Intuitive Textbooks

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  • difference in volume between a math book and blackboard writing by a professor makes no sense when textbooks pile stuff on and on and an instructor always presents it in a few simple steps.
  • instruction without hands on experience gaining is useless in education
  • PI school goals: engineering, science, and technology. No electives crap. Career education starts in high school. All non-essential courses are not important and are not graded/evaluated. Consolidate high school and associate's program. Career evaluation/tryouts/planning/advice. Real-life projects required. Young “education-science”-trained instructors instead of old obsolete chalk-on-blackboard professors. All math is applied and heavily computerized and textbook-lookup based. Students are required to read the chapter before coming to class so instructor never has to write notes on the whiteboard. Additional online resources lk remote courses or online textbooks required.
  • troubled students should be the one to improve teaching material. Idiots have not realized yet that asking students themselves is the best way to improve the education system instead of paying people to do “scientific research”. Especially idiotic is the “trick question” phenomenon where the instructor seemingly does a good job inside the classroom working on basic problems, but when the test comes much more involved problems with much more steps or unclear approach methods are shown. The biggest problem is the fact that students are taught basic methods duplicated in the most textbooks instead of showing how to breakdown the problem into the methods they learn in the course, or how this graphically fits in with stuff they already learned or need to learn in the future. More critically, this can be used to both enforce a will in the student to tackle the later material, or graphically find out which of the past material/methods they might want to revisit. Another interesting phenomenon is the “dumb question”, or more specifically, the lack of courage of good/above average students to ask the obvious dumb question. One more problem for the future is the inability and lack of guidance of an instructor by students while ensuring anonymity and low volume of questions. However, submission of such questions/suggestions/steers electronically and overview of them by a dedicated assistant/student can be made to work.
  • Since the US will soon be passed over by the number of students taught by memorization of textbooks, then why the hell the US education system is still trying to use that method of education since all of the jobs will no longer be there? They must teach methods and utilize resources unique to US in order to ensure lack of competition with students from another country. Methods: visualization, brainstorming, working in teams, using computers/software, utilizing other departments/people, communication (esp electronic), electronic mentoring/resources, development of creative thinking, inter-departmental thinking and disciplines/majors, IP/previous knowledge on internet/books/computers, exams based on dissemination of large and complex problems instead of trick-based “hard” questions that were never memorized during the class. Resources: innovation, VCs, entrepreneurship, patents, ideas, business, internet-based services, internet-based english-language knowledge and information, use of scientific research, focus groups, and internet user content instead of actual product “engineering”
  • redo college textbooks for self guided study, take all the crap out. Take a challenge exam instead of wasting time on a course.
  • ws length of college textbooks should be the length of blackboard notes
  • PI education testing: like outlined elsewhere, all testing will be done with “supervised” problem solving by a student in groups of 1-4 with graduated students supervising the tests. This will solve the problem of a jerk professor sitting idle in front of 50 students who are scribbling with pencils on paper on a limited time basis. Instead, students are given full access to textbooks, computers, internet, other student resources, etc and have to solve a difficult real world problem in front of the supervising person. Grading is on whether the student grasped the knowledge and practical experience in interpreting and applying the course material.
  • proof that education is stupid: how useful is all "science" education if students don't know what the north star is, or how to operate a computer, or repair their car, or use consumer electronics, or have a basic tax and investment knowledge???
  • how the hell can schools release students without those students learning the base minimum of computers??? knowledge on the level of how USB, ethernet operates, & how to install an extra HD. Laugh at ancient system & replace crap courses with community college based/PI funded computer courses & my "teach yourself" courseware
  • doc student who got question wrong bc they overthought it for a valid reason should be rewarded
  • Remove stupidity from school learning. Constants + equations always available
  • "Necessary steps" approach to education (as in mathematics, programming, etc)
  • about doing it the paper and pencil way in education: crap we do in circuits, etc should only be solved by computer since we will never do this in RL.
  • my future: show students what different professions do. Poss movie series. Have teachers recognize potential and ask
  • education: no grades. Get out from the chair. Get out and get hands on.
  • job of the teacher – every student must know fundamental concepts. But it's up to the nature on memorization and concept recognition on the test, problems, and real life.
  • education is hopelessly obsolete if it does not teach practical things lk computers and to not leave scene of accident. Its job is to keep people on their ass for 8 hours. Replace with no electives hands on education, diploma in passing, and associate's in a real job related field. Not associates in english or arts.



