[briandw]

AI is held to a much higher standard than the existing education techniques.

Even without AI teachers are implementing new techniques without any evidence of their effectiveness. In some cases, there is mountains of evidence that their techniques are not effective. From the prohibition on phonics in reading, learning styles, building thinking classrooms, or just the entire idea of constructivism. These are all worse than the techniques that they replace. AI systems at the very least are measured and have some kind of tracking of what works.

I'm not advocating for AI necessarily, but education is in the pre-scientific phase and it needs to start by implementing evidence based techniques, AI or no.

[iugtmkbdfil834]

I am both pro and against this at the same time. I love the idea of tracking it as an aggregate, but I hate the idea that the kid may end up being stuck on some vibe coded idiocy and unable to move on, because of it ( I still shudder at some of the ridiculous math tests in college that could not account for the right answer, but not in the exactly right format that was not disclosed as expected ).

I am not even suggesting in person teaching is the only solution either. I am currently dealing with, apparently, my kids teacher, who, well, kinda checked out, but as much I am happy for her being able to retire soon, I am not sure why my kid has to suffer academically.

What I am saying is, there is room for AI. What I worry about is, people are idiots and anything half-useful will be neutered and kids will have all the drawbacks of heavy surveillance and zero to show for it.

[_aavaa_]

What is the mountain of evidence against "the entire idea of constructivism"?

[briandw]

First let's stick to the lower grades (under 5th). The evidence isn't as clean for upper grades.

Constructivist teaching favors things like student-centered discovery, inquiry-based, minimal-guidance, "child-led" or "whole-language" approaches.

This is just a plain bad way to teach the basics, like reading, writing and arithmetic. People didn't just magically invent these ideas. Most of human history is pre-literacy. Why are we expecting a 5yo to spontaneously learn to read?

This has been studied extensively. Have a look at Project Follow Through (1968–1977). It's the largest study of its kind.

This U.S. government-funded study involved ~120,000 disadvantaged K–3 students across 20+ instructional models in multiple sites. It directly compared Direct Instruction (Engelmann’s scripted, explicit basic-skills model, e.g., DISTAR) against constructivist-oriented models (e.g., Bank Street child-directed, Open Education/EDC exploratory-discovery, cognitive-conceptual discovery approaches).

Abt Associates did an independent evaluation in (1977). Their findings

DI produced the highest gains in reading, math, language, and spelling—raising performance to near national averages. It was the only model with consistent positive effects across basic skills, cognitive-conceptual skills, and self-esteem/affective outcomes.

See page 311 fig1 for the plot of outcomes. https://andymatuschak.org/files/1988-Engelmann.pdf

For more recent evidence, have a look at the reforms in Mississippi and the UK. Mississippi has striking gains for under privileged students. Mississippi Columbus Municipal School District used the "Reading Mastery Signature Edition" DI program.

Demographics: 92% African American, 100% free/reduced-price lunch, 12% special education.

Results as measured by NWEA MAP and Renaissance STAR assessments:

MAP RIT gains: +15.96 points overall 43–45% of students met or exceeded expected growth; top performers gained ~20–28 points.

Similar results in: Baltimore City Public Schools (1996–2008) Arthur Academies (Portland, Oregon metro, 2007–2013) Rimes Elementary, Florida (2011) Gering Public Schools, Nebraska (2004+)