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Aside from language translation, what areas/problems do you think are most ripe for the application of human based computation systems?

Do you have any thoughts on Jaron Lanier's criticism of the direction the web took due to the successes of the free/open-source/creative commons movements? In his new book (and the one before it) he claims that a major reason we're seeing economic inequalities that are only going to get worse are due to the inability of the middle class to make money on the internet without forming 'gatekeeper' data silos like FB, Google , et al. which horde as much data as they can (by pimping out their users for ad dollars).

Carol Dweck has done great research about this and wrote a terrific book called Mindset. To summarize briefly, there are two mindsets a child (or adult) can have about their abilities, a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. Rewarding people for high intelligence and being smart, or the opposite, of having low intelligence and not being smart, reinforces a fixed mindset where a person's abilities are predetermined and innate. Rewarding people for their practice, effort, hard work, and determination to master a subject reinforces a growth mindset. Almost across the board, successful people have a growth mindset.

My first question is: how would you change education, in specifics please, to incorporate the findings of Dweck and instill a growth mindset in learners.

Also, Peter Thiel has said that the modern educational system is a competitive battleground played out by the students mainly for insurance and status, to provide security in the competitive job market. Higher education exploits this by charging more and more for their elite certifications, while public schools contribute by emphasizing weeding out students based on simplistic metrics of performance. He thinks startups that are trying to disrupt the education market cannot avoid understanding this and must figure out how to provide the insurance and status currently monopolized by those incumbent institutions.

So my second question is: While it is well and good to focus on helping students do better in class using neuroscience and psychology, this still leaves the systemic problems of the educational system itself in place. Do you have any thoughts on how to change the institutions to help students become better explorers and creators instead of just industrialized employees?

Thanks!

Thank you. You have reiterated precisely my thoughts on solutions to these problems.

The flipped classroom model, like Kahn Academy, is just common sense and it's ridiculous how classrooms have stayed so anachronistic.

Automaticity, emotion, and attention are exactly the right cognitive processes to emphasize in learning. I just read a paper by Herbert Simon et al published in 2000 that criticizes the supposed progressive learning models gaining traction in schools which avoid 'drill and kill' models on erroneous grounds. He cites a large body of evidence that shows sustained practice and automaticity is essential to skill mastery, and urged future researchers to explore ways to incorporate such sustained practice with methods which keep attention and emotions engaged. I think serious games and constructionist pedagogy fits this mold nicely.

Measuring absolute skills instead of relative skills, again, is something I absolutely agree with. Things like badges/achievements of progressive skill chains, portfolios of hands-on projects, and work-experience/internships/apprenticeships as part of the curriculum are crucial. They also enhance the metacognitive abilities of learners as they don't just put a simplistic grade on their work, but gauge their progress in mastering skills and knowledge.

Thanks for your response!