wth school system does not know about 3 tpes of learning:

  • visual – student just reads the book
  • audio – student listens in class
  • hands-on (ignored) – student only learns by doing first



on school textbooks, universal stupidities:

  • students buy a huge heavy expensive textbook but the actual class only covers the most idiotic and basic portion of that text, or they present different methods altogether.
  • Material is taught not in the order the book was written.
  • The book contains a huge number of additional materials to the already huge tome (fe CDs, website, website practice questions, all supplemental teaching material, media, quick-learners, etc, etc) but no sane student would have enough resources or the will to parse it all when an A+ student will have to.
  • The instructor will actually only be interested in the idiotic usual obsolete methods: overhead projectors, memorization, use of A+ students to compare to others, impossible questions/exams, third party tests/questions, true/false, and obsolete paper-pencil testing and grading.
  • “Problems” in the book that have been absolutely not covered in the previous chapter, “impossible questions/problems”
  • simplistic, single-case examples covered in the chapter, when an exam problem would cover a problem with many more variables and associated problems, and the usual student would have no idea how to dissect that hard problem given the basic information of that chapter.
  • While book goes chapter by chapter, it never presents how a multi-part problem can be dissected into the basic problems that can be solved with information from those individual chapters.
  • Idiotic free-mind talking that just confuses students. Too many details. Repetitions of the same over and over again. Simplistic examples, which are unusable (esp during an exam or RL). Confused student the sleepless night before the exam. Only certain type of “A” students somehow “get” the textbook. A mile wide and an inch deep. Idiotic huge book that tries to cover absolutely everything, but explains nothing.



PI education: instead of relying on textbooks+instructors, use groups of students who can teach each other themselves with supervised operation. All “problems” will be done with students themselves. This will solve many problems, including:

  • single professor for an auditorium
  • A+ students mixed with average and poor students
  • limited resources for tailoring of a presentation to the audience, as well as asking questions
  • more realistic way of learning
  • eliminate homework and learning outside of the “classroom”. No need to spend additional resources home
  • will eliminate problem that if a student does not do a practical problem immediate at home after the presentation, he will forget what he was told and will do poorly on the testing.
  • Will eliminate test anxiety when tests are radically different from classroom and homework material
  • will immediately find out where in the group the student belongs based on their individuality.
  • Will eliminate problem of too many students eventually dropping out or failing the class after considerable amount of time, money, and resources have actually been spent.
  • Will immediately warn students who do not do hands-on work during the class that their efforts are insufficient.



PI education:

  • combine high school+community college+vocational school+trade school
  • diploma in passing or at the same time associate's is received; at this time all the typical idiotic college/university “electives” must be taken so they will never be taken again.
  • You have accomplished something when you are 18 and already got your associate's. People can then decide to go to a relatively decent work, or continue in the “education” system. All students are required to have selected and passed a chosen real-life hands-on knowledge in-depth study as well as the general hands-on knowledge for their life.
  • Those students who do decide to continue in the “education” system will already have a good job, source of money, practical knowledge, full knowledge of the “education” system they are going into, what it will take, etc. Because they already have an associate's, they will spend their 4 years doing a double major, lots of work in the industry, practical projects/help for others, and most likely a professional Master's study (Masters of science or engineering, could be management/business as well).
  • Those who are suitable, and decide to go to, the PhD program, will have the needed support and understanding of what it takes before they decide to commit, not because they can remain in the education system because someone pays for it.
  • Remove idiotic process where while the system is too expensive it is a “given” that most students will actually get financial help, some will get the education for free, and some will end up with piles of debt. Remove all the differences in funding between students into a single generic program and have the students pay for it themselves when working at the same time.



the few common root causes of all education criticisms: all critics of the education systems, when presenting their own criticism, fail to see the few most basic underlying problems with the system:

  1. missing or limited information for the students on how people in their chosen field actually do their job, or even more problematic, a complete lack of decision based on good information and practical knowledge of what they want to do.
  2. Lack of work in the related industry during the education which would immediately show them which of the material they are being forced to learn in the education system actually matters and they will need later. What is very stupid is that students will not be actually able to work anywhere related until after bachelor's, and the idiotic jobs they are forced to take.
  3. lack of mandatory business education is surprising
  4. required crap “electives” courses, and at the same time a complete lack of hands-on courses
  5. zero hands-on experience and knowledge for the real world.



