

Conscientiousness and Online Education - kiba
http://www.gwern.net/Conscientiousness%20and%20online%20education

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jerf
"As already observed, _the_ school _system_ already rewards Conscientious
grinds, and oppresses creativity."

Emphasis mine. It seems to be a general principle that bringing the full power
of computers to bear on a domain always starts out as "X, but on a computer"
but as it realizes its full potential evolves into something else. News on
your computer isn't just a newspaper, but on a computer. Games aren't just
board games, but on a computer. The web isn't just a library, but on your
computer.

I think this piece carries as an implicit assumption that online education
will be just like conventional education, but on a computer. But while
education may be "school, _but on a computer!_ " right now, I see no reason in
any dimension to think that will be the stable outcome, and every reason to
believe that education too will not merely be made cheaper and a bit flashier,
but as fundamentally transformed as everything else that computers have
touched.

Consider a math education program that gives fine-grained, instant feedback
about everything you are doing, as if a real-life math teacher were standing
over your shoulder every second, giving you immediate feedback instead of
handing in your papers and getting them back in two days. (Even as I say that,
it sounds _ludicrous_ to me that we expect learning to result from that.) If
you're getting continuous feedback, it seems like it makes being conscientious
much easier.

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jongraehl
I agree with the argument that _if_ online edu. requires more
conscientiousness, we should expect a lower success rate.

I understand that gwern doesn't advocate against online education, but it's
worth noting: even if the conversion rate through online edu is lower than
expensive, sit-in-a-classroom edu, we can expect more people to become more
educated, provided the economic or status rewards from online edu aren't much
less than the expensive variety - because more people will want to try.

To increase the online edu success rate, look for mechanisms that make online
learning more rewarding - perhaps some of the Zynga playbook - e.g. providing
immediate public status gratification, or involving friends.

To specifically address akrasia (of course, having lower cost means more
people will begin what they never really intended to do), allow more
flexibility in deadlines (if the course has a fixed schedule, allow skipping
assignments until the next run), offer a type of completion with cheap
physical "classrooms" for proctored tests/assignments (would increase the
value of the signal - you really performed the task yourself), and optionally
including time for watching lectures with others.

