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Comment by helsinkiandrew | Hacker News Reader

> I now shifted to in-person interactions with a TA. After every assignment, each student needs to schedule a 15-minute meeting with a TA to answer a couple of questions in a live conversation

Isn't the answer the 'flipped classroom' - students are assigned reading/studying to do before a class and the class becomes more interactive, answering questions/discussing topics/solving problems etc depending on subject. Of course, this is more expensive than a hall with 400 people listening to a lecture with a couple of tests/essays.

https://fltmag.com/the-flipped-classroom/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flipped_classroom

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This only works if you either have very intrinsically motivated students or you verify that really everyone has actually read the assigned materials before class. Otherwise, some people will turn up unprepared, you will have to explain stuff they should have gotten from the reading assignment, other students will be annoyed, students will stop preparing for class, vicious cycle.

And then you fail them. I suspect an institute genuinely empowered to do so, where the expectations were declared up front and followed through on consistently, would fare well, after the dust settled.

As far as I can tell (based on university and high school level instruction forums) institutions increasingly are not backing the teachers that want to let kids that have earned that F fail the students.

I've heard of places where the minimum points for an assignment is 50% even if you never turn it in which is insanity.

FWIW, this isn't a problem at my German university.

This is for American schools, unfortunately. And it's not a good development.

It stems from the idea that "no child left behind" is a goal. It shouldn't have ever been.

I don't fail them usually - I expose them; and once I asked a student to leave the room because they were blatantly unprepared despite me warning them before.

My main point is: flipped classroom works great in some contexts but is no panacea and requires setting clear expectations.

Aside: as English is not my native language: "you fail them" can mean both "you give them a failing grade" and "you fail to provide the support they need", right?

> "you fail them" can mean both "you give them a failing grade" and "you fail to provide the support they need", right?

Yes, but as written the latter would not be a reasonable parse. For that sense: “you have failed them”, sure; “you are failing them”, sure; even “in acting so, you fail them”; but “and then you fail them” as an entire sentence would be very weird. The emphasis I placed on “fail” also doesn’t feel particularly compatible with that sense of the word.

As a former flipped classroom student I can attest to the effectiveness of "exposure". It requires some skill to pull off: the first time someone is exposed it should be very lenient and then get gradually harsher. The risk of embarrassment in front of the class can be a very strong motivator if utilized right.

I've been in uni classes which used this concept (about 10 years ago though). It also requires that content is given in the right size and complexity each week, otherwise there will also be people coming to class who did do their homework but didn't understand it properly and just like the people who didn't read it need full explanations.

I also felt having multiple explanations (in a regular class where you could also read the book in advance) from regular lecturers helped me in gaining understanding because having something explained in multiple ways made sure there would be at least one way, or a combination, which made it 'click'.

I always liked the regular lectures where you would be required to do some pre class reading and a smaller set of exercises the most, as you would be engaged in the class itself and would be getting repetition with different explanations.

Flipped classrooms are like, the quintessential siren song for teachers. EVERY teacher dreams of a day when they can focus on what they're best at (teaching deep topics, getting 'aha' moments, making connections, asking questions, and so on) and do less of what they dislike. But sadly this is just not how things work.

Flipped classrooms have incredibly weak causal evidence. However they are popular in spite of this - perhaps because of this if you're cynical - as the educational research field is pretty questionable in its standards and the profit motive is a strong thing lurking in the background. Wikipedia has a big warning on the article for a reason, but even then it has serious issues.

"Active learning" is a thing (insofar as it has meaning rather than be a useless buzzword catch-all) that does work. But the "flip" specifically does not, or rather, sometimes a mix of extra effort on behalf of the teacher and other loosely related effects occasionally can make a modest impact that makes up for its failings.

Most of the people pushing flipped classrooms are the same people who think that students learn best when they "discover" concepts on their own, maybe with a bit of guidance. This is the other, more serious, lie in education right now, akin to the whole idea that you didn't need to teach phonics to kids when they learn to read.

One of my colleagues tried it for a few terms. Unfortunately, it didn't work well. Most students don't care about learning, they are here for grades :(

> Most students don't care about learning, they are here for grades

It’s a virtuous circle though, as many universities are there for the money, so it’s a beautiful exchange.

Comments like this are why HN needs a "you beautiful snarky bastard" feedback in addition to a simple up or down vote.

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