
How Startups Are Working On a Decades-Old Problem in Education - prostoalex
http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/09/how-startups-are-solving-a-decades-old-problem-in-education/?ncid=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29
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arghbleargh
It definitely seems true, in my experience, that one-on-one tutoring achieves
educational outcomes far superior to traditional classroom learning. However,
I am wary about the ability of technology to scale this up. One-on-one
tutoring is more than just providing a customized curriculum and the expertise
to answer any questions the student has.

A huge part of learning effectively is developing the right habits. The
startups in the article are not really focusing on that, probably because it's
the type of thing that people usually learn indirectly through social
interactions (e.g. a child emulating their parent). I also believe much of the
value of a tutor lies in the social connection with the student, providing
them with someone to model their learning habits after as well as someone to
keep them focused and motivated.

I think this social aspect of teaching is very hard to capture with
technology, sort of like how it's hard to learn a language without living in a
country where everyone speaks it. Technology can help, but I feel it will be
more like a 0.2 sigma improvement rather than 2 sigma.

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choxi
I agree that learning habits are important for effective education, but online
programs can help students develop those habits better and more consistently
than in-person programs can. For example, online programs are much more
conducive to gamification. Gamification is essentially a method of shaping
user habits into something productive -- it's awkward to do offline but feels
natural in an online program.

Our program includes screencasts/videos and pair programming sessions over
screenshare, and while it's not exactly the same as pairing in person it does
a reasonable job of surfacing how an instructor/mentor thinks to provide
queues for social modeling to students. Most people haven't met Richard
Feynman, but if you watch enough of his YouTube videos you certainly get a
sense for how he thinks and approaches problems.

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krmmalik
Interesting insights. I can see something like this working for consulting
possibly. I find clients that get one-to-one coaching benefit better than
those in a group setting, but on the flipside it's difficult to scale the
business if all you're doing is coaching one to one (excl price increase
variables)

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veritas213
This issue affects every industry in america. Recently read a good article
that talks about this exact same issue [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-
shehori/post_10628_b_88...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-
shehori/post_10628_b_8818164.html)

Im honestly not sure who to blame more, the system or apathetic parents.

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choxi
Hi all, I'm the author of this contributed article. TechCrunch wouldn't let us
discuss our own company in the article, but at Bloc
([https://bloc.io](https://bloc.io)) we've been working on this category of
problems for the last four years. Let me know if you have any questions or
comments.

