
Ask HN: What is the flaw of online education? - ai_ia
I am trying to build a website that makes online self studying much easier. Nowadays there are a lot of resources available online of varying difficulty level. You have coursera, edx, OCW, online Video Lectures, access to Sci-Hub.<p>My question is what are the necessary flaws in the online education that is preventing a rather large number of people to learn stuff on their own and understand the field they are deeply interested.
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twobyfour
Motivation. There's something about being in a traditional educational setting
- even one like a university where your level of presence and attention is up
to you - that makes it easier to concentrate and to prioritize your studies
over the other things you could be doing with your time.

I think part of that is simply being surrounded socially by other people who
are there primarily for the purpose of learning.

That's very difficult for any online course to replicate, because as soon as
you turn away from the computer you're out of the academic setting.

For me at least, that's the primary reason I've never been able to finish an
online course.

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aisofteng
That "something" is that the vast majority of people need to be given
structure by someone else. In the vast majority of cases, if you leave someone
to do something by themselves for which there isn't a clear, short term
benefit, that person will do nothing.

~~~
twobyfour
But online courses do provide structure. And universities don't provide a ton
of it (some more than others). It's up to the student whether to attend class
at all, and whether and when to study - just as it is with an online class.
The difference is the setting.

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aisofteng
When I say "structure" in this context, I mean it to include a social and
hierarchical structure as well - namely, others doing the same thing alongside
you, and someone you have to report to. Without those things, most people
don't have the discipline and/or interest to do much of anything.

What a university provides is worlds more than self paced or automated online
classes, or even online classes where all interaction with others is text.

~~~
twobyfour
I'm not sure it's just structure, though. I think there's an aspect of social
pressure, for instance.

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posterboy
From a pessimist point of view, the internet and consumer culture as a whole
is detrimental to learning, because it facilitates passivity via spoon fed
solutions, which is a disincentive to independence and autonomous research. On
the upside, that's supposed to speed up learning to become feasibly
independent to be meaningfully creative.

One flaw is the lack of personal, emphatic guidance - socialization. Forums
are supposed to replace the socialization instructor and community feedback,
but only on voluntary purpose. Learning is not easy, so instructions on how to
approach the curriculum is certainly necessary. The top courses that I saw
start out with that, but from my POV the main part of the message is that a
lot of work is expected, without play. Learning is rarely a self-purpose and a
goal years in the future is hardly motivating. Curses pretty quickly prove to
take a long and sometimes boring path. Education is a process between two
parties, so I'd say a _huge number of people_ prevented from learning are in
their own way, not bringing the prerequisite ambition to invest the time for
what it's worth. Of course that's just an argument open for recourse.
Mediation is a large part of learning, so a broad overview and thorough
approach to the material might be worthwhile, highlighting the possibilities
and the need to explore and play outside of the courses.

The information overflow of the information age also brings a second problem,
getting lost in it. I don't know what you are planning for, but focus on few
select resources (courses and other open materials) and therefore much more
thorough guidance might facilitate the endeavor.

What have you thought about, specifically? Some online courses are developed
as rather autonomous resources, the question would be, how those can be
supplemented. If commentary is the only added value, a blog might suffice.

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eric_bullington
I've been doing a lot of self-study online, and two things jump to mind:

1) There should be _many_ more interactive exercises during and after
instruction, and not just multiple choice and fill-in-the-blank. There's a lot
of potential for automated interaction that courses simply don't take
advantage of, probably because it's time intensive for each course to do.

Khan is perhaps the best at this, but they still don't have as much as they
could, and (understandably) don't have the depth and variety of courses of
Coursera, etc.

2) Lack of social interaction. At university, I learned a lot of subjects very
well simply by teaching others in them (tutoring students who were lagging,
and later paid tutoring). I miss this interaction a lot. I should take the
initiative and make YouTube videos and blog posts teaching others about
material I have learned, but I often forget as I get lost in textbook readings
and online lectures.

~~~
ai_ia
1\. I am actually working into more interactive way of learning rather than
just a guy teaching in the video of an hour before proceeding. I can do that
by taking text based study course rather video based.

2\. Social interaction is missing, yes. But there is also a greater deal of
learning that occurs when we study alone.

Can you please elaborate what you refer when you emphasize on more interactive
exercise?

I totally agree with you, just want to look for what you had in mind.

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miguelrochefort
\- Attention Deficit Disorder

\- Lack of legitimate certification (as opposed to brick and mortar schools)

\- Lack of autonomy in childhood (spoon-fed knowledge)

\- Learning to learn is not taught in school

\- Analysis paralysis (too many things and ways to learn)

~~~
posterboy
> \- Learning to learn is not taught in school

that can't be taught, pretty much by definition. It can be encouraged though
and that is done (by you right there if not in general).

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urahara
Not sure about the large number of people, but speaking for myself:

1.Despite having an overwhelming stream of learning resources, it’s still hard
to find something that is excellent personally for you not only in terms of
theme, level, content, structure, pace, etc. but also fits your learning style
the way material just clicks immediately.

Without this clicking you lose precious time and pleasure of a great learning
experience, which are among top factors in learning. For many people the time
that they can afford to spend to learn a new skill is extremely limited.

And even with some very mainstream themes like learning English or Python,
it’s extremely hard to find exactly what you need. There are not so many great
courses inside every given niche as you might think (even if you judge by some
5 of 50 criteria that matter for you), and even on top courses the
personalization is absent or is done poorly.