Critical q does the stupidity that i am taught now really happen in real life?:

  • math: do people ever have to solve something with pencil and paper, or would the computer program do this for them? (calculus, differential equations, engineering problem, physics problem, etc)
  • electronics: does absolutely anything has to be memorized, or do engineers just reach to the shelf and look something up? Is any design made on paper as opposed to on computer with automated design? Do engineers actually use graphing calculators?
  • Programming: idiotic low-level implementations like data structures, or third-party libraries actually used instead? Low-level graphics programming instead of a toolkit? Actual development environments, toolkits, etc used to develop real commercial programs?
  • Linear algebra, matrices, etc?



Instead of trying to improve the whole free government education system, it will be much wiser to try the following:

  1. a private school oriented towards the low+high percents (poor performing+above average performing students), and not the average students
  2. many courses taught using distance courses from certified sources
  3. a publication/online resource to spread the techniques, information, methods, etc of all alternative schools, for both the low and high percents
  4. free distance education courses and online resources for the rest of the students of the country, including wiki-like textbooks, software, free courses, etc
  5. several different schools using different methods instead of debating single best method like the government does. The publications will then ensure the working methods will be transferred to other schools.
  6. An extremely well performing forecasting and prediction service that will outline what the education must do since what they do will affect what kind of students will be released 4-12 years into the future, when the society may have already changed. This will apply particularly to methods used for teaching and teaching for and selecting the jobs for the future students.



stupidities of the american education system:

  • some people receive financial assistance/benefits/programs/etc allowing them to not work and go to college for years on end
  • why do colleges teach things like art when it is not a realistic paid occupation
  • stupidities of scholarships/unbalanced cost system where some get if for free and some carry several tens of thousands of dollars of debt
  • wtf education loan has much higher apr than most other types of debt (8%+)
  • colleges do not currently have a third-party payment planning service which will provide unbiased advice on how to pay for the services rendered and what help is available.



about education. Education has at least two critical flaws:

  1. the volume of crap required to be learned which has nothing to do with anything.
  2. At the same time, there is paradoxically no interest in real life skills and real life grading/evaluation of those skills. I am constantly being evaluated on my life performance by grades from idiots for idiot courses while years fly by.
  3. No grading/evaluation of instructors themselves
  4. homework is done in groups, yet always graded individually
  5. zero socialization devices and services allowed in the classroom. Again, everyone must be taught and graded individually.



on education:

  • high school graduation after a set amount of credits instead of taking a written down list of courses that everyone must take
  • hth such courses as phys ed can be graded, and how can students get best grades in such courses
  • why should grades in such courses be written down or matter at all
  • kill requirement for mandatory immunizations
  • everything that a student has written down must be handed back to their portfolio and is covered by copyright and privacy protections.
  • All essays must be given back



on engineering education:

  • document that it is 10-20 years behind on the technology
  • document stupidity of graphing calculators when laptops should replace them
  • solving the “problems” the math way with pencil on paper
  • memorization of all information
  • professors are from the old generation and they continue to teach the techniques they have been taught, slowing down and dragging the whole education system
  • throw out professors with they textbooks, solving techniques, and graphing calculators and bring in engineers with 5-10 years of experience, laptops, and online textbooks. Give students extremely hard problems that can only be solved with group collaboration, internet research, and breaking the problem into tasks for each team member



i after killing idiotic elective courses at local colleges, introduce a "real life" course:

  • one-a-week classes
  • audience-level sizes (entire college)
  • replaces and counts as all other electives credits
  • mandatory for every student
  • every student's homework is reviewed, but commented on only, not graded. satisfactory work passes the course
  • cover internet research, bad-ripoff internet websites, services, and adware programs, car/appliance fixes, searching for a job, interview, banking/investment, 401(k) and etc, bureaucratic processes, credit cards/loans education, credit score, computer literacy, self improvements, parenting issues, home/apartment ownership, bills, taxes, police issues, home improvements/fixes, buying right, how to compare items before projects, tech products, tech maintenance (cell phone, memory cards, backups, etc), cellphone plans info, private information management, court duties, how to improve yourself for a better job, community help, low-cost/free services (software, information, etc), computers, house electronic devices, home appliances, transferring to a college, college finances.
  • all I will do is set topics, maintain course plans, and bring people from every relevant field to give lectures
  • audience can real-time send me sms/email/chat/etc messages and i can steer presenter on topics/questions audience wants
  • broadcast the course nationally to schools, colleges, and individuals.
  • have several presenters sit at a table together so they can complement each other
  • more importantly, the course will teach only a single skill: that further information searching by the user is required without reliance on easy but stupid sources like super stores, news, politicians, other people, etc; and skills on how to best search for that information. weekly coursework requirements will be full reports on a topic that must be research by students themselves and a report (in any form or fashion, not just "essay") to be given.



education: high schools and voc schools should give out associate's degrees instead of diplomas:

  1. employment with diploma stupidity
  2. stupidity of no profession, career choice until third year of college
  3. stupidity of repeated courses, esp liberal arts and electives
  4. not nearly enough/zero practical skills
  5. would eliminate idiotic electives + adult ed from college system
  6. would force to simplify amount of information while adding practical skills and knowledge for employers
  7. would free up college system from people who should not be there



about me:

  • absolutely cannot stand current college courses
  • if I wanted to learn that, I would five years ago
  • all previous courses nothing new since high school
  • anyone must be crazy to go into electrical engineering now
  • I will surely end up in management or Creative Engineering (new term!)
  • our college professors will always lose if they want to make smart engineers -- will never be able to compete with asian or european students
  • that drooling is exactly what those countries excel in
  • absolutely do not need these courses
  • must only know what diff/lin/calc equations are, how to spot them, how to input into mathematica, and how to interpret the result
  • after the course I will likely still not know what those are, or forget in a week



on american education system:

  • the only goal of american education system is to keep students for 8 hours on a chair
  • the majority of material that is taught is never used (geometry, english, chemistry, mathematics, calculus)
  • use the old russian system instead - a large number of interesting subjects. each subject gets a different number of hours per week. different subjects each day. each break is 20 minutes with sports. minimum of homework for stupid subjects. small textbooks.
  • use "future citizen" subjects, hygeine, medical basics, consumer electronics, fixing & repairs, etc



on education

  • crap that i have seen a dozen times. if i choose not to study it during high school i sure as hell will not memorize it now.
  • courses with dubious practical applications
  • I have too many questions
  • I need to absolutely understand information
  • I want to visualize information
  • I have ideas i want to implement
  • I do not agree with life on certain points, and i want to change them
  • working as an engineer i sure as hell will not be able to change anything



on the education system:

  • first make sure student is not bored or hates the subject
  • intelligent subjects
  • top-down
  • "how things look from above" view always
  • integrated subjects, all necessary areas, all practical areas
  • moneymaking, health, information, learning, repairs, etc



PI School health program:

  • to eliminate the stupidity of grades in russian and US schools for phys ed and eliminate the stupidity of time wasted on pro sports in US schools, and to get more athletes and other people for sport in ru PI school will do the following:
  • do not have special classes during school for phys ed or grade physical performance. instead, have a credit system. students can participate in ANY controlled physical program supported by PI City and that will be counted as phys ed. for example, they can either go into pro sports, have a skiing vacation, or visit a weights gym. all will be accepted.



Visual Learning:

  • Categorize and modularize learning
  • Provide visual teaching
  • Make media with educational visualizations

fight back the education system:


set up the ultimate college cheating resources.


Push them until they will switch from idiotic multiple-choice exams, repetitive mechanical homework assignments, and mechanical drilling memorization.

