The hottest Student learning Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
Category
Top Education Topics

Picturing my students

In My Tribe • 243 implied HN points • 26 Dec 25
🚌 Education Student learning
  1. The instructor has 34 students across three sections and used student photos plus an AI-built flash-card app to try to learn names, though the images had to be extracted manually first.
  2. AI coding tools are shifting from expecting professional toolchain knowledge to enabling "vibe-coding," letting amateurs create usable software without downloading or configuring complex developer environments.
  3. Students should learn vibe-coding, document their process with AI tools, and keep up with rapid AI coding progress so they aren’t handicapped entering organizations today.

Fun, Not Fear: Rebuilding University Assessment for the Machine-Learning Era, & Going Beyond to Modes of Research-Analytical Practice

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 222 implied HN points • 29 Dec 25
🚌 Education Student learning
  1. Use outside-the-class work plus short face-to-face interviews or check-ins to assess students, because oral exams stress-test real understanding and make grading fair even when students have powerful ML tools at hand.
  2. Teach students to use modern advanced machine-learning models as intellectual force multipliers by training them in the seven labors—survey, identify live issues, hone questions, research, analyze, store, and persuade—and by emphasizing provenance, triangulation, and small analytic scaffolds so tools accelerate thinking without replacing it.
  3. Recenter higher education on play and craft: make learning fun and practical by practicing prompting, debugging, oral explanation, and producing reusable artifacts, and budget the extra instructor time needed to do this well.

Are Great Teachers Born or Made?

Mathworlds • 550 implied HN points • 31 Jan 24
🚌 Education Student learning
  1. Research suggests emergency-hired teachers during COVID may not differ significantly from traditionally licensed teachers.
  2. Education is complex and difficult to measure, making it challenging to understand teacher influence on student learning.
  3. Great teachers may be born, but good teachers can be made through diverse experiences and supportive tools.

Student Assessment in the Age of AI

In My Tribe • 501 implied HN points • 12 Jun 25
🚌 Education Student learning
  1. AI can help monitor student assessments and make cheating harder. By having someone supervise, universities can ensure students aren't using AI to cheat during tests.
  2. Interviews can be a better way to assess students than traditional exams. They allow professors to see how well students understand important concepts and let students explain their reasoning.
  3. Using AI to conduct these interviews can be efficient and consistent. This way, professors can evaluate a large number of students fairly without getting overwhelmed by grading.

The Dragon Every Math Teacher Has to Slay Eventually

Mathworlds • 569 implied HN points • 22 Jun 23
🚌 Education Student learning
  1. Students often feel worse about math class compared to other subjects because of the pressure to only have one correct answer for each question.
  2. Math should be taught as a creative discipline that embraces human subjectivity, not just a set of memorized steps.
  3. Teachers can help students deconstruct the idea of one right way to do math by introducing activities that show multiple paths lead to the same solution.
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Novice Teachers and Study Strategies

The Science of Learning • 79 implied HN points • 07 Aug 23
🚌 Education Student learning
  1. Novice teachers often don't know the best study strategies and can recommend less effective ones when asked spontaneously.
  2. They tend to recognize effective study methods when given a list, indicating they have some knowledge but struggle to apply it in real situations.
  3. Teaching new teachers about effective study strategies could help them give better advice to students, leading to improved learning outcomes.