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by Egregore 5501 days ago
Can you please explain, why do you think that replacing face-to-face lessons is bad?
1 comments

If the lessons replaced are nothing but teacher-to-student lecturing then little is lost. However, all my best teachers employed more of a Socratic method. That method cannot be substituted with a recording. This program could work well with the Socratic method if students come to class to debate and present the material they studied at home.
Unfortunately a lot of lessons are just teacher to student lecturing.
True, but software isn't going to solve that. (Note: I am a classroom teacher.)

Teacher to student lecturing happens for a combination of three reasons:

1. The teacher believes it's the best way to present the material.

2. Generally, a lecture is easier to prepare (and easier to keep on task) than any other form of instruction.

3. To the average person (and many administrators) a classroom full of children sitting silently in rows, all taking notes, looks "right".

You mean, if the students did their homework? ;-)
Yes, which is the opposite of the proposal to have the teaching at home and the homework in class. But I think any distinctions are not helpful to the students.

In a good class there is no distinction between learning from the teacher and the teacher's assigned material because each is required to excel in critically debating and responding to the other.

I totally agree. In fact, I am working toward a private beta release of lesson planning software which actually helps teachers build quality lessons.
I and my wife are educators among other things and want to try this. Please notify me at @mdhopkins or michael at oblique ideas dot com when you're testing.
You're on.