2\. The more niche is the theme you’re seeking to learn about, the harder it
is to find something great, even just something worthwhile of your time.
English for TOEFL? Ok. English for business? Ok. English for architects? Ha-
ha. English for landscape architects? Ha-ha-ha!

3\. Nearly 98% of all courses offer a poor communication model that doesn’t
work (at least, for me) at all. Forum only? Slow, ask-and-pray model.
Mentorship only? Expensive, hard to schedule. Chat only? Noisy, hard to
navigate. Great communication over a course should combine different channels,
with each of them being of high quality. Also they should be mixed up very
thoughtfully and have a great deal of flexibility/personalization. This alone
is quite hard to achieve.

4\. Different topics/materials demand different approaches to learning, that
are not always obvious, especially for beginners and people coming from
different industries. I haven’t seen a course support that, along teaching the
subject itself, constantly directs you in terms of how to consume the
presented types of information the most efficient way that will save you time
and instill the best habits.

Hence many students struggle just to figure out how to deal with the course.
Many people have even lower levels of understanding how to approach learning,
learning how to learn should probably be ingrained in every course.

5\. There is a widespread type of courses that teach you how to build some
product, like let’s build a Yelp clone over a month. Many people who take
these moocs struggle financially and take them to monetize the new skill asap.

So why so few courses teach how to build commercial products, that will bring
students not only knowledge, but also an opportunity to market the outcome and
have some real profit?

~~~
posterboy
> So why so few courses teach how to build commercial products, that will
> bring students not only knowledge, but also an opportunity to market the
> outcome and have some real profit?

because that would create competition and nullify the opportunity

> Hence many students struggle just to figure out how to deal with the course.
> Many people have even lower levels of understanding how to approach
> learning, learning how to learn should probably be ingrained in every
> course.

The first part is true, learning how to learn is prerequisite to university
level courses, self-organization is expected from a high school curriculum.
This is a difficult topic. Hence, the second part is out of focus for such
courses.

> Nearly 98% of all courses offer a poor communication model

You could say the same about any campus, but communication apart from the
course material is not at first order the responsibility of the course
offering to solve, except in courses focused on social sciences, or rather
soft skills.

Anyhow, forums are difficult, true, but bulletin boards and mailing-lists are
the traditional channels of the internet. Social networks are a developing
industry. Video or just audio is a proven alternative to text.

For courses focused on communication, from my experience, a class on
presentation technique was as an insightful topic, but that's only the tip of
the iceberg. Surely, less technical topics are less amenable via just text.

> The more niche is the theme you’re seeking to learn about, the harder it is
> to find something great, even just something worthwhile of your time.

as I just said

> English for TOEFL? Ok. English for business? Ok. English for architects? Ha-
> ha. English for landscape architects? Ha-ha-ha!

Technical vernacular is C level (in toefel terms, I guess). Reading a book on
the topic should help to familiarity with the topic.

> Despite having an overwhelming stream of learning resources, it’s still hard
> to find something that is excellent personally ...

The choice is overwhelming, therefore, focus is needed. Mass education is not
really intended to be totally personal. Gamification is a current theme in
motivation, maybe finding the right course can be seen as an adventure? A
course is always just supplemental, don't expect too much of it, too.

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sus_007
I believe Online Education is the future of knowledge distribution. Yes, I
admit that it lacks social gatherings among the beings sharing the same
competitive-cum-curious motive to graduate. However, I see in the future with
the tech innovations like Virtual Reality, Improved Compression & Broadcasting
on the Web, one can have access to the top-notch contents on the desired
subject once he/she accumulates enough motivation & stays focused on the
curriculum regardless of the duration he/she takes to complete it. So, yes I
feel positive towards the future of education although it might face numerous
criticism..those who will stay determined to exercise the contents the web has
to offer, will definitely overcome the cons of e-learning.

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gdfer
Too many options! Give me 3 things to pick from, I'll debate for a while, go
with one and after awhile feeling it's less than adequate, I'll start looking
at the other two.

Give me many more options, as the internet does, it gets much worse.

If only we knew exactly what we wanted to study and there was one good
option/path for it

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owebmaster
I'm working on this subject too and it is exciting to see others trying to fix
it too. I'm focusing on CS education/software development, which I guess
should be easier to learn online.

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oblib
It lacks community and the realtime face to face physical social interaction
that makes learning both interesting and fun.

Educational websites might be better used in a classroom than a bedroom.

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redsable
I would suggest that you get better at asking questions before you tackle such
a HUGE topic. Start by defining what you mean by flawed.

Then explain what you mean by prevent and lastly define what you mean by
"learning on your own".

Finally for a bit of contrast take a look at Sugata Mitra's Hole in the Wall
experiment and contrast that with whatever idea you have about online self
study.

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throwawaymsft
Have you taken and completed an online course yourself? What have you noticed
was difficult?

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id122015
it doesnt have a page with all the answers at the end of the book

~~~
ai_ia
Well, if it has a page with all the answers at the end of the book, the course
will be pretty huge.

Usually what I have seen is that 1\. Homework questions usually have answers
2\. And open-ended questions are usually for people to think about but the
same goes for books also. Most books don't provide answers for open ended
thoughful questions.

Can you specify instances where it is required?