  1. poll people whether they ever use crap like matrices, linear algebra, calculus, differential equations, pre-calc, low level hand coding of real world apps.
  2. list cheating resources
  3. list online cheating resources
  4. list mathematical software to solve stupid homework
  5. list ways to cheat the system.
  6. list ways to make it easy
  7. list ways to go around the system
  8. provide confidential online aggressive "tutoring"

kill the system



on the education system:

  • ever wondered why "poor" students ask the right questions, or do good in special schools or colleges?
  • ever wondered why russians ask the why/how questions
  • ever ask a question yourself (or wished someone asked it for you)?

That is because the "traditional" education system is crap.


However, it would be hard to fix it. Instead of the extremely hard/costly/impossible ideas like changing every school, or sending everyone who fits to a special school, there is a much better alternative.

  1. List and publicly discuss problems with the system.
  2. Force them to admit there are problems
  3. Cleanup the old crappy system by removing unnecessary subjects & rules.
  4. Introduce rules such as lookup tables must always be available, tests can be taken at any time, you can walk about as you please, etc.
  5. Provide marginal upgrades to the school like conditioners, fixes, better lab equipment, etc

6) MOST IMPORTANT: supplant the "average" local education with:

  • Online lectures
  • Field trips to local colleges, places of interest, universities, companies.
  • Online Q/A with informative individuals from the field like engineers, scientists, etc
  • Provide regular local contests (must be meaningful)
  • Provide online/distant broadcasts of competitions, "playrooms", labs, contests

THAT WAY:

  • An average local education can be supplanted by best-of-the-best national resources
  • For example, an intelligent program can take care of half the schools of the state.
  • Encourage kids to learn
  • Find what kids want, and enhance it.



pi education categories:

  • graded & watched: core subjects like language, reading, science.
  • lecture only: non-core subjects like history, gym, etc
  • practical courses: hands-on education & work in zoology, botany, gym, cooking, repairs, etc.



simplify the incredibly wasteful education process:

  • textbooks, handouts, tests, etc all should be available online & on digital book version
  • grades > evaluations instead. at least that way the student can receive helpful information on what kind of life & work would be easy for him
  • years of education, stupid subjects, # of credits > certain subjects will be explained to possibly help the education process, but they do not teach any useful information or skills, and student may decide to skip them or specify an alternative subject.
  • useless education > all classes are hands-on, practical knowledge, research/project based, and subject matter is decided by people who actually work in that field.
  • application process, minimums, & bureacrocy > PI will not use any requirements or application processes. However, the student is extensively tested at the end, and if he did not pick up the required skills, he is not given any record of program being taken or completed.



my college:

  • oral one-on-one exams only
  • no grading. written evaluations only. this will tremendously help high school systems, too. fe, in phys ed, instead of a stupid grade that means litte, a written evaluation will be provided. if medical help is needed (obese in the future), it will be provided.
  • transfer students only. for those who get a few semesters and find aout educational system is wrong.
  • course participation is mandatory, but no participation or listening is required
  • few research is done by professors. projects only. they just need to be cirrent in research and education.
  • no electives
  • tech/science education only
  • no sports
  • one per each state
  • top-down education only. more on tools and methods rather than remembering
  • textbooks are read by students before class. lecture is the opposite of “professor is scribbling on blackboard about something noone knows what it is” syndrome.
  • bills payed only after education by industry/student/someone else. only if they become financially sufficient
  • commuting students. full-house housing. pi projects
  • 3+2 semesters (3 trimesters + 2 summer sessions for liberal crap and projects)
  • all classes are pass/fail only. based on student-at-the-board examinations. any student that cannot do this is automatically informed of his inability to complete the course
  • all senior and junior projects are during the summer, and not during trimester times.
  • crap stuff like projects, liberal crap, electives, travel, and internships are offloaded to summer sessions, break sessions, and the final years. all the good stuff, and financial details are done during the first years.



PI school:


  • High school
  • voc school
  • special needs school
  • disabled school
  • gifted school
  • community college
  • tech/voc/trade school


  • pi school= high school+community college+vocational/technical high school+trade school
  • no after school crap like pro athletics
  • good science teachers (college-level)
  • students vote, grade, review, and select teachers
  • accelerated learning programs
  • diploma instead of ged program
  • local resources
  • hands on learning
  • eliminate talkology courses
  • practical knowledge
  • students get out with an associate's in transfer when they are 18/finish high school
  • learn easier versions of things like electrical engineering, physics, etc without any stupid math
  • shops
  • excel in last two years in a university by doing that work before university entrance
  • business, legal, consulting, management for technical areas requirement
  • local involvement, including by outside people for school, and in reverse
  • eliminate crap courses at all levels



Third year/summer engineering school:


For those who graduated from high school, and took 2 years of university/community college. The reasons for students to enlist:

  1. College courses seem stupid
  2. Grades too low to transfer to a university
  3. Courses lacking
  4. Unprepared for university
  5. Unprepared/not socially stable to move to a university
  6. College provides too low of education content
  7. Need to study skills, tools, mindset, etc
  • One year of engineering/science round-the-clock education. Modern tools, techniques, knowledge, skills, mindset.
  • Taught by industry professionals only. No professors or textbooks
  • Top-bottom tutorial education.
  • At the end of the year, the student goes to a university/research institute to complete the senior projects in no time.



Education:

  1. "blackboard physics". too much crap scribblings
  2. drilling of crap memorization of crap info
  • obedience
  • any chinese or indian student will be better at this
  • if the stupid courses are kept, make them lectures only, no grading



Education stupidity

  • Multiple guesses
  • minus signs
  • some questions are too "trick"
  • some questions are absolutely unanswerable
  • some questions are directly opposing to logical sense
  • some questions are exactly not the ones covered in class



Gut Feeling:

  • Exam questions often harder than any in the textbook (especially in technical high school courses)
  • Don't know how it happens that a student does not know how to solve something, then teacher solves it using nothing new?
  • Sign leads to big problems.



Educational systems


It is wrong for a teacher to solve examples using his knowledge. This is why the European/Russian system with students solving at the board is superior. Teachers forget that students have little experience solving or VISUALIZING problems. Students must explicitly show HOW they attempt to solve the problems, and where are the bottlenecks.

  • No examples on the board, only steps how to solve
  • Book proofs vs. student proofs
  • Guided proofs
  • Dumbest students must understand

Europeans: blackboards, guided explanations, little hw


US: "examples", too much hw:

All to gain experience. However, if students does not VISUALIZE the solution, does not know how to solve, or encounters a radically different and harder problem, then experience does not help.


MK's: only students at the board, little homework, animated/video solving process, computers for visualization and exploration, hands-on experiments for examination of student's sophistication. Student guides teacher on how to solve a problem on a test.



a good idea for my education services:

  • for students who will have a problem completing their coursework for a degree by a single or just few classes (or low grades in those classes).
  • Instead of staying for one more semester or getting out, provide a service to take those courses in a fast manner that is tutorial based. Student is taught fast by text and video communication, is tested, and prepared for an exam or substitutes for an exam. Also, thinks like student selected projects or replacement lab work can be used instead. Same for challenge exams.



alternate education system - huge time on required concepts like calculus, and follow up w hands-on expansion

  • fe: every student required to understand the idea of calculus
  • then engineering class will show how to apply
  • testing - student must explain concept
  • good student required to explain to struggling
  • in book - show my story
  • students required to provide feedback on what stumbles them
  • doc: teacher/professor talking about crap. textbook duplication



Syndrome of a 1000-page book. It needs:

  • To be read many times
  • Keep a notebook
  • Listen to a lecturer (which automatically limits the amount of material)
  • Retell everything yourself
  • Make a couple of TI-89 progs
  • Practice!



document how most textbooks, many large books, and some websites are written:

  • they are written in a very peculiar and different manner: they are a mile wide and an inch deep. you read sentence after sentence piled with different, self referring terms, etc. sentences also replicate, clone, and modify each other.
  • the brain will never maintain information while reading this crap, and you will notice yourself skipping large portions of text while thinking about other things.
  • other texts are so interesting, you can never think of something else, everything stealing your attention away from text will bother you, and you will easily memorize and understand every sentence.
  • unfortunately, most "technical" or "educational" texts that either attempt to supply information a user is actively seeking, or that user being required to memorize, are of the first sort.