Learning the opposite

Foreword

It so happened that lately I have tried many different teaching methods on myself - university, online courses, free courses, self-study, reading books and so on. And there is a clear pattern in all of them: first, the material is given, and then tests / tests / tasks / works follow. And the more I learn, the more I become convinced of the imperfection of such an approach. There were courses that I attended completely and outlined, there were those that I took without attending a single class / lecture. And looking back, I cannot determine in which of the options the remainder turned out to be more significant, despite the fact that it took several times more time to attend lectures.

And this thought was born in my mind: didn’t this process turn upside down? That is, first give the task, and then the material? And do not go further?

Small example

It all started with the first lesson of this semester on computational methods (unfortunately the only one with this teacher, because a week later I transferred to a more promising department). It looked like this: - Hello, students! In this semester, we will program in Maple (almost no one knew Maple). Here you have the computers, they have the necessary software and the Internet. Here is the task for you, by the end of the pair it should be credited (shown and verified by the teacher). Forward!
There are no “Press New-New Project” or “A operator + allows you to add 2 numbers” to you. The teacher all the time couples helped in difficult situations and inspected the code / made decisions.
And it passed the same! And recalling many courses, I can say with confidence that the amount of information that I learned for that couple would not have read even 2.

Training vs self-study

A reasonable question may arise - how does this method differ from self-study? The difference is exactly one (and it is the most important thing in training in general) - this is feedback. When you write govnokod and no one to read it, it will not be better. Yes, over time, you will start writing govnokod quickly and (relatively) without a cause. But it will not cease to be shit.
There is nothing (or almost nothing) that could not be found on the Internet from what they read on the courses. And only responses and explanations here and now in what the wrongness of your approach can give a significant advantage in the direction of education with a mentor.

We need to go deeper

It seems to me (carefully, IMHO) that giving lectures before the need for their material appeared is a waste of time (we are talking about applied disciplines). Yes, and experiments with a laptop on a pair show - while the teacher reads the definition, you can have time to google and learn much more (unless, of course, you write a synopsis, written a couple of hundred times by your predecessors).
Another interesting experiment - before the deadline for putting the task on coursera - 1 hour. The video lectures preceding this task are 2 hours and none have been viewed. How to pass? That's right - use Google at an emergency pace. But how pleasant it is then to watch the lectures without straining and systematize the material already laid in the head.
The last example: a lecture with complex algorithms / constructions and the following g / e on this topic. It is unlikely that you can write it without looking at the article from the wiki or tutorial on the forum. So why listen to this much slower at a lecture?
')

Where to strive

The ideal option seems to be an online training service with a similar prioritization. It is clear that this technique has many limitations, such as: applicability only to applied disciplines, and almost only for IT, complex scalability (there are few teachers, and you want quality, although you can do something like a system with lieutenants), people who can not google (joke, we know that they are just mocking =)). But this benefit can bring a lot. Just do not see something of these services ...

PS: All of the above is based on personal experience, and the observation of the experience of comrades. It is interesting to see the opinion of the community, especially teachers. Though I have an experience of teaching, but rather modest, and past to the appearance of the described ideas.

UPD: Very interesting TED talk about teaching children in India without teachers, but with the Internet: watch .
Translation into Russian (text): read . Thanks fmdostoevskiy for the link.