers in every classroom. In some class rooms I can simply use the bachelors-bearing teacher rather than the masters-bearing teacher. Some teachers recognize this, which is why they are anti-tech. They see how technology helped their community members in manufacturing and other industries, and want to avoid it.

[jansho]

> Some teachers recognize this, which is why they are anti-tech.

And that is exactly why educators need education about edtech.

Edtech exists in many forms. The YC list will give you a snapshot of that. Most of it are actually supportive rather than replacing the teaching role itself. You cannot compare to other industries like manufacturing because they are vastly different.

IMO it's a bit unhealthy for educators to be technophobic. The current students are from the tech generation, and most likely appreciate if their teachers could show more digital fluency. And yes, there are so many good and bad edtech tools out there, but the point is they can be pick-n-mixed to make their jobs easier.

> In some class rooms I can simply use the bachelors-bearing teacher rather than the masters-bearing teacher.

All the good teachers I know are not defined by their qualification, rather the passion, idealism and talent that they give. I had a high school physics teacher with a doctorate and he was not too great at explaining concepts. I also have a maths teacher friend with 3rd class honours in her degree, but is currently one of the most popular teachers in her school.

Other than Montessori's, most teachers are actually not that adverse to tech. But I think a basic digital training is needed. At the very least, learn how to find resources and pull them together. Learn how to use basic software, like rudimentary game-makers. Learn how flipped classrooms work, to design better homeworks and classroom sessions. Learn how peer-learning works, to encourage sharing ideas and working as teams.

There's so many ideas to make learning more exciting, with more meaningful interactions. Edtech is not a major threat, it can be a sort of freedom.

Edit language.