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Learn Your Way: Reimagining Textbooks with Generative AI

(research.google)
359 points FromTheArchives | 1 comments | 18 Sep 25 17:42 UTC | HN request time: 0.331s | source
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Imnimo ◴[18 Sep 25 19:05 UTC] No.45293673[source]▶
I looked at the example for computer science basics for a 7th grader interested in food. Explanations include:

"a list can be used for a recipe"

"a set can be used to list all the unique ingredients you need to buy for a week's meals"

"a map can be used for a cookbook"

"a priority queue can be used to manage orders in a busy restaurant kitchen"

"a food-pairing graph can show which ingredients taste good together"

Maybe I'm over-estimating the taste of 7th graders, but I feel like I would get sick of this really quickly.

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raincole ◴[18 Sep 25 22:20 UTC] No.45295729[source]▶
> "a list can be used for a recipe"

I don't even know what it means, tbh. I feel it's going to confuse the hell out of 7th graders.

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kccqzy ◴[18 Sep 25 22:22 UTC] No.45295753[source]▶
How is that difficult to understand? A recipe is an ordered list of steps of what to do. So of course a list can be used for a recipe.

I personally prefer a serious text without bringing in unrelated concepts like food, but this is still understandable.

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1. layer8 ◴[19 Sep 25 00:39 UTC] No.45296696[source]▶
You have to already have a good understanding of the concept that is meant by “list” here, in order to make sense of that sentence. And even then it might not be clear that the list would be used to represent the recipe.

This does almost nothing to explain what a “list” is in the CS sense. Teaching material needs to show how a list could be used for a recipe, and from that the student might begin to form a first incomplete understanding of what a “list” is.