But still-- how many people extolling that particular virtue (you can watch it over and over!) truly understand that this makes the video no different, in reality, than a textbook, which may also be read again and again?
I'm guessing that relatively few people have TRIED learning completely from canned video for any length of time. Trust me-- it's NOT a good idea.
Why not? Well, because the video can't answer questions.
I've watched this part four times. I'm just not understanding why you chose to do step 2 this way.
With a live teacher, that question is answered immediately. With a video, the misunderstanding may derail learning for a LONG time.
At Khan Academy there is a forum for each video where students can ask and answer questions.
I agree that a knowledgeable teacher lecturing on a topic that all her students
(1) have the necessary background and intelligence to understand AND
(2) have not already learned
may be better than a video on the same topic, since the teacher can answer questions in real time, pose questions to gauge understanding, and can observe the reactions of the students.
The problem is that students in a classroom have differing levels of background knowledge and intelligence, so there may be no single lecture that is appropriate for all of them. This would be true even in schools that practiced subject acceleration and ability grouping, and within-class disparities are even larger when there is no acceleration or ability grouping.
In addition to sending our children to school, we pay for outside classes with live instruction in academic subjects, music, and sports, and we will pay a lot for such instruction at college for the three. But the children also learn from software such as EPGY and ALEKS.
I'll admit that only the oldest has been able to use teaching software independently since age 9. The younger ones need a parent around to keep them on task and answer questions. All three of them often ignore the 1-minute videos by Professor Suppes on EPGY and proceed to the problems. Apparently they prefer to learn by trial and error.
