Swap Lectures with Homework
I have always liked the following idea for education. Ask students to watch a lecture on some topic at home, and then do the homework with the teacher in class.
The United States has an enormous number of teachers, but only a small fraction of them are truly fantastic lecturers. So why should every teacher give essentially the same lecture? Why not record the best lectures, put them online, and assign them as homework? Then class time could be used for what is much harder to do alone: solving problems, asking questions, discussing mistakes, and getting individual help from the teacher.
There are obvious advantages. A recorded lecture can be given by someone who explains the subject exceptionally well. Students can pause the video, replay a difficult part, slow it down, or go back to something they missed. A live lecture marches forward at one speed, whether or not everyone is ready.
There is also an advantage for teachers. Giving the same lecture every year or every other year might be boring. It might be more fun noticing where a student is stuck, asking the right question, or explaining one difficult point in several different ways. In this system, the classroom teacher becomes less of a performer and more of a mentor.
The biggest problem is obvious: what happens if some students do not watch the lecture? Currently, if a student doesn’t do their homework, they fall behind and have to catch up. But the next lecture can still proceed as planned. If some students skip the lecture, the teacher might get stuck repeating it instead of deepening students’ understanding, defeating the whole idea.
In college, however, the situation is somewhat different. Students who regularly attend lectures are usually motivated enough to watch a required video beforehand. And if they don’t, it is reasonable to hold them responsible for being unprepared.
What I especially like about this approach is that it uses the scarce resource where it matters most. A great lecture can be recorded once and watched by gazillions of students. But when a student is stuck on a problem and needs someone to understand exactly why they are stuck, a recording is not enough. That is when having a teacher in the room is most valuable.
The reason I decided to write about this idea now is the proliferation of AI. AI seems particularly well suited to helping students understand a lecture. A student can ask AI to explain a difficult point again, give another example, slow down, fill in a missing step, or answer a follow-up question. AI could even replace the lecture itself.
Homework is different. AI can explain the topic to a student, but the student still needs to understand it on their own. Part of the point of homework is the struggle. When AI helps with the solution, it makes the struggle easier or completely removes it, making the homework useless. When AI simply solves the homework problem, it damages the student’s understanding and progress. In addition, part of the value of the homework is receiving feedback from the teacher after grading. Grading AI’s solutions wastes everyone’s time.
Suddenly, this old idea of mine seems more important than ever: swap lectures and homework. AI can explain; the teacher can train the students to think.
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