[insightcheck]

I sometimes wonder about whether personalised teaching as a young student is overall good or bad, for students who then move on to a university with very large, impersonal classes (e.g. with more than 1000 students per class).

On the one hand, I think students in small classes can really become more confident and enthusiastic about learning in the long-term. But on the other, a shift to larger classes can be alienating (e.g. feedback from educators is less frequent). This could be mitigated by going to office hours, but there are plenty of minority experiences that stick where teaching assistants and professors are unwelcoming. The change could be less of a shock for students who went to large high schools, as they're more used to large classes.

Perhaps students who have the chance to grow up with individualized learning can opt for universities that have smaller classes, though it's not always possible when large public universities can often be much more affordable. I wonder if there is a way to prepare students from smaller schools with personalized education to do well at much larger educational institutions.

[dhosek]

The graduates from my kids’s school which does a lot of personalized stuff, do disproportionately well at high school (not sure about college as there’s less data there). I think some of it is inculcating a sense of joy about learning so that even when there are obstacles (like institutional schooling), the kids will be motivated to learn anyway. (I’ve seen the Premack principle at work with my son where reading went from something that would be rewarded to something that served as a reward.)

[agentgumshoe]

I think it is also a greater level of self-confidence and trust through knowing what they are all about (and hence enjoy what they learn more).

So many kids (myself included) hit university not knowing what they should be doing (or what they've been learning actually requires at the 'next leve') because you're guided to broad and narrow learning curriculum and not following their specific interests intensely.

We see the chaotic, political, competitive and ranked corporate world as 'normal' instead of a terrible, poorly organised and dysfunctional system. It's not 'the real world,' it's a bubble that reinforces itself because we train kids to fit into it throughout their education.

[andirk]

I needed tutors for my college Computer Science and Math classes because the classroom setting wasn't enough for me. Add then add in study groups. I needed all of it, from big class to individual.