This is in no way a substantive comment on the actual material here, but it amused me and might amuse someone else:
When I saw the title of this post on the front page, I thought “Hmm, I wonder whether that’s ladders in the usual sort of metaphorical sense, or ladders as in Go—perhaps there’s some interesting analogy between those and teaching. Probably just the usual metaphor and nothing to do with Go.” Then I started reading the article and saw the words “Kiseido Go Server” and thought “Huh, I guess it’s some clever Go analogy after all.” And then I read the rest of the sentence and was enlightened :-). A nice little seesaw, and I half-wonder whether the ambiguity in the title was deliberate.
The example of Go is worth diving into more detail. There’s a type of game a master can play with a student which is explicitly called a teaching game, in which the master’s goal is explicitly to optimize for the student’s learning as opposed to winning. Done right these can probably be extremely educational, but they don’t scale well since masters just don’t have that much time.
This is in no way a substantive comment on the actual material here, but it amused me and might amuse someone else:
When I saw the title of this post on the front page, I thought “Hmm, I wonder whether that’s ladders in the usual sort of metaphorical sense, or ladders as in Go—perhaps there’s some interesting analogy between those and teaching. Probably just the usual metaphor and nothing to do with Go.” Then I started reading the article and saw the words “Kiseido Go Server” and thought “Huh, I guess it’s some clever Go analogy after all.” And then I read the rest of the sentence and was enlightened :-). A nice little seesaw, and I half-wonder whether the ambiguity in the title was deliberate.
The example of Go is worth diving into more detail. There’s a type of game a master can play with a student which is explicitly called a teaching game, in which the master’s goal is explicitly to optimize for the student’s learning as opposed to winning. Done right these can probably be extremely educational, but they don’t scale well since masters just don’t have that much time.
Unfortunately I didn’t notice that and can’t think of a good way to make it